Greetings to all and sundry on this great platform, I welcome you all to my blog and today I write to participate in this week's battle mage secrets weekly challenge. I am very happy to be part of the Splinterlands family. I hope that you guys would like my entry. Without much ado, I would like to go straight to the purpose of this post. Today, the battle ruleset is "UP CLOSE & PERSONAL" and I would submit my entry to that here in this post including a video of my battle.
Per the ruleset of the game, Only Monsters with Melee attack may be used in battles. Choose a summoner that increases/reduces Melee's attack or Mylor. Keep a monster with Shield, Retaliate, or Thorns in the first position. Reach, Sneak, and Opportunity help in this ruleset. I used my personal account @abu78 to participate in this battle. I am currently playing in the Bronze league. Before I demonstrate the battle here, let's briefly look into the Ruleset of the game.
Up Close & Personal
| Ruleset Icon | Description |
|---|---|
 | Only Monsters with Melee attack may be used in battles. Choose a summoner that increases/reduces Melee's attack or Mylor. Keep a monster with Shield, Retaliate, or Thorns in the first position. Reach, Sneak, and Opportunity help in this ruleset. |
 | The initial Health of all Monsters is equal to that of the Monster on either team with the highest base Health. Don't use high HP monsters and focus on high damage. Try to use a lot of monsters as well. Having a Tank Heal, Thorns, and Triage for defense helps a lot. |
 | All Monsters have the Enrage ability. Increase Melee attack and Speed when damaged. Values are multiplied by 1.5 and rounded up. Prefer Melee monsters with Sneak, and Opportunity in the back row. |
Up Close & Personal can be found with the following Rulesets
My Opponent's Team Line-up
| Summoner | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  | NA | NA | NA |
My Team's Line-Up
| Summoner | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |  |  | NA |
Summoner:
I chose the MYLOR CRAWLING summoner. It was a 25-mana game condition and I had to manage my card selection to suit that. I chose the Mylor Crawling summoner so my opponent's monsters that attack me by melee will have the thorns effect damages and since this ruleset involves only melee, it is a good option. My team lineup was made up of the following; Mycelic Infantry, Fungus Fiend, Mycelic Morphid, Katrelba Gobson, and lastly Disintegrator. I sent one Bloodlust monster and that is because of the advantage of the brawl battle. I added the Disintegrator monster so it will reduce all melee attack by one for my opponent's monsters.
1st Position:
Mycelic Infantry, this card has the shield ability where it reduces melee attack damages by half. It is an 8-mana monster with a speed of 1, 3 melee damage attack, and 8 health with 3 armor protection.
Round 1:
First of all, all monsters took their effect from the summoner by gaining the thorns effect. My opponent's lineup was made up of three monsters including the Coastal Sentry monster in the first position, followed by Flying Squid, and then Feasting Seaweed monster.
In the first round, the Coastal Sentry monster which attacks double attacked my Mycelic Infantry first and received double thorns effect damage destroying its armor. Flying Squid was also followed by an attack by couldn't damage the Mycelic Infantry monster because of its shield ability but rather received the thorns effect damage. Katrelba Gobson is in my lineup who also attacked twice and did double damage to the Feasting Seaweed monster at the last position of my opponent's lineup. It also attacked my Mycelic Infantry monster but received the thorns effect damage. At the end of the first round, no monster was eliminated yet.
Round 2:
In this round, as usual, Coastal Sentry attacked twice first on my Mycelic Infantry monster and was able to implement some damage to it but also the thorns effect ability damaged four of its health. Next, an attack from the Flying Squid monster on my Mycelic Infantry monster but couldn't cause any damage to it and lost two health instead due to the thorns effect. Katrelba Gobson then attacked and eliminated the Feasting Seaweed monster and increased in stats due to the Bloodlust ability.
At the end of the round, one of my opponent's monsters was eliminated while I still had all my five monsters active and strong.
Round 3:
In this round, Coastal Sentry attacked my Mycelic Infantry and caused two health damage but was eliminated afterward due to the thorns' effect ability. Next, Flying Squid attacked and was able to eliminate my Mycelic monster which was left with just one health to go.
It got damaged from the thorns effect after eliminating the Mycelic Infantry monster. Katrelba Gobson missed all the two attacks after which Fungus Fiend then attacked and eliminated the last monster on my opponent's lineup.
This was how my battle went and I won it with ease. I think the selection of my team was good and also selecting bloodlust monster in the lineup for Mylor Crawling summoner is a great strategy. Furthermore, the disintegrator monster was a good option as it helped the Shield ability on Mycelic Infantry perform better.
Thank you all for your time and attention for going through my post. A link to my battle is provided here Battle Link
All cards and ruleset images were taken from here Splintercards
