Hi everyone! It's time for the weekly battle challenge for Battle Mage Secrets. The challenge this week is the Equal Opportunity Ruleset.
About the Ruleset
Equal Opportunity
The Equal Opportunity ruleset states that "All Monsters have the Opportunity ability", and it means that monsters will the lowest health will be targeted first. In a sense, you have some control of the sequence in which your monsters will be attacked and use it to your advantage.
Battle Ruleset(s)
Details of my battle with this ruleset is as follows.
Equal Opportunity: All Monsters have the Opportunity ability
Only the Water, Life, Death and Dragon Splinters can be used
Mana Cap: 37
Format: Modern
Cards & Line Up
vs
 |  |  |  |  |  |
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| Position | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cruel Sethropod | I used it in first position it is fairly low cost, and will be the first few card to be targeted. |
| 2 | Djinn Oshannus | I used it second position it has a high amount of health, which allows it be one of the last to take damage. It also has the Void and Phase ability which improves its survivability. |
| 3 | Venari Marksrat | It's here as it has the Martyr ability and on of the lowest health of 3, which means it will be targeted first and allow the cards next to it to benefit from the stats gain. |
| 4 | Nerissa Tridawn | It has 3 damage and high health. Like Djinn Oshannus, it'll be the last few cards to be targeted. |
| 5 | River Hellondale | With 4 health, it'll only be targeted after Venari Marksrat and Pelacor Bandit, and the Resurrect ability will allow me to revive Venari Marksrat for a second activation of Martyr. |
| 6 | Pelacor Bandit | I used it in the last position so that it'll be the second monster to be attacked. While it has the same amount of health as Venari Marksrat, the positioning means that the Venari Marksrat is more likely to be targeted first. |
Strategy
The ruleset here meant that:
- Monsters will take a reduction of their maximum health whenever they take damage.
- Monsters will be targeted in the order of lowest to highest health
Given these considerations, I thought that it was important to choose the cards in the right order to benefit from the ruleset. That meant that I would want my monster with the Martyr ability to be targeted first. So I placed it in between Djinn Oshannus and Nerissa Tridawn so that they will benefit from the increased stats. And I threw River Hellondale into the mix to revive the Venari Marksrat for what I call the Martyr-Revive-Martyr strategy.
The opponent opted for a different strategy with the Death Splinter, with abilities to reduce my magic and melee attacks, and halving of my attacks. There was some thought in the order of the health of his monsters though. Fortunately for me, my strategy worked a little better than his and I managed to out-damage him with the Martyr-Revive-Martyr strategy.
Thoughts on the Equal Opportunity Ruleset
I like the Equal Opportunity ruleset as it gives me some control over the order of how my deck will be attacked. Since we have a good idea of the order of the attack, we can plan our strategy around that. The Martyr-Revive-Martyr strategy is one good example of that. Another possible strategy is to place 2 Martyr monsters next to the main damage dealer.