In the spirit of the new weekly Battle Mage Secrets challenges, I would like to take a look at a Splinterlands battle with a particular focus on a ruleset. In this battle, we will be taking a look at one of those rulesets that go ahead and ban an entire class of monster outright. While it can occasionally make a battle more boring by eliminating the possibility of particular strategies, it also shakes up the typical meta and gives you a slightly different battlefield to work with. Today, we will be taking a look at a battle with the Broken Arrows ruleset!
In Broken Arrows battles, all monsters with a ranged attack are unable to be selected. This includes any dual attack monsters with a ranged attack. Some clear losers in this ruleset are any ranged monsters. On the other hand, melee and magic attackers will see more play by default simply because they are the only attacking options. Monsters with magic and/or with the Sneak or Opportunity abilities become particularly valuable in this ruleset, because without them your lineup will be limited to one or two attacks per round, severely diminishing your damage potential.
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 are the rules for the battle. Of course, we have the Broken Arrows ruleset, which means that we are unable to select any ranged attackers on our team. To go along with it we also have Stampede and Explosive Weaponry. Those rules allow Trample to trigger multiple times per turn, and also gives every monster Blast. While making Trample monsters more useful does make it more likely that we see them in play, I view Explosive Weaponry as being quite a bit more impactful in this battle - Blast will have an effect on every attack, while Trample only becomes relevant when a small subset of monsters are involved in a specific event.
In Broken Arrows battles, only monsters with melee or magic attacks (or no attacks at all) are eligible for selection. This makes Mylor Crowling great in fights with this ruleset. Mylor is great under normal circumstances, but in Broken Arrows fights we can expect to see an even large proportion of melee monsters than we would otherwise. Mylor's Thorns ability is the perfect anti-melee tool, and my hope is that we will see plenty of melee attackers on the enemy team!
Unicorn Mustang was my main tank, and the cornerstone of my strategy for this battle. With just 19 mana to work with, Unicorn Mustang's 8 mana cost meant that I was dedicating nearly half of my available resources to a single monster - so it had better be worth it! In this case, Unicorn Mustang has exactly what I was looking for from my front line monster - Mylor Crowling's Thorns is great for anti-melee, and Unicorn Mustang's Void ability covers potential magic attacks. Since this is a Broken Arrows battle, this means that all of my bases are covered.
My second slot was dedicated to dealing with the Explosive Weaponry rule. Blast can often be problematic since the splash damage can often easily knock out some of your weaker monsters. Venator Kinjo is a great card to use in Explosive Weaponry since Reflection Shield will protect him from Blast, and his Camouflage means that he won't be able to get knocked out by any Opportunistic or Sneaky attacks.
There wasn't much more mana to work with, so I filled out the rest of my lineup with support for Unicorn Mustang. Goblin Psychic has a respectable magic attack, and more importantly also has Tank Heal to hopefully allow Unicorn Mustang to take a few additional hits. I also threw in the "free" monster Fungus Fiend as a buffer to try and give Goblin Psychic some extra protection.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am not sure what to think. On one hand, the enemy team is made up completely of melee monsters, which means that Mylor was the perfect summoner choice. On the other hand, my opponent is packing a Gold league cap summoner, and their monsters are much higher level than mine.
In the first round of battle my opponent's higher monster levels show a bit - my Unicorn Mustang takes heavy damage from Grund and doesn't look as though it will be in the fight for long. On the plus side, the enemy team is also taking plenty of Thorns counter damage in return.
One more round and the enemy team wears itself out - the opposing Grund hits like a truck but was also taking double Thorns damage back each turn, and by the end of the second round he was forced to leave the field of battle. I like what I see on the battlefield at this point - I only have a single monster remaining at this point, but that monster can heal itself and the enemy lineup will only be able to get off a single attack each round.
By the start of round 4 my team is poised for victory. Goblin Psychic's combination of Tank Heal and a modest magic attack are more than my opponent's remaining monsters can deal with. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
My strategy for this battle worked out perfectly - with the possible strategies for this battle reduced thanks to Broken Arrows, I was able to select a lineup that had answers to both of my opponent's potential choices. While Unicorn Mustang wasn't able to last for the entire battle, it survived long enough that the enemy Grund went down with it. And with my opponent's main damage dealer off the field, their remaining monster were unable to close out my team. Goblin Psychic is certainly not the most powerful monster in the game, but in this case he was more than enough to seal the deal!
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:
Going In With a Bang - Battling with Explosive Weaponry! - A Splinterlands battle analysis, featuring Explosive Weaponry!
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.