Hello Battle Mages
The secret box in splinterlands never gets finished which is while we players keep revealing them on weekly basis. This week another secret is on its way to being revealed. All you need to do is to sit back and watch me reveal the secret behind the close-range rule set. Before I proceed, what are you waiting for? You too can understand these secrets by simply playing the game. All that is involved is to create a splinterlands account and boom, you're in. It's really that simple. You can also learn how to get to the weekly battle mage secret challenge by following the spinterlands community. For this week's challenge, kindly click this link for the guideline and rules post.

Close Range

If you're wondering what close range is, it's a set rule among the numerous set rules experienced while playing the spt game. However, while playing the game, you will notice two types of "close range", while one is another ability found in some monsters, the other comes as a set rule for some particular battle. How does one differentiate between these two?

Ability found in some ranged monsters

A given battle set rule in some battles

The two images above are regarded as close range and both mean that ranged monsters can attack from the first position. The only difference is, for the second image which happens to be our focus for this week, all ranged monsters can attack from the front position. Without that given set rule, only ranged monsters bearing the first image as an ability can attack from the first position.

Team Preference for close-ranged set rule

Ranged attack monsters are a threat on battlefields especially those of higher levels and with bigger ranged damage. Nevertheless, there are ways to slow them down which might end up giving you success. When facing this set rule battle, I mostly use the protected magic strategy. What this means is that I use magic monsters protected with armor bearing in mind that the ranged monsters will have to through armor before damaging the health. Secondly, it is important to use monsters with very high speed, and if mana permits, use monsters that can slow down the enemy's monsters provided you're not playing alongside reversed speed set rule. If you must use ranged monsters for the battle, using summoners that increase ranged damage to friendly monsters is recommended and including monsters that can withstand magic damage and monsters that can reduce ranged damage in your team will be helpful. However, in this week's battle, I went for all magic monsters for a team just the same way the enemy did.

I did underrate the ability of my team when I saw the opponent's lineup but it turned out well in my favor.

The Battle

Battle Details
Set Rules	First Rule// Close range; Ranged attacks may be used in the first position. Second Rule// Explosive weaponry; All monsters have the blast ability
Mana Cap	27
Available Elements	Water, Earth, Life, & Dragon
Elements in Battlefield	Earth Vs Water

Watch Battle Here

Team Selection

ALRIC-STORMBRINGER

The beginning of magic strategy starts by using a magic expert, in this case, a magic summoner with plus one magic stat. Spt deck has many such summoners, it all depends on the available ones for the battle and the choice of player. For the elements available in this particular battle, I preferred the water element hence, the reason for going for a water element summoner.

FURIOUS CHICKEN
Someone might be wondering why I placed the furious chicken in front. Anyway, the chicken is a 0 mana card and in this case, each hit matters and can help determine the outcome of the battle. observing the situation towards the end of the battle, it clearly shows that if not for this chicken taking the first two hits from the opponent, the battle would have gone against me. The elimination of the furious chicken was clearly a worthy sacrifice.

DJINN OSHANNUS
Djinn Oshannus void armor and phase ability made it eligible for this battle. With those two abilities, it will take reduced magic damage and can even dodge a magic attack. If void armor proved to be so important in this battle else the enemy's back monster would have shattered it within a blink.

VENATOR KINJO
The reflection shield of this monster was the secret behind withstand the blast from the opponent monsters. If even that's the only work it did, it was worth it

VENARI WAVESMITH
Protect ability was needed to shield my team, which is where Venari comes in, offering 2 armor to all friendly monsters

RULER OF THE SEAS

Ruler of the Seas special ability was made common by the game set rule which made the monster less relevant but its magic damage was quite a huge contribution

SPIRIT HOARDER
The triage ability from this monster is meant to heal the back-line monster with the most damage. Since the battle involves blast, the ability is kind of important though not necessary.

At first sight, I thought it will be a lost battle for me seeing the dangerous summoner and lineup of my opponent but it was quite relieving when my team finally won.

That will be all for this week. Please join me next week for another battle mage secrets challenge same place. Leave a comment on how the strategy can be better or any other of your choice.

Battle Mage Secrets_Close Range Set Rule | Ecency