This week's Battle Mage Secrets challenge features Counterspell! Counterspell is one of the rulesets that puts a soft ban on a category of monsters - in this case, magic attackers. The Counterspell ruleset gives every monster the Magic Reflect ability. This means that any time a monster gets hit by a magic attack, it will deal a bit of return damage to the attacker. Yes, you can still bring your magic attackers into battle. But they will be facing a little bit of an uphill battle!
There is a clear loser in Counterspell battles - magic attackers. Any monster with a magic attack will be taking damage every time it attacks. There is, however, a minor possible exception for the case of magic attackers with Void, such as Djinn Oshannus. The Magic Reflect damage is also magic, which means that Void can reduce it. Winners for Counterspell include all of the non-magic monsters, and particularly any monsters which don't do well against magic damage, since they are less likely to run into those in these fights. Abilities that mitigate melee or ranged attacks with additional armor or buffs? All great in Counterspell!
If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!
Here is the ruleset for our battle. Of course. we have the Counterspell ruleset, which means every monster will have Magic Reflect. To go along with it there is also Ferocity and Heavy Hitters, which will grant every monster in the battle the Fury and Knock Out abilities. Those rules are quite a bit less impactful than Counterspell, but are still important to keep in mind.
As I mentioned in the introduction, Counterspell battles tend to have less magic damage, and therefore more physical (melee and ranged) attackers. Kelya is great when you are expecting to see physical damage, as both of her buffs are relevant to physical attacks. Her additional speed gives your monsters a greater chance to make the enemy monsters miss, and that extra point of armor is great at deflecting an attack or two.
I started my team with my tank and secondary tank. We are working with a somewhat lower mana cap this battle, with just 24 to spend. This means that cost efficiency is important - we want to get as much bang for our mana as we can! Cruel Sethropod and Tide Biter are both budget monsters with high mana efficiency. Cruel Sethropod is very bulky for a 3 mana monster, and that additional armor should come in handy considerign the Counterspell ruleset. Tide Biter doesn't bring quite as much bulk, but 2 melee damage and Reach for just 3 mana is a great deal.
I continued on with the theme of cost efficiency in the middle of my lineup. Hardy Stonefish isn't much of a tank, but thanks to its armor it can hopefully stand in for one if there is an emergency. Kulu Swimhunter contributes greatly to the damage output of my team, pitching in some ranged damage from all the way in the back of my lineup.
I rounded out our team with some more ranged attackers. Swamp Spitter was a large part of my strategy for this battle, as its Repair ability will be able to fix up the armor my monsters - and thanks to Kelya, every monster will have armor! In a battle where you are expecting a lot of physical attacks, Repair is just as good as healing. Finally, Igor Darkspear was my final monster, serving as a shield against any Sneak attacks and pitching in a bit of ranged damage.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I feel pretty good about my chances. My team has a significantly higher damage output than the enemy monsters, and to top it off my opponent's Ice Pixie should only be able to get a single hit off before dying to Magic Reflect. On the other hand, my opponent has also chosen to bring a monster with Repair into the fight, and their selections of Djinn Oshannus and Merdaali Guardian means that this could be a long battle.
Thanks to the Repair on both sides, as well as the opposing Merdaali Guardian, the battle gest off to a slow start. By the start of round 3 my Cruel Sethropod has been taken off of the board, but by team has also managed to deal some heavy damage to the enemy Djinn Oshannus.
Two rounds later and things are looking up for me and my team. Thanks to my team's superior damage output, both Djinn Oshannus and the Merddali Guardian have been knocked out of the fight. All that remains on the other side of the field are a collection of relatively fragile monsters with low attacks.
By the start of round 7 the battle was just about over. The enemy attacks couldn't out-damage my Swamp Spitter's Repair, and it was just a matter of time before my team closed out the win. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
My plan for this battle worked out perfectly. The Counterspell ruleset played an enormous role in this battle, knocking out some of my opponent's damage and forcing them to rely on physical attacks which were nullified by my team's Repair. While my opponent brought some formidable monsters into the fight, my team's superior firepower was able to whittle them down and pull off the victory.
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:
One Close Shave - Battling with Noxious Fumes! - A Splinterlands battle analysis, featuring Noxious Fumes!
Splinterlands Economics: Causation - A look at causation, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
Splinterlands Economics: Ceteris Paribus - An introduction to the concept of Ceteris Paribus, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
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All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.