Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge!

Another week, another Battle Mage Secrets challenge. This time around I will be showcasing a battle featuring the Melee Mayhem ruleset. The Gobalano Soldier in the thumbnail looks cool and does fit the theme of the ruleset cause of the spiked baseball bat, however, he is not really suitable for it as he has Sneak so Melee Mayhem is not really needed for him to function adequately on the battlefield.

The Melee Mayhem ruleset is very straight-forward - Melee attack Monsters can attack from any position.

Now that we've got a good idea of what Melee Mayhem ruleset practically does, let's see now how it can be effectively utilized.

The main goal when this ruleset is active is for you to choose some decent melee Monster which fit your overall strategy for the battle. Generally what you should be looking for is Monsters which have some beneficial abilities when attacking from the safety of the backline. Such abilities are Double Strike, Trample, Bloodlust, Shatter, Piercing, Giant Killer. The Double Strike Monsters in particular are usually rather fragile so you always want to protect them in some way, well, there is no better way to protect them then placing them somewhere in the middle of your team so they are not too close to the tanking spot.

The rulesets for this battle are Are You Not Entertained? (One additional Gladiator card may be used in battles), Melee Mayhem (Melee attack Monsters can attack from any position) and Fab Four. The mana budget is 41 which is an average amount of mana so it does not give me the ability to play whatever combinations of Monsters I want. The available Elements are Fire, Earth, Death and Life. I have decided to give the Death Element a shot this time around. It is a ladder battle from earlier today against no other than SteveR82.

In the tanking spot I have placed a Monster I don't get to play that often usually - Harklaw. He generally is capable of taking a bit more beating thanks to his abilities - Shield (Reduced damage from Melee and Ranged attacks), Immunity (This monster is immune to negative status effects), Demoralize (Reduces the Melee attack of all enemy Monsters). I expect my opponent to take advantage of the Melee Mayhem ruleset, so we'll see if that's going to be the case.

The off-tank for the line-up is Mantoroth. He's a pretty beefy boy with 4 Armor and 11 Health at the cost of 11 Mana which makes him susceptible to Giant Killer (does double damage against targets that cost 10 or more mana). He also has 3 Melee Attack and 2 Speed. In terms of abilities - at max level he has the following ones (in order of appearance): - Shield (reduced damage from Melee and Ranged attacks), ARMORED STRIKE (Any unit with this ability gains an ADDITIONAL Melee attack using its Armor stat. This allows characters to improvise with deadly force, using their gauntlets, shields, helmets, or perhaps physical attributes (spikes, hard shells, etc) as weapons!), True Strike (this Monster's attacks cannot miss), Repair (restores some armor to the friendly Monster whose armor has taken the most damage) , Blast (does additional damage to Monsters adjacent to the target Monster). He is definitely shaping up to be a pretty interesting card, especially with the New Ability - Armored Strike and the fact that he is a Neutral Card, so he can be included in any Element.

The 3rd spot goes to one of the newish Legendaries from the RW miniset - Raa. I have it as level three but it has pretty fun abilities at even at that level - Flying (has an increased chance of evading Melee or Ranged attacks from Monsters who do not have the Flying ability), Double Strike (Monster attacks twice each round) , Scattershot (This Monsters attacks hit a random enemy target), Giant Killer (Does double damage against targets that cost 10 or more mana). I play it in probably every battle I go for the Death element and the mana cap is enough to fit its mana cost of 12.

Last but definitely not least is the best Monster in the Chaos Legion set and one of the best Monsters in the game as a whole, that's right, I am talking about Doctor Blight. I could write pages upon pages of praise for this Monster of a Monster but I'll keep it short and just list its tool kit in order of appearance - Affliction (when a unit with Affliction hits a target, it has a chance of applying Affliction on the target causing it to be unable to be healed), Camouflage (this unit cannot be targeted for attacks unless it's in the first position), Poison (attacks have a chance to apply poison, which does automatic damage to the target at the beginning of each round after the poison is applied), Scavenger (gains 1 max health each time any unit dies), Weaken (reduces the health of all enemy units). All this for the cost of 4 Mana, which also makes it a perfect candidate for the Little League ruleset. You can basically use it on any occasion and not make a mistake if you have the space in your line-up for it.

It is time for a quick round by round analysis:

After 1 Round there have been no casualties on either side, however, my forces are going to basically wipe out SteveR's whole team during Round 2. I think my choice of Monsters for this particular battle proved to be very successful.

Well this was definitely a fast but fun battle, and an entertaining way to showcase the Melee Mayhem ruleset. See you next week with another exciting post related to the brand new Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge!

Over and Out,

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