HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Welcome to yet another week of the "new" iteration of the Splinterlands Weekly Challenges 😜.

For any old Hivers/Splinterland players who've just come back and are confused, fret not! Even with the name and format tweaks, right at it's core, battles are still the foundation of these posts.

In this week's edition of Battle Mage Secrets, chaos abounds as the natural order of things seems to have gone out of control! What happens when those whom you thought could only fight from up close are suddenly swinging their weapons at you from a distance away?

No matter! I present to you the ruleset — MELEE MAYHAM ⚔️🏹

The game's description of MELEE MAYHAM is as follows: "Melee attack Monsters can attack from any position."

This is a ruleset which turns the tables on what was once a magic and ranged advantage. The ability to attack from afar is usually not according to the (usually) higher damaging melee attackers.

Needless to say, we can definitely expect a heavy melee damage contest. We should thus prepare our Summoner/Unit choices accordingly. Clearly, anti melee type abilities will come in useful here. Of course, both opponents could blindside each other completely and end up not taking advantage of this ruleset at all. 😁

I will take advantage of this ruleset in my battle showcase today to show how 1 of my units in particular becomes a lot stronger than one would expect with MELEE MAYHAM. Introducing the Summoner, CAMILA SUNGAZER.

It is said that Camila Sungazer received her summoning abilities from visions wrought by staring day after day at the noon sun for her entire life. She is, of course, completely blind from staring at the sun, but her magic is most impressive.

From Splinterlands Lore on CAMILA SUNGAZER

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Camila Sungazer is a Legendary card released during the Untamed expansion. It has definitely found it's place in many Dragon decks given its availability and usefulness. It's effects on the battlefield are -1 ⚔️Melee Damage⚔️. It's summoning cost is, unlike most other Legendary Summoners, just 3 🧪MANA🧪.

The stat buffs it gives are nothing out of the ordinary, so at first glance, he might look pretty bland. It would seem that in terms of firepower, this summoner does almost nothing to boost your team. However, in a defensive game, all his abilities makes this Summoner one of the strongest in the game!

He debuffs the opponents with -1 to their MELEE ATTACK, which means he's a heavy anti melee summoner. Not to mention, his cost is a mere 3 mana, which is really low for a Legendary Summoner.

I would venture to say that with the MELEE MAYHAM ruleset in play, it is obvious that we should pick an anti melee damage ability whenever possible. Now, we have a summoner which gives your army the perfect anti melee abilities and the battlefield conditions overwhelmingly tilt towards you.

This could make all the difference if the battle comes down to the wire where the slightest advantage is the fine line between victory or defeat! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 This is definitely what I'd consider game changing! 😱😱😱

⚔️🛡️My Battle Showcase🛡️⚔️

Let me present a battle I fought recently in which the ruleset MELEE MAYHAM was in effect. My opponent used the Chaos Legion edition Summoner Kelya Frendul from the WATER splinter as his main pick, while I used the Untamed edition Summoner Camila Sungazer from the DRAGON splinter. 🌊 VS 🐉

At first glance, it would seem like I was at a distinct disadvantage.

• My opponent was using a melee buff via his Demented Shark to counter the effects of my Summoner.

• His units were geared to SNEAK attack me instead of what I expected from a head on battle.

• This gave his entire team a huge advantage in disrupting my plans.

• To exacerbate matters, Kelya Frendul also gave all his units a pretty huge advantage with his speed and armour buffs.

I was honestly expecting this to be a really bad matchup for me 😜🤣. This was a team who had an innate advantage in this ruleset. His team had one purpose only and that was to negate everything my team could throw at him. Would I be able to turn the tide of battle against such an opponent then? Victory or defeat would lie in the small details.

I would say that the ruleset MELEE MAYHAM was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. The advantage it gave my team resulted in me outlasting my opponent in this battle. It definitely provided the edge that I needed to overcome my opponent.

This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆

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LINK TO MY FIGHT

👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

1st CARD SLOT

The Gloridex Soldieris chosen for this slot. He plays the role of the Main tank perfectly with his great stats. His high health stats and the SHIELD ability will also allow him to have much longer staying power on the battlefield. This allows all other units to be kept safe until he is taken down.

