Hi everyone! It's time for the weekly Battle Mage Secrets challenge and the challenge this week is the Wands Out Ruleset.
About the Ruleset
Wands Out
The Wands Out ruleset states that "Only Monsters with Magic attack may be used in battles". This means that we will need to optimise the battle for magic monsters, by using summoners or monsters that reduce the opponent's attacks, and also by using abilities like Phase, Void, Void Armor, and Magic Reflect to counter them.
Battle Ruleset(s)
Details of my battle with this ruleset is as follows.
Armored Up: All Monsters have 2 Armor in addition to their normal Armor set
Only the Water, Earth, Life and Death Splinters can be used
Mana Cap: 23
Format: Modern
Cards & Line Up
Summoner
vs
Summoner: Bortus - This decreases the Magic attack of the opponent's deck by 1.
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
| Position | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Djinn Oshannus | It has the Void ability and will be a great tank to reduce the opponent's attack in this ruleset. |
| 2 | Nerissa Tridawn | It has 3 Magic attack and will still be able to do good damage even if the opponent reduces my attack. |
| 3 | Spirit Hoarder | It's used to provide additional attack if possible, as it's abilities are not so useful here. |
Strategy
The ruleset here meant that (1) only magic monsters can be used, and (2) monsters start off with 2 additional armor, which is basically useless here unless you have a summoner that grants Void Armor to all your monsters.
I chose the Water Splinter as it has the summoner Bortus which reduces the attack of the opponent by 1, and also Djinn Oshannus, which basically takes no damage if the opponents have only 1 magic attack.
The opponent opted to use the Lobb Lowland, which allows the use of an awesome Quora Towershead. Thankfully, Bortus reduced the magic damage of the opponent's entire deck to 1, so Quora was only able to do physical damage.
I managed to out-damage Quora's heals (3 health per round) with 6 damage per round, before its physical damage could take out Djinn Oshannus. The rest is history, as the remaining 2 monsters wasn't able to damage Djinn Oshannus at all.
Thoughts on the Wands Out Ruleset
I think Wands Out is a ruleset that is very reliant on the cards that you have. The key strategy is to reduce the amount of magic damage output of the opponent as much as possible and to use a monster with the Void ability to tank the battle with little to no damage taken. The other possible strategy is to increase your own magic damage as much as possible, and use a strong monster with the Bloodlust ability to take out the opponent.