Hi everyone! It's time for the weekly Battle Mage Secrets challenge and the challenge this week is the Broken Arrows Ruleset.
About the Ruleset
Broken Arrows
The Broken Arrows ruleset states that "Ranged attack Monsters may not be used in battles". This restricts the available card-set to Melee, Magic and non-attacking monsters. Magic monsters have the advantage here if shields are available to protect them.
Battle Ruleset(s)
Details of my battle with this ruleset is as follows.
Broken Arrows: Ranged attack Monsters may not be used in battles
Only the Earth, Life, Death and Dragon Splinters can be used
Mana Cap: 25
Format: Modern
Cards & Line Up
Summoner
vs
Summoner: Obsidian - This increases the Magic Attack of all my Magic Monsters by 1.
 |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
| Position | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fungus Fiend | I used to soak up the initial damage. Hopefully it could take up to 3 hits with Holy Protection and added shields. |
| 2 | Hill Giant | It is low mana cost and has a decent amount of health to tank. It's actually the main tank, despite being in position 2. |
| 3 | Regal Peryton | It's in third position and is meant to be the secondary tank with high speed to dodge and the main damage dealer. |
| 4 | Queen Mycelia | It has the Protect ability and is here to provide additional Shields to my deck. |
| 5 | Spirit Hoarded | It has the Triage ability and is here to provide the heals to the backline if the opponents attacks the backline |
| 6 | Goblin Psychic | It has the Heal ability to allow the tank to last longer and here to provide the magic damage too. |
Strategy
The combination of rulesets here meant that the Monsters take no damage from the first hit and that Ranged monsters cannot be used.
Given these 2 combinations, the Magic monsters will have a slight advantage if shields can be added to defend them. With this strategy in mind, I chose to use the Earth Splinter as using the Obsidian as the summoner would optimise the magic damage. I tried to use higher health Monsters in the front positions so that my low health Magic monsters can survive longer.
To my horror, the opponents used Astral Entity as the summoner. The Astral Entity makes a pretty irritating opponent as it negates the Shields in my deck, makes its monsters harder to hit and also revives the first monster that dies. To make it worse, he used a deck that mainly hits the backline first. Fortunately for me, the heals from the Spirit Hoarder and the Holy Protection ruleset allowed the backline to last just a little longer, enough to take out the first 3 cards before my backline was decimated, allowing me to win the battle.
Thoughts on the Broken Arrows Ruleset
As I mentioned earlier, a magic based deck works best in this ruleset if shields can be added. If it is a high mana cap battle, then using Magic monsters from the Water Splinter may work a little better than the Earth Splinter, as they have higher health cards. The Water Splinter works well too for using Melee monsters, as they tend to be fast and can take the opponent's monsters out quickly.