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2nd CARD SLOT

The Furious Chicken occupies this slot. It's main role here to be the sacrificial unit for my team. It can also serve as the backup tank should the main tank fall.

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3rd CARD SLOT

The Chaos Agent fills this slot. It's main role is to also be the sacrificial unit for my team.

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4th CARD SLOT

The Creeping Ooze fills this slot. It's role is to debuff my opponents with it's SLOW ability.

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5th CARD SLOT

The Disintegrator occupies this slot. It is here to also debuff the opponents melee attack damage with it's DEMORALIZE ability.

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6th CARD SLOT

The Antoid Platoon occupies the last slot. It's main role is to defend the backline with it's SHIELD ability.

I hope you're starting to see the pattern here in my team setup. 😉

⚔️🛡️Battle Action Report🛡️⚔️

As you can see, both of us fielded very similar units in our matchup. Both of us went heavy melee hoping to take advantage of the ruleset. 😱

🌊WATER🌊 VS 🐉DRAGON🐉

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My opponent used the Hardy Stonefish as his tank in the 1st slot which was a VERY good choice. With his great defensive stats and low cost, this is a unit which will protect it's entire team until it falls.

The Pelacor Bandit, Sabre Shark and Uraeus were in his team as SNEAK units designed to surprise me and take down what could have been an undefended backline.

He also had a Torrent Fiend as a sacrificial unit and the Demented Shark to boost his all melee team.

All in all, I would say that the opponent picked a really strong team.

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My choice of the Main Tank was the Gloridex Soldier who is perfect for this task. He has really high defensive stats in order to take extra hits to ensure that all the other units are protected. Not only that, it also has the SHIELD ability. This allows it to last longer on the battlefield.

The Furious Chicken and Chaos Agent comes next in the 2nd and 3rd slots. Both of them cost next to nothing and are there to draw some fire as sacrificial units.

The Creeping Ooze occupies the 4th slot and it is mainly there support the team with it's SLOW ability. Debuffing the opponent's speed could really give me the advantage especially in a melee battle.

The 5th slot was occupied by my Disintegrator whose job is also to debuff the opponent's army with it's anti melee DEMORALIZE ability.

The Antoid Platoon occupied the last slot as a low cost anti melee/sneak defence.

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The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was a low mana game with 21 mana as the limit. The rulesets were CLOSE RANGE & MELEE MAYHAM.

• The first round saw both our sides launch a flurry of attacks. Both teams took a damage trading blows, but I came out of it completely unscathed.

• The opponent's Hardy Stonefish was however taken down.

• Every round however was the same story was I took down 1 unit at a time.

• In the meantime, the opponent was unable to deal a single damage to me at all as all my anti melee abilities nerfed his damage dealt to ZERO.

• It was all over for the opponent now as I eventually mopped up his entire army. 💀💀💀

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the MELEE MAYHAM ruleset to give me a slight advantage. Individually, on their own, my units would face a huge disadvantage against an enemy which had blindsided me by aiming for my rear instead of the frontline. However, thanks to the amazing anti melee debuffs I stacked, I was able to turn the tide of battle! The opponent simply could not handle all that at all.

Well as you can see here in this GIF of my battle, the results were pretty good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

This was truly an eye opener! 😁🏆

Slowly, but surely, I wore down the opponent's team and the match ended up with me inflicting a crushing defeat. My team selection proved to be the edge I needed to eventually overpower my opponent. 💪🏻

🔮🔮🔮Hindsight is 20/20🔮🔮🔮

Would I have done anything differently? 🤔 This might have seemed like a disadvantage at the start but I ended up winning handily. IF I had to use the same cards again, there would be no better lineup than what I had already used for the match. Any other combination MIGHT have resulted in a loss for me. I'm really satisfied with the results against such a worthy opponent. 🏆🥇

💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

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I definitely can appreciate the ruleset MELEE MAYHAM and how it changes the dynamics of usual gameplay. This is one of those rulesets which can be turned into a huge advantage if surrounded with the proper team. The role it brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

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