BATTLE MAGE SECRETS : ARMORED UP RULESET

I would say Armored Up Ruleset are one of the most popular and might be the easiest ruleset on any battle. This ruleset caused no certain restriction which would not stir disorder to your formation strategy. It give you +2 armor, so that won't hurt anyone after all. It become popular on the low mana battle because it provide additional protection for those low health - high damage cards. In anticipation of this, some players would prefer to deploy magic card formation to bypass the armor. But its become a common trend which counter-anticipated by deploying formation with Void and magic debuff. So let's continue on!

Pros & Cons

1. Armored Up basically provide +2 armor to the entire cards on both formation. This is very useful if you expect opponent to deploy mainly melee and ranged attack. And then extra additional armor help to protect cards with low health but high damage. Extra armor might be less useful on high mana cards, where it already have high health. But adding armor to unarmored card give additional block against single high damage attack, before the attack touched the main health.	1. Perhaps the first minor weakness of Armored Up would be the possibility for battle to run longer. This could turn into disadvantage for formation which rely on high speed to execute blitz attack. Also if combined with Earthquake ruleset, additional armor could help extend non-Flying cards chances to execute blitz attack before being demolished.
2. Armored Up become heaven for cards possessing Repair. Since Repair could be applied to any position, Repair would mostly be triggered on each round.	2. Armored Up are nowadays easily predictable, with players would rather deploy magic cards to defeat the armor benefit.

Rulesets To Be Watched

Ruleset	Strategy
	Paired with this ruleset, there should be no concern over magic cards being deployed. Therefore the additional armor will be utilized fully. Repair ability will gain much leverage and certain activation with these combined ruleset.
	Armored Up will most certainly be useless if only magic cards deployed. But its not always the case, if Void Shield were used. My battle experience below will show the real case of this combined ruleset.
	Armored Up should would at least fend off the first Earthquake damage, which will protect most Ninja cards with low health, such as Exploding Rats (which rely on blitz attack).

WATCH BATTLE

So here we have the battle experience with Armored Up as the ruleset.
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_684bc2af49101deeb9dc99d17df72e76&ref=kid.miniatures

The battle has 20 mana cap, with Wands Out and Armored Up and ruleset, and Splinter limited to Water, Earth, Life, Death, and Dragon. For my formation, I used:

Position	Card Name	Level	Mana	Health	Armor	Speed	Damage Type	Damage
Summoner	Obsidian	2	4	-	-	-	-	-
1st Row	Magi Of Chaos	1	6	4	-	2	Magic	2
2nd Row	Madcap Magus	1	4	1	-	1	Magic	1
3rd Row	Goblin Psychic	3	6	5	-	1	Magic	2
4th Row	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5th Row	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6th Row	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

My opponent formation:

Position	Card Name	Level	Mana	Health	Armor	Speed	Damage Type	Damage
Summoner	Kelya Frendul	1	4	-	-	-	-	-
1st Row	Venari Wavesmith	1	5	3	-	2	Magic	1
2nd Row	Djinn Oshannus	1	8	10	-	2	Magic	2
3rd Row	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4th Row	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5th Row	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6th Row	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

This is the worst example of conditions for Armored Up Ruleset. Wands Out Ruleset limit deployable cards into magic cards only, which of course all attack will bypass the additional armor, rendering it useless. But this isn't always the case if Void Shield is use. Imagine using Grandmaster Rathe which applies Void Shield to entire formation. But in this battle, where mana cap is limited, I choose to reserve mana for stronger cards. Thus I decided to use Obsidian to maximize damage output. Magi of Chaos in front-row to sustain more damage, and Goblin Psychic shall support with its Tank Heal. Its not a surprise that my opponent will use Djinn Oshannus, a common magic cards to counter magic formation. But deploying Venari Wavesmith on the front-row seemed questionable since its useless other than as cannon fodder.

Once the battle started my only concern is to quickly smite down Venari Wavesmith, because Djinn Oshannus damage would not pace up with the output from Tank Heal. And luckily no effort is needed since either Magi of Chaos or Goblin Psychic can score kill in one hit.

Once we enter Round 2, the fate is already sealed for my opponent. The Tank Heal left Magi of Chaos unschated; meanwhile Djinn Oshannus left in despair with its attack bring no avail.

CONCLUSION

This battle show an example of how Armored Up Ruleset become useless being countered using magic cards. The only way to utilize in this situation is to bring Void Shield, Silence, or any magic damage debuff. Magic cards tend to have lower average health, thus initiating the first attack could result in great advantage silencing opponent cards before they act. In my battle above, my only strong point come from Goblin Psychic and its Tank Health, as if it deals double damage, 2 magic damage plus 2 health heal.