Hi everyone! It's time for the weekly Battle Mage Secrets challenge and the challenge this week is the Keep Your Distance Ruleset.
About the Ruleset
Keep Your DistanceThe Keep Your Distance ruleset states that "Monsters with Melee attack may not be used in battles". This means that it is a little more advantageous to use magic monsters, and they can attack in the first position, or ranged monsters with the Close Range ability.
Battle Ruleset(s)
Details of my battle with this ruleset is as follows.
Tis but Scratches: All Monsters have the Cripple ability
Keep Your Distance: Monsters with Melee attack may not be used in battles
Mana Cap: 25
Available Splinters: Fire, Earth, Life, Death and Dragon Splinters can be used
Format: Wild
Cards & Line Up
vsSummoner: Thaddius Brood - It reduces the Health and Magic attack of the opponent's deck by 1.
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
| Position | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Venari Marksrat | It has the Martyr ability, and is here to boost the stats of Will-o-Wisp upon its death. |
| 2 | Will-o-Wisp | It has the Flying and Weaken abilities and it helps reduces the health of the opponent's deck. |
| 3 | Skok Duskblight | It has the Weapons Training ability, which gives 2 magic attack to both Will-o-Wisp and Riftwing. |
| 4 | Riftwing | It has the Flying, Scavenger and Backfire abilities. It's in the last position to allow its health to grow. |
Strategy
The ruleset here meant that (1) summoners do not contribute any abilities, (2) monsters' maximum health will reduce by one everytime they get hit and (3) Melee monsters cannot be used.
With this ruleset combination, I opted for the Death Splinter, as I thought that the Will-o-Wisp, Skok Duskblight and Riftwing combination would be great for this ruleset. Will-o-Wisp and Riftwing have the Flying ability, which would be them more dodge-y to ranged monsters and they will also gain magic attack from Skok Duskblight.
The opponent used a different strategy. I would say that Riftwing is the main tank, will the use of Venari Bonesmith and Life Sapper to grow as secondary tanks. Venari Bonesmith can also net additional damage with its poison ability, while Lira the Dark targets the weakest monster.
Without Thaddius Brood's debuffs, I actually had a better damage output and higher health than the opponent, allowing me to win this fairly easily. It also helped that Venari Bonesmith didn't kick in on my Will-o-Wisp, though it wouldn't have made a difference in the result.
Thoughts on the Keep Your Distance Ruleset
The Keep Your Distance ruleset is a tough one, as most magic and ranged cards are not built for tanking. The best option is to use high health magic monsters or high health ranged monsters with the Close Range ability as tanks. Magic monsters have the advantage here as well as they don't miss (unless the opponent has the Phase ability) like the Ranged monsters.