Hello dear reader. Nice to see you again. I hope you found part 1 and part 2 useful. So you know the basics of the game, purchased the spellbook and since last week you know what it means to level cards and utilize external tools on the blockchain. And ever since you entered from Novice to Bronze league, weird things are happening? Rule-sets modify the game and monsters gain new abilities.
Today we will focus on how rule-sets can affect your melee monsters. When are they banned or your solely choice? Who can they attack and who will they attack? So let us dive right into it.
This rule-set does not allow any monsters that have melee attack. So even double attack creatures, that have ranged or magic in addition to melee are not allowed. Say bye bye to Oaken Behemoth, Kralus, Red Dragon, The Vigilator, and War Chaang.
By the way, since all the zero mana Fiend cards have melee attack, they are not allowed either. And at this point you might regret leveling up the Furious Chicken. At higher levels it gains the melee attack ability and is not allowed anymore, if you have it still at level one that zero mana card can still be played.
Now we may only use cards, that do have melee attack. And since the double attack type cards that were banned in "Keep your distance" do in fact have melee attack, they can be used. This is perfect to introduce some ranged and magic attacks into this ruleset.
The leveled up chicken is now allowed as well, if you got it to melee attack level but if it is still level 1, it is banned for this battle. And the Fiends are back for selection, too.
All the other cards that have only ranged or magic attacks or have no attack type at all are not playable.
This rule-set takes away the snipe and sneak abilities. So for our melee monsters, all the sneakers have just lost that ability. They can only attack the opposing tank and only from first position in this match.
An opposing taunt monster will not change that, your sneakers can not strike out of first position anymore.
Opportunity is not affected by this. So your opportunists may still strike the back row if that is where the opposing monster with lowest health is placed or go for the opposing taunt if there is one.
All your melee monsters are free to attack from any position now. Your sneakers will still go for the last and your opportunists for the monster with lowest health in the opposing team.
Those without sneak or opportunity ability will target the opposing tank, i.e. monster in first position.
Your reachers already did that (from second position) and can do that from any other position now as well.
An opposing taunt will still distract your monsters and they will attack the taunt because now they are able to.
And this also goes for the above mentioned monsters with double attack type. The magic or ranged attack will trigger first, followed by the melee attack. If the monster also has double strike, like The Vigilator for example, that attack is then done again. So The Vigilator would first go for ranged attack (if possible), then melee, then ranged again (if possible) followed by melee again.
During this battle all your melee monsters have the sneak ability. Beware, that this overrides the opportunity and reach ability. So a reacher at second position will attack the last monster on the opposing team and not the tank. The same goes for any opportunists in your lineup, the sneak ability takes over and they attack the last and not the monster with lowest health.
Your tank, i.e. monster at first position, will ignore this and attack the opposing tank of course.
The double attack type monsters will apply the sneak ability also to their second attack type and go for the last opposing monsters with both attack types. Which enables The Vigilator to strike four times again, as long as it is not in first position.
Your monsters are all opportunists now. Well, not all of them. The sneak ability still takes precedence. So consider that carefully when selecting your team. It will override the reach ability though.
So your sneakers will still go for the last opposing monster but your reacher might not go for the opposing tank, if it is not the monster with lowest health on the other side.
Yet, they are all still affected by the taunt ability.
As always, your monster in first position will attack the opposing tank in first position, regardless of this ability.
And as before, the double attack type monsters will strike twice, even change targets in between, if the condition (lowest health) changes between attacks (e.g. one monster dies).
With so many rule-set and abilities changing your monsters behaviour, it sometimes is hard to keep track of who will attack whom. So here is a summary.
For all other monsters there is a checklist. Whichever condition can be applied first will be applied and the attack is then considered handled, provided they are allowed to attack:
That is it for today. You should now have an idea about the circumstances you may use melee monsters in battle and which ability makes them attack which target. I hope you payed attention to the target order, that can be a game changer.
Thank you for reading.
Did I make a blunder? Please help me correct it by leaving a comment.
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