Hello there.

Today I'll share my battle under the Melee Mayhem ruleset. But first, I will share some of my thoughts regarding it. With this ruleset, all monsters with Melee attack type can attack from the backline even without having any of the abilities that enable them to. For those with abilities like Sneak and Opportunity, those still work as intended. But for those without any targeting abilities, they just attack the monster in the first position, or taunt monster.

With this ruleset, Melee monsters get a huge boost. They usually have higher stats with the downside of not being able to attack from the back line. But with this, they are no longer limited by it. Because of the huge upside, I tend to counter melee a lot during this time. I use Demoralize to lower their damage, and put a Thorns monster in the first position to make them hurt themselves with every attack. Since this can be a heavy front to back strategy, adding tank heal abilities can also be helpful in keeping the thorns monster alive longer.

I believe that being flexible in battle is the ideal strategy. Check the opponent's history, check what they are most likely to use, and counter it. But always pick teams that can also counter different strategies. Without further ado, let's get into the battle.

The Ruleset

This was a Wild tournament battle, so it was a Bronze battle with Silenced Summoners, Melee Mayhem, and Corrosive Fog Rulesets. A 58 mana battle is on the high amount, and only Fire, Water, and Dragon are available. I can think of a lot of different strategies for each so I will try to counter as much as I can.

The ideal team for Fire will be to use Talia Firestorm to save on mana. Adding Disintegrator and Molten Ogre for Demoralize works. Living Lava in the first position can be good to decrease physical damage. Melee attacks can even deal 0 damage because of the two demoralize monsters. Adding monsters with high attack like Grum and Sand Worm can help deal a lot of damage.

For Water, Oshannus can be a good option in the first position in case the opponent uses magic attacks. Its high speed can also make opponents miss their attacks. Doubling down on this strategy with Baakjira and Kulu Mastermind can really mess with the opponent's attacks. Coastal Sentry with its double strike is very powerful, and adding Demented Shark for the Inspire can increase the damage further.

For Dragon, a lot of high mana monsters are usable in this battle. Putting Chwala in front can deal some damage to melee attackers. Carnage Titan with its double strike, partnered with the water team above can be devastating.

The Lineup

For me, between the lineups I mentioned above, I'd rather go with a mixed Dragon team. I don't have a leveled Dragon summoner apart from Helios, so I used that. Chwala in front to deal with melee attackers, and Coastal Sentry for the damage. I added Noa and Kulu to make me hit their HP earlier, and Drybone Raider for a second double strike monster. Finally, Demented Shark for the Inspire to deal more damage. I considered the double demoralize can counter this, but that team was slow, and will have problems with the Oshannus team. This one has a good amount of speed, and can also attack the backline if there are low HP monsters to target.

The Battle

Link to the Battle

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The Matchup

My opponent decided to go with a Dragon Fire team with Kretch. They seemed to have went with a cheap summoner but they only had a level 1. I don't think that was a good enough reason in exchange of using level 1 monsters. With 58 mana available, one can be greedy with the summoner mana a bit, even in silenced summoner. They have Arkemis for the Armor, Chaos Dragon for Magic damage, and Grum at the back. They had Ferexian Hero give weapons training to Iidri and Clockwork. The splitting of my targets can be good, but I am not a fan of Chaos Dragon because of the scattershot. With a high mana available, there will be a lot of high HP monsters, and it won't be able to kill one early on.

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End of Round 1

This is why I wanted a high speed team. If my monsters were slower, they would have had a harder time killing Iidri, especially with Clockwork increasing their speed. I already have tons of damage, but I just need to avoid missing my attacks. The result of that is I was able to kill both Arkemis and the Iidri, while they were only able to kill my Chwala. Chaos Dragon hitting Noa is ok, but it would have been better on the Demented Shark. I have bad luck hitting Flying monsters, but hopefully I don't miss so much here.

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End of Round 2

My damage is just too high with the two double strike monsters partnered with the Inspire. I killed three of their monsters in just one round. Grum being able to hit and kill my Coastal Sentry is a bit sad, but the state of the battle looks like I will be winning next round.

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End of the Battle

I will have to say that I was surprised at how quickly I won that battle. I can understand my opponent's strategy of trying to make the melee attacks miss on the Iidri and Chaos Dragon, but they didn't anticipate my fast team. I for my part underestimated my damage. Two double strike monsters with Inspire, and Drybone having a range attack as well really kicked my damage up a notch.

The Result

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Conclusion

In tournaments where there are additional limitations on top of the Rulesets and banned elements, I try to make it a point to look at the possible teams and imagine them fighting against one another. I will then choose the team which I think is best. For this specific battle, my opponent was a little too flexible and decided to go with a low level team which hurt them in the end. I on the other hand focused on speed and dammage, and was able to blitz their team before they can mount a good attack and kill my team.