After debuting for the first time 5 weeks ago, the Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge has decided to suddenly ban the use of all projectiles of any kind across the whole of Praetoria, a bold move, indeed, but why...? Yup, that's right, this week's ruleset showcase revolves around the Broken Arrows ruleset.
Let us see what this ruleset does before we get into the nitty-gritty of the line-up and the battle itself.
The Broken Arrows ruleset is pretty straight-forward - Ranged attack Monsters may not be used in battles, which cannot be clearer than this basically.
Alright, we've got a good idea of what the Broken Arrows ruleset practically does, so let's see now how it can be effectively utilized
I usually outline at least 2 approaches in this section, so I'll just describe the general concept as it is pretty clear what's to be expected given the ruleset:
When you and your opponent cannot play a certain type of Monsters, it is logical to expect a heavier use of the other two types - in this case - Melee and Magic. Usually people tend to rely more heavily on Magic and I have show some good options in terms of Summoners and Monsters on the picture above, if you really think that your enemy will resort to Magic spam. Of course, this also depends a lot on what the rest of the rulesets are, as specifically in higher leagues, you rarely have only one ruleset to adjust your line-up to.
Now that we have a decent understanding of the featured Ruleset and its potential advantages and disadvantages, let us have a look at the battle I have chosen to showcase.
The rulesets for this battle are Broken Arrows, Aimless (All Monsters have the Scattershot ability) and Lost Legendaries (Legendary Monsters may not be used in battles). The mana budget is 35 which is about average so it is far from allowing the player to choose whatever they want so efficient planning has to go into line-up. The available Splinters are: All but Earth. I thin that a Water team will do great with Kelya leading it as I want to emphasize on Speed in my line-up.
First in the line-up I have one of my favorite tanks - the Diemonshark. Maxed out at level 8 it has Trample (when a Monster with Trample hits and kills its target, it will perform another attack on the next Monster on the enemy Team), Enrage (has increased Melee attack and Speed when damaged) and Retaliate (when hit with a Melee attack, Monsters with Retaliate have a chance of attacking their attacker). This time it is here solely due to the fact that it has a decent life total and 6 armor, as well as 4 attack, of course.
The 2nd place in the line-up goes to a Monster I love playing whenever possible and has already been a share your battle star - the Flying Squid. I like it a lot because it is faster than most Monsters, has a good amount of Melee Attack, and a big body, and (most importantly) it has Reach, which enables it to attack from the second postion, as well as Blind (all enemy Melee & Ranged attacks have an increased chance of missing their target) and Backfire (if an enemy misses this monster with an attack, the attacker takes 2 damage).
The 3rd place in the line-up goes to the Deeplurker. Another favorite Monster of mine. I think most people are in love with it, not because of its appearance obviously, but because it can really wreak havoc across the enemy team should it get the "Opportunity" to do so. Its 5 Melee Attack is really deadly for low-mana/support Monsters. In conjunction with its signature ability, it also has access to Poison (attacks have a chance to apply poison, which does automatic damage to the target at the beginning of each round after the poison is applied) and Demoralize (reduces the Melee attack of all enemy Monsters). Both of them are really powerful abilities even standalone.
4th in the line-up is one of my favorite Sneak (Targets the last Monster on the enemy Team instead of the first Monster) Monsters - Uraeus. It also has access to Poison in its arsenal, and is actually pretty potent for its mana cost of 3.
The 5th spot is reserved for the Pelacor Bandit. I've put it here since it has a decent amount of speed so it can dodge a hit or two if the enemy has decided to go through the "backdoor". Generally it's a Flying (has an increased chance of evading Melee or Ranged attacks from Monsters who do not have the Flying ability) Monster with a high amount of speed. It is also a Sneak Monster so it can often be a pain in the enemy backline.
Last, and probably least in this case, is the Clockwork Aide. I've picked it since I am betting on my opponent playing mostly melee Monsters so it will get enough hits for its armor to do work, before a Magic attacker kills it. Generally the lowest health Mosnter is attacked first by Monsters with opportunity. Other than that the Clockwork Aide has the Swiftness (All friendly Monsters have increased Speed) ability, and since mine is just level 3, that's all it currently has but at higher level it also gains Rust (Reduces the Armor of all enemy Monsters) and Strengthen (All friendly Monsters have increased Health).
It is time for a quick round by round analysis:
The Summoner I am going with for the battle (as I have already mentioned) is Kelya. She does not really need an introduction as she is the go-to summoner when you play Water, specifically if you have begun playing in the past year or so. I've picked a standard, but pretty susceptible to Magic, line-up, as I am hoping that my opponent will not go all-out Magic on me due to the fact that all the Monsters will have Scattershot, and that generally is not great. They do have 1 Magic Monster in the line-up but that's fine. The more worrying thing is that they are using Lux Vega, and she is basically an improved Kelya as she provides +1 HP in addition to the +1 Armor and +1 Speed Kelya also provides. So, my enemy does have an advantage as far as the Summoners go, however, some of their Monsters are not max level, so that' good news for me, specifically their Deeplurker does not have Demoralize at level 8.
After 1 round both main Tanks are alive but the enemy Uraeus has perished pretty quickly after being put under pressure by my Sneak team. My Clocworkaide has also taken a hit or two.
Round 3 - the enemy tank and my Clockworkaide have perished, and the enemy Pelacor Bandit has been poisoned.
Round 4 begins and both Pelacor Bandits are about to die of Deeplurker poisoning.
Round 5 - my Deeplurker is about to die of Deeplurker poisoning following the fate of the two Bandits, and this does not bode well for my team at all at the moment.
Round 6 - it is up to my Flying Squid to take the battle or lose to the enemy Deeplurker.
Round 7 - it seems that I will actually lose the battle unless a miracle happens.
Round 8 - a miracle does happen and the enemy Deeplurker misses, dying to the Squid's Backfire in the process. Miracles do exist!
My victory seemed extremely lucky, but let's see what Splintertools.io has to say about that. I actually had an 89% chance to win so I guess the miracle that happened, would have happened in 89 out out 100 parallel realities.
Well this was definitely a fun battle, and a fun way to showcase the Broken Arrows ruleset. See you next week with another exciting post related to the brand new Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge!
