Hello there, this is my entry to the latest "Battle Mage Secret Weekly Challenge!". If you want to participate or learn more about the challenge, click here. This week we have to formulate a strategy with the Up Close & Personal ruleset.
RULESET: Up Close & Personal
With the Up Close & Personal ruleset in action, only units with Melee attacks can be used in the battle.
The 'Up Close & Personal' ruleset is very easy to understand as only units that have 'melee' attacks in their stats will be used in this battle. You can still use a multi-attack type unit, given that one of the attack types is melee.
Having extra armour in this ruleset always helps, some abilities like 'thorns' and 'demoralize' work well to counter all the melee attacks you are going to face during this ruleset.
Let's see how this ruleset affects my lineup and how I strategies for the following battle.
My Lineup
This is my lineup for the battle
This was just a 17-mana cap battle and only had the 'Up Close & Personal' ruleset which as we already saw allows units with melee attacks to be used only.
Only Earth, Life and Dragon elements were active during this battle. Well, I went with Earth and used the Lobb Lowland summoner which allowed me to use a gladiator card in my lineup. It was not a cheap option and cost 6 mana. So, I was left with just 11 mana to spare and I knew exactly what I was going to use them for.
I placed Quora Towershead in the first position. It was the gladiator unit for which I included my summoner. All hopes were on this as I wanted to take advantage of the fact that it comes with multiple attack types with magic attacks that won't take damage from 'thorns'. And the fact that it comes with 'Heal' and 'Bloodlust' abilities makes it very lethal and hard to eliminate, especially against weaker units. Spending 10 mana on it was a bit risky but I knew what I was doing and was ready to take that risk and surprise my opponent.
Next in my lineup was Mycelic Morphoid. I just had 1 mana to spare so I used it. But why did I not place it in the first position? Well, I was expecting a few 'sneaky' units and that's the reason I placed it in the end just to get those units busy. It comes with 1 melee attack damage but it couldn't attack from that position. I didn't expect much from it.
In the third position, I could just use a zero mana cost unit, the Fungus Fiend which comes with 1 melee attack damage and 2 health points on its own, identical stats to the last one. I didn't place it in the first position just to keep those 'sneaky' units busy, in case my opponent used them.
Now that my lineup is set let's talk about my strategy for this game.
My Strategy
With the 'Up Close & Personal' ruleset, I was expecting to face some units with 'thorns' and 'sneak' abilities. And being just 17 mana cap battle, with not a lot of active elements it was not easy to come up with some plan. I went for the Quora Towershead which cost 10 mana and the summoner to allow it in my battle, costs another 6 mana. So, I had all my hopes on this one. I used it because it has good health and can heal itself after each round and seeing that it is a low mana cap battle, it won't take much longer for the round to be over.
And I placed two weaker units at the end of the lineup just to safeguard my tank from those 'sneaky' melee attackers.
I will share my battle here, which I have uploaded to YouTube. Battle Link
My opponent went with an interesting strategy, they used the Mylor Crowling as their summoner, which I was somewhat expecting. They used the Mycelic Infantry which comes with some armour and decent health along with good attacking strength. But no 'sneaky' or units with 'opportunity' ability in their lineup. So it was just two tanks frightening at all times without any interference.
It took a few rounds to take down their Mycelic Infantry but it was all good for me as my tank had the healing ability.
In the fourth round, my Quora Towershead managed to take down their tank exposing the weaker unit at the next position. And each time it eliminated someone its stats improved because of the 'bloodlust' ability and it became too strong.
So, it just took one opportunity for my unit to take down their Venrai Knifer. It took only 5 rounds to take down the entire enemy lineup and I registered an easy win. Didn't even need the help of the other two units placed at the back!
Conclusion
The Up Close & Personal ruleset is a simple one to understand as only units that have melee attacks can be used in the battle. This makes it quite interesting as 'thorns' becomes super useful against melee attackers and some summoners like 'Mylor Crowling' can be a powerful asset. But if you get too dependent on it then it is no good either.
Sometimes, players will use units with multiple attacks just like I did in the above battle and can surprise you. This makes up for an interesting challenge where using strong melee tanks with good health and armour can be a good strategy.
So, there are so many strategies but always going back to the fundamentals is good too. Having a strong tank, supporting it with healing units and giving more armour to all the units are good strategic points to keep in mind!
Let me know what your strategy is with this ruleset.
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