Hello there.
Today I'll share my battle under the Counterspell ruleset. But first, I will share some of my thoughts regarding it. With the Counterspell ruleset, all monsters get the Magic Reflect ability at the start of the battle. Enemy monsters that attack with magic receive damage back. The damage returned is equal to the damage of the attacker divided by 2, rounded up.
If the attacker also has a Magic Reflect ability, the reflected damage to the opponent's attack is not reflected back [Damage is only reflected once, no ping pong of damage occurs.]. Monsters with the Reflection Shield ability do not take damage from the reflected magic attacks. The Amplify ability increases the damage.
In this ruleset, I expect my opponent to use physical attacks and have a lot of armor. This is why I try to use Immortalis, when he is available, partnered with Magic Monsters. The Void ability prevents my monsters from taking any magic reflected damage, and the Shatter immediately destroys the opponent's armor. If Immortalis is not available, then I will use a similar strategy of using Protect, and ignoring Magic Damage monsters.
Of course, the ones above are just guidelines. Since we can have up to 3 rulesets in a battle, these can change quickly. If a Taunt monster is available, I'll probably include one and place it at the back to spread the opponent's damage.
I believe that being flexible in battle is the ideal strategy. Check the opponent's history, check what they are most likely to use, and counter it. But always pick teams that can also counter different strategies.
Without further ado, let's get into the battle.
The Ruleset
This was a tournament battle, and it was a Bronze battle with Counterspell, Silenced Summoner, and Super Sneak Rulesets. A 33 mana battle is on the normal to high amount. I can think of a lot of different strategies for each summoner so I will try to counter as much as I can.
Fire is the obvious choice. With Silenced Summoner and Counterspell, there is little to be scared of against Magic attacks which is usually a big counter to Fire, especially to their monsters with Shield ability. The Silenced Summoner also weakens the damage of the Range monsters. They usually need Sloan to get their attack up to 3 to deal with the Shield ability. The Super Sneak also makes positioning their Ranged monsters awkwardly. A Shield monster at the last position is best, put in Exploding Rats, and other damaging Melee monsters, and it should be good.
For Earth, while Magic is a risky move, they still have some good Melee monsters available like Grund and Mycelic Infantry. For Life, the new Soulbound Reward cards offer a good number of usable monsters. The War Pegasus has good Speed and Flying, and can be placed at the back to make attackers miss. The Drybone Barbarian has really good stats. The Pelacor Arbalest has low HP, but has double strike.
The Lineup
| Card | Ability | Comments |
|---|---|---|
 | [Grants all allies the Flying ability] | I want to use some Dragon monsters, so I used Brighton Bloom. She costs 4 which is relatively cheap, so I chose her instead of Helios. |
 | Inspire | I plan on going for a Melee Double Strike team. The Inspire of Thane Newsong will greatly increase my damage. |
 | Double Strike | Grund is my main damage dealer and my secondary tank. |
 | Double Strike | My second damage dealer. I'm hoping he can take out some protect armor, or kill off low HP monsters that survived Grund's attack. |
 | Protect | I know there's Counterspell, but it would take 4 turns before Mycelia dies. Within those 4 turns, her protect should already provide a lot of value. |
 | Flying, Shield | My main sneak tank. I'm hoping that with the Flying, Shield, and Protect armor, it can stay alive for a long time for my two Double Strike monsters to clean up their backline. |
 | Thorns | I only have 1 mana left, so this was perfect. I'm hoping the Thorns can destroy two Protect armors, or maybe even kill a monster. It also buys a bit of time, so my Gloridax doesn't get attacked immediately. |
For me, between the lineups I mentioned above, I'd rather go with an unorthodox Earth Dragon team. With Silenced Summoner, Fire doesn't have Tarsa to also increase their attack. Disintegrator would basically create a stalemate. Earth has Grund and Inspire, which will be a huge advantage. I am betting that my opponent won't use Range Monsters so I place my Thane in the first position. I hope I don't regret this decision.
The Battle
The Matchup
My opponent decided to go with an expected Fire lineup. The protect is there, Exploding Rats, and Disintegrator. The Dumacke Orc is also good with its Shield. The Inspire should negate the Demoralize, but my Dhampir will still have 1 attack and can't get through the Shield ability. It's all up to my Grund to deal damage for now.
End of Round 1
It was very fortunate that my Grund did not miss its attacks on the Chaos Agent with Dodge. This is now a race on whether my Grund can kill the Dumacke Orc faster than their whole team can kill my Gloridax.
End of Round 2
My Gloridax Soldier's Flying ability is doing work. It was able to evade the Exploding Rats and Uraeus attacks. My Grund still has a lot of work to do, but this is a lot of time being bought by my Gloridax.
End of Round 3
My Gloridax was able to evade the Dumacke Orc's attack and was able to survive for one more round. Grund will be able to kill the Dumacke next round, and my Dhampir should finally be able to start dealing damage to opponents. My Mycelia is not so healthy anymore, and our armor will be disappearing soon.
End of Round 4
My Gloridax and Mycelia died, and I have just killed their Dumacke Orc. My Dhampir just started dealing damage, but will die next round. If there's a silver lining, it's that it was able to destroy the Disintegrator's armor, so my Grund can kill it next round.
End of Round 5
My Dhampir died, but their Disintegrator is also dead. My Grund is relatively healthy, and their two backline have low HP. The Uraeus still has its armor though, and it will block 1 attack, which might be crucial.
End of Round 6
It's going down to the wire. Good thing my Grund will be attacking first and killing the Uraeus. The Ferox Defender still has a lot of armor, but my Thane can still take 2 more attacks from it. This is looking like a win for me.
End of Round 7
Uraeus died, and the Ferox is next. My Grund still has a lot of HP and should be able to win me the game in 2 rounds.
End of the Battle
I will have to say that the battle was actually closer than I thought. I thought I would be able to win that easily with my Grund. It appears that I needed all of the evasion from my Gloridax. Looking at it, there is an argument for me using Disintegrator instead of Thane and removing the Dhampir. But I created this team to still win against an opponent that used Range monsters. A close win is still a win, and I'll take it.
The Result
Conclusion
In tournaments where there are additional limitations on top of the Rulesets and banned elements, I try to make it a point to look at the possible teams and imagine them fighting against one another. I will then choose the team which I think is best. For this specific battle, my opponent used a team composition that I was expecting. There were some tweaks I could have done to make my team win more convincingly, but since there were other viable teams available, I had to be flexible and tried to make a team that can win against most of them. I think I was able to do that perfectly, and I came out with the win.