This weeks Battle Mage Challenge is about the Melee Mayhem rule.
Splinterlands tells us the following about Melee Mayhem:
Melee units can attack from any position.
Prime use case for melee units with Bloodlust.
Abilities take precedence where targeting is concerned.
Thats decent hints about how to play. Melee Mayhem removes the main limitation of melee units. They usually can't attack from other positions other than in front, but in this rule they can attack from anywhere. The exceptions to this is of course units with Sneak, Opportunity or Reach.
Melee units are generally stronger than magic or ranged units, and this is balanced because of the limited positions they can attack from. When they can attack from anywhere, its possible to dish out way more damage based on melee units than you can with other attack types. Therefore, this rule greatly encourages melee units.
Then the mind game comes in. If you know your opponent will play a lot of melee units, its probably a good idea to play Demoralize, Shield and Retaliate. Your opponent will probably do the same. Sometimes its therefore effective to play magic units for damage instead. But your opponent might also decide to do that. So this rule creates this endless mind game, which is good fun :)
Incompatible Rules
(Equal Opportunity, Going the Distance, Wands Out, Super Sneak, Keep Your Distance)
Desirable Abilities
(Demoralize, Shield, Retaliate, Thorns, Inspire, Repair, Protect, Rust)
It is quite straightforward why these abilities are desirable in Melee Mayhem. We expect a lot of melee units, so anything that boosts our own or debuffs theirs is the way to go. Inspire and Demoralize affects melee damage. Shield reduces the damage taken, and Retaliate and Thorns do damage back to the attacker. Since melee attacks are stopped by armor, the abilities that affect armor are also high value. Therefore, Repair, Protect and Rust are high value abilities in this ruleset.
Advantaged Summoners
Quite clearly a fire-favored matchup, with five summoners getting a direct advantage here. Life is also in a good spot for this rule, with four summoners providing or removing armor. Dragon also has several summmoners with different approaches that are all good for this rule.
Desirable Monsters
Based on the which abilities we find particularly usable in the ruleset, the monsters shown below are the ones we want to consider first when selecting a team in this ruleset. To summarize, the number of extra usable monsters for each splinter is:
| Fire | Water | Earth | Life | Death | Dragon | Neutral |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 | 20 | 16 | 21 | 19 | 10 | 20 |
My Battle : Melee Mayhem Battle
My battle had the following configuration: Modern diamond league, 47 mana, rules: Melee Mayhem, Reverse Speed and Are You Not Entertained? Fire, Life, Death and Dragon available.
Reverse speed Melee Mayhem is a very strong niche for Tarsa. Fire also has some strong cards that fit well in this ruleset. Another option is Death, particularly with Astral Entity. My life deck doesn't have that many cards to use in this particular setup, and the commonly used Jared Scar is just a little too vurnerable at this high mana. He can also suffer from Demoralizes, which can be stacked in multiples here with the Death deck.
Gladiators are an interesting addition for this match. Their bloodlust doesn't match well with Reverse Speed, but they still provide more options. The strongest melee gladiators are also found in the fire splinter, so ill go with that.
My lineup
For this match I felt like trying a heavy Repair setup. This strategy is new to me, but sometimes you have to try new stuff in order to get better. I placed Forgotten One up front so that I have a chance of heavy retaliate damage early on in the battle. Behind it I placed my subsitute tank, the Antoid Platoon, which is going to be useful once it stacks up some health and tanks with its Shield ability. Next up, I placed three Repair units. Chimney Wallstop was my gladiator of choice, the Ferox Defender next, and then Flamesmith. Finally, I added Doctor Blight just to tear down any Shield unit.
Opponent's lineup
My opponent went for the exact same summoner and two frontline cards. He also added the Ferox defender to provide armor and armor restoration. They added both two Demoralize and an Inspire, so their units are gonna hit quite a bit harder than mine. On the other hand, they will have to deal with more armor on my units.
Battle progress and Result
Round 1 is quite eventful. The Forgotten One's tank a lot of hits. Mine retaliates back three times, while my opponent got some bad luck on those rolls, and didn't retaliate at all. Nevertheless, both Forgotten Ones go down, the Ants and Blight stack up some health, and the round ends with my Flamesmith shattering the Antoid's armor.
Round two is the Ant-smacking round, and both of them take a lot of hits before being repaired back up. Since I have several Repair units, mine is brought back up to full armor, while the enemy Antoid is left at two health and is poisoned.
For the next round, my Antoid continues to tank like a boss, and lives through all the hits. In a miracle RNG roll, it also dodges the hit from the Ferox Defender, who otherwise would have brought it down (90% hit chance there). Again, the Doctor Blight delivers his on-hit effects ,and Tusk the Wide is left at two health and poisoned.
In round 4, Dr. Blight delivers yet another poison. My Antoid now has enough armor to tank all the hits without losing any health. The Ferox Defender stands his ground though, and it will take another round before he falls.
The Ferox Defender dies in round 5, and by now its just a formality of finishing the match.
The 3x Repair strategy was an interesting approach, but in reviewing the first rounds of this match, it seems as if an Inspire or a Demoralize would have been more effective than the third Repair.
Alternative lineups
Yodin Zaku
Chanseus the Great
Thaddius Brood
Camila Sungazer
Lux Vega
I hope you found this post interesting. If you did, you might also enjoy my other content.
Battle mage challenges
Battle Mage Challenge: Lost Magic
Battle Mage Challenge: Lost Legendaries
Battle Mage Challenge: Little League
Battle Mage Challenge: Keep Your Distance
Battle Mage Challenge: Holy Protection
Battle Mage Challenge: Healed Out
Battle Mage Challenge: Going the Distance
Battle Mage Challenge: Ferocity
Battle Mage Challenge: Fog of War
Battle Mage Challenge: Fire & Regret
Battle Mage Challenge: Explosive weaponry
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Best of luck in Splinterlands!
Kalkulus