Another week, another Battle Mage Secrets challenge. This time around I will be showcasing a battle featuring Shades of Gray ruleset. The Rebellion Neutral Epic Pallus is a very suitable character to put on the cover page since it completely covers the requirements of the ruleset.
Let us see what this ruleset does before we get into the nitty-gritty of the line-up and the battle itself.
The Shades of Gray ruleset is very straight-forward - Only Neutral Units may be used in battles.
Now that we've got a good idea of what the Shades of Gray ruleset practically does, let's see now how it can be effectively utilized.
I normally describe a couple of options here if it ruleset allows for some variation but this one in particular is pretty clear, so here's in short:
On the screenshot above I have listed all the Neutral cards currently available in the Modern Format. However, bear in mind that in just 5 days we will be getting a ton of new soulbound reward cards (43) and some of them will definitely be Neutral, so this list will very soon expand. I have divided the Neutral cards by attack type - melee, ranged, magic and no attack so you can have a better idea what the distribution of these attack types is. Neutral cards are very powerful as a whole and can be seen in basically every battle apart from those where they cannot be played due to a restriction imposed by the ruleset.
Now that we have a decent understanding of the featured Ruleset and its potential advantages and disadvantages, let us have a look at the battle I have chosen to showcase.
<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>BATTLE<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>
- The line-up of the Battle and the Ruleset:
The rulesets for this battle are FiveAlive (Up to five Monsters can be used), Shades of Gray (Only Neutral Monsters may be used in battles) and Reverse Speed (Units with lower speeds will attack before monsters with higher speeds. Attack Accuracy based on speed will also be reversed). The mana budget is 99 which is the greatest amount of mana available in the game right now so I can basically play whatever combinations of Monsters I want. The available Elements are Water, Earth and Dragon. I have decided to give the Earth Element a shot this time around. The battle I have chosen is from a very recent Diamond-level tournament.
The main tank spot in the line-up goes to the Arkemis the Bear. It is one of my favorite tanks overall because all 4 of his abilities are actually very good in cases of taking heavy damage and also mitigating enemy attacks - Protect (All friendly Monsters gain +2 Armor), Halving (Each time this Monster hits a target, the target's attack is cut in half (rounded down)), Forcefield (This Monster takes only 1 damage from attacks with power 5+) and last but not least in terms of damage output - Enrage (Has increased Melee attack and Speed when damaged).
The 2nd place in the line-up goes to the Junker. It is a very useful Neutral Monster because of its two abilities - Reach (Melee attack Units with Reach may attack from the second position) and Repair (Restores a third of max armor to the friendly Unit whose armor has taken the most damage). I use it quite often even though I still have not maxed it but I think it's high time I did that cause it gets an additional point in the Attack section at max level.
The 3rd spot goes to the Drybone Raider. It is a cool Dual Attack Monsters with Double Strike which means that it hits not once, not twice, not three times but four times every round!. Maxed out at level 4 it has Double Strike (Monster attacks twice each round), Shatter (Target's armor is destroyed when hit by an attack from Monsters with Shatter) and finally Cripple (Each time an enemy is hit by a Monster with Cripple it loses one max health).
Following immediately after is my very own Runi. Runi has True Strike as an ability so it is incapable of missing in general but I actually have picked it for its general utility with Opportunity (Monsters with the Opportunity ability may attack from any position and will target the enemy Monster with the lowest health) and Rebirth (When this Monster dies it will self-resurrect with 1 Health once per battle). I have brought it in to help kill off enemy targets left at low health by the rest of my team as it will be the last to act with its base Speed of 1.
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:
- The Summoner I am going with for the battle is Immortalis (not much of a surprise here, lol). I feel he is a great choice given the rulesets and the available Elements. My enemy, on the other hand, has decided to go with Obsidian and the Earth Element as well. That's good cause Immortalis is a direct counter to Obsidian in general.
- After a round of exchanging blows no Monsters have died, however, both Salty Bears have been poisoned and the poison is yet to be applied on the screenshot below so the enemy Bear will bite the dust before mine.
- Round 3 - after a bit more fighting, we have both lost our Junkers as well but I have a definite advantage at this point of the game as my Drybone Raider is intact and on the other hand their Magi of Chaos is a goner.
- Round 4 - All that's left for my team is to do a routine clean-up of the remainder of the enemy line-up.
Well this was definitely a fast but fun battle, and an entertaining way to showcase the Shades of Gray ruleset. See you next week with another exciting post related to the brand new Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge!
Over and Out,
Referral
Thanks for sharing! - @alokkumar121