Here's the ruleset for this week's battle
In the weak magic ruleset magic attacks hit armor before reducing health. This works like giving all monsters void armor. Abilities that add armor to your team like protect and repair will be stronger than ever.
In the heavy hitters ruleset all monsters have the knock out ability. With the knock out ability monsters deal double damage when they hit a monster that's been stunned. When a monster has the stun ability they have a 50% chance of leaving the monster they hit stunned. The stunned monster then takes double damage for this ruleset and is not able to attack for 1 turn. When looking at this ruleset, I don't think it makes a very big impact. The one thing that you may want to do when approaching this ruleset is to include monsters with stun for added value. I wouldn't include stun monsters that you weren't already planning to include, but if you're deciding between 2 monsters and 1 of them has stun it could be a good tie breaker. The stun monster that people are probably most familiar with is Revealer which has solid raw stats and also happens to stun its target half the time.
Protect is always a great ability and it's even better with the weak magic ruleset. I would expect my opponent to make sure they have something with protect on the battlefield.
Here's the starting frame
My opponent didn't include any of the considerations that I did when they put together their lineup. Let's see how it plays out for them.
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_7279949bd6a7eab7964711b33cc74a9b&ref=jingo-submo
Let's talk about my lineup
Summoner: Quix the Devious
Quix debuffs my opponent's ranged attacks, decreases their speed and gives me access to dragons. Quix is also one of not too many summoners I own that are at least maxed out for silver. I've been leaning hard on Quix now that I'm playing in gold league.
Tank: Djinn Chwala
Chwala comes with fantastic raw stats and the thorns ability which is huge when my opponent hit's Chwala with a melee attack. Throw in void armor thanks to the weak magic ruleset and this is a formidable monster.
1st position: Void Dragon
Void Dragon comes with the void ability, flying and good speed which make a pretty incredible backup tank for just 5 mana.
2nd position: Venari Crystalsmith
The tank heal ability is fantastic and the raw stats are good. Plus I get to use one of the cards that I have maxed out for silver.
3rd position: Truthspeaker
Like I said while discussing the weak magic ruleset. The protect ability is overpowered and even more so with weak magic.
4th position: Berix Snakeye
Berix is one of a handful of new monsters with the weapons training ability. I had hoped to include Chaos Dragon but didn't quite have the mana. Berix ended up being more than capable for filling in here. I already had 2 monsters without attacks and suddenly I'm adding 7 damage to the battlefield, just like I would have with Chaos Dragon. This made for 7 damage focused on one monster at a time which ripped through my opponent's monsters real fast.
5th position: Scavo Hireling
The Hireling can repair armor for any of my monsters which is more powerful than ever with weak magic.
Did we win?
Yes. My monsters ripped through my opponent's and did so with beautiful synergy. My opponent made some interesting positional choices with their lineup and that made my job especially easy.
What will I try differently next time?
I had to scramble when I realized that my Chaos Dragon wouldn't fit. This line up worked great for an opponent that came at me head to head, but I may have been weak to sneak attacks.
Thanks for reading and thanks for all the upvotes, reblogs, comments and follows. I'll see you in the game. I hope the updated format that I'm using is helpful. Feel free to share any specific feedback in the comments.