Splinterlands BattleMage Secrets: No Ranged Attacks

This week's Battle Mage rule set challenge was Broken Arrows in which no ranged monsters of any kind are permitted, not even those with two types of attack!

Broken Arrows general strategy....

There are a few basics to get right I think, not necessarily in this order:

First of all it rules out any summoner with ranged attacks buffs or debuffs, so Yodin's out, Quix is out, as is any summoner or monster with return fire, you're just wasting mana if you deploy these!
So you've got a choice of favouring magic or melee or both.
With magic, if you're going on the offensive, any summoner that buffs magic could work, but then you'd probably also want to protect yourself against the possibility of reflect with the likes of reflection shield or phase monsters.
With melee, which I think you can play due to scattershot, you have to be wary of thorns as a defence which may mean shield is useful.
The life summoner with reflection shield is probably your best bet defensively, as this protects both against magic and melee scattershot.
On a purely defensive note, you are getting either magic or melee, so thorns, reflection are a good idea.
As ever, probably the best strategy is to use a non-specific buff summoner, so Lux Vega or Kitty spring to mind, that way there's no chance you can be penalised by your opponent opting for magical defence if you play magic, for example.

No ranged battle exemplar

The battle below shows a water splinter mainly magic line up victorious with a treble whammy of no ranged, scattershot and unprotected combination of rulesets

Mana - 44

Summoner: Valnamor for a magic attack

Screenshot 2023-04-13 at 12.43.40.png

Bajikeera - A very solid anti magic tank!
Osheanus - void and excellent damage and health
Ruler of the Seas - silence and blast
Mermaid Healer - Triage for scattershot
Tortisan Chief - heal and decent magic damage
Runimancer Kye - Decent damage and Life Leach for Scattershot

The battle...

round 1 - We trade blows for no loss
round 2 - I take out my opponent's Ooze, it's resurrected, I also take out Nerissa Tridawn and the Resurrector, that's gotta hurt!
round 3 - I take out the Squid straight off the bat, then the Ooze, then the SeaMonster
round 4 - I take out Oshea and it's all over!

Final battle analysis

In this particular battle, magic seemed like the only option given the unprotected ruleset. There was nothing to be gained from shields, so magic all the way!

Also crucial is my buffed cards compared to the effect of my debuffs - Silence reducing his mainly magic damage by one and a 33% chance to hit a card with Void!

I'm doing 19 damage (with blast) compared to 14 from my opponent, I have MUCH higher speed and better debuffs. And I have MUCH higher health.

Just the difference in damage alone means this battle is probably only going one way!

This is simply a matter of extreme magic winning the day!