Rule sets that restrict an entire monster type make for interesting lineup choices. For this week's battlemage secrets challenge, the featured rule set is Broken Arrow.

Broken Arrow restricts the usage of all ranged attack monsters from the match. This includes dual attack type cards. I'm not very into ranged strategies so I wasn't really affected by this rule set in the past. But now that martyr cards are introduced, two of the most useful cards to me, Venari Marksrat and Fungus Flinger, are both ranged attack monsters and they are disabled by Broken Arrows.

On matches like these, in my experience, I can certainly expect more opponents to favor magic types rather than melee. Melee monsters can be hampered by armor while magic users can easily single out and deal lethal damage to the enemy frontlines.

I also tend to lean towards magic heavy lineups when the Broken Arrows rule set comes up and I sometimes include monsters with Protect if the mana allowance permits it. This gives an additional protection to my units especially when the opponent deploys Sneak Attack melee cards.

Of course, for optimizing my team's magic damage output, Obsidian is the perfect summoner for the job. I usually also include Mycelic Slipspawn as the tank with Taunt and Goblin Psychic on the back to provide heal support. But if I can anticipate that I will be facing another magic team as well, having Unicorn Mustang at the frontlines is also an option.

You may notice that this battle is technically not a Broken Arrows rule set but I decided to feature this as both parties did not select a ranged monster and went for melee and magic instead.

My featured battle is a 44-mana game with Holy Protection and Close Range rule set. You can check the battle link here. It's interesting to note that it's almost a mirror match with the key difference that my opponent used melee monsters as frontliners while I went all out on magic damage. Another disntinction from the two teams is that my Mycelic Slipspawn was placed as a frontline tank while my opponent's was in the middle of the lineup.

This tactic lets Slipspawn absorb the backline damages away from Grund while he pounces on the enemies one by one with his Doublestrike which was buffed by Orc Sergean's Inspiration ability.

The second round was an interesting moment because both of our Mycelic Slipspawns were killed off. Grund could have easily plowed through my lineup with the Doublestrike and Trample if not for the Divine Shield from the Holy Protection rule set and the additional armor I got from including Queen Mycelia into the mix.

Another downside to using melee monsters is the instances where the attacks do not land. Case in point is the third round where Grund was faced off with Regal Peryton which has two times the speed of Grund. He missed a couple of attacks which would have been lethal. Instead, he received barrages of magic attacks from my team.

My opponent's Kron the Undying was left to fend for himself at round eight. And even though Last Stand got activated, the remaining monsters on my side were more than enough to finish the match. And Kron receiving the Affliction debuff from Goblin Psychic was the final nail in the coffin as it prevents him from healing.

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Thank you for reading and see you in the battlefield!

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