Battle Mage Secrets - The Underrated Fire Melee Card

The theme for the current "Battle Mage Secret" challenge is Lost Magic ruleset this time! This means Magic units may not be used in battle. Of course, the tips include use Thorns and Demoralize to counter melee attacks, use Headwinds and Return Fire to counter ranged attacks and units with 2 types of attack (which include magic) cannot be used.

It's not always easy to get the specific ruleset, but if you play hard enough, you definitely can find one! This time I was lucky enough to have one - woohoo!

So here's the interesting battle that I encountered.

Anyway, I thought it would be still be interesting to introduce some useful cards and show how their strengths can be maximised especially with a particular ruleset. In this post, the featured card is a Common Fire card, Chimney Wallstop!

Chimney Wallstop is sometimes forgotten amidst the Fire Melee cards because there are just too many Melee cards within the Fire card collection. There's Grum, Forgotten One, Gorth, Ferexian Hero, and many other Epic and Legendary Melee cards. There's also the old favourite Living Lava too! But Chimney Wallstop has a unique Reach ability that makes it very useful as the secondary tank for big mana matches. With the right conditions, a few Bloodlust can boost the card massively. That said, one might need minimally a Level 2 card because at Level 1, the speed is only 1 and it's very disadvantageous when it comes to both accuracy and sequence of hits.

As usual, here's the lore for Chimney Wallstop for your reading interest:

They say that smoking is bad for your health, but so is facing off against Chimney Wallstop in single Gladiator arena combat. When he is not fighting, he is rarely seen without a smoking pipe in his hand and a smile on his face. Before embarking on his Moxian journey to become a professional Gladiator, Wallstop lived alone in one of the slums of Azad, the largest city in the Burning Lands. He scraped a living as a trapper, collecting, crafting and selling wares from the creatures he obtained in the open Ashlands, especially the radiated land near Mitreyya's Hand. This treacherous rocky land has been Chimney's home since he was a boy, when he migrated to the Burning Lands from Anumun by stowing away on a goblin ship. This alone was an incredible accomplishment because goblins are especially vigilant (and severe in punishment) for stowaways. Wallstop has never looked back from his decision to leave his green and lush homeland for the desolate waste of the Burning Lands. He is far more comfortable fighting to survive. As he says: “The world is always trying to kill you. Why let it be sneaky about the effort?”

The burly, bearded man has been nicknamed Chimney so long that he may not even remember his given name. His surname of Wallstop may also be a nickname born of his incredible sturdiness and size, but it is difficult to say for sure. To Chimney, these matters are of no concern. His favorite thing is to sit around a fire all night laughing among friends, smoking his pipeweed like a chimney. The fire inside him is his thirst for adventure, and in recent years it has been smoldering rather than raging. He needs new stories and new adventures, which is why he has decided to travel to Praetoria and join the Gladiators' camp. His weapon is a large hammer handcrafted by his mentor, a famous but retired kobold blacksmith by the name of Hugo Steppor. The hammer is light and easy for Chimney to swing. On one end is a blunt head for smashing, and on the other is a golden spearhead for goring.

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Battle Type & Team Lineup

Position	Card/Level	Mana
Summoner	Eternan Brune	6

This was incredibly tricky ruleset to setup with just 4 cards allowed, no Magic cards, and the Reach ability in play. Fire does have pretty strong and big Melee cards so I had decided to go with Eternan Brune, which will also allow me to use Gladius cards too.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
1	Gorth	8

Gorth is one of the strongest Melee cards for Fire and he is entrusted with the tank position this time.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
2	Chimney Wallstop	10

Chimney Wallstop is usually a good pairing with Gorth, and he himself already has the Reach ability. At 10 mana, it's a good card to play to take advantage of the mana quota.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
3	Drybone Raider	12

As we were really going for the big cards this time, Drybone Raider comes in very handy as an all rounder, and hopefully the Reach ability will benefit him as the battle progresses.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
4	Lava Launcher	9

We desperately needed more big cards so I found Lava Launcher to be a good fit for this battle. With Magic cards out of play, Lava Launcher becomes more tanky.

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• Pre Battle: When I saw the lineups, it wasn't a surprise to see both teams put up Gorth as Gorth is indeed a very strong card. What surprises me was the lack of depth in my opponent's cards. This works in my favour so let's see.
  

• Round 1: My opponent's lineup wasn't as easy as it looked for sure. With max level Bronze cards and a Tarsa summoner, 4 Melee cards were dealing pretty heavy damage. Of course, my cards were very big and so they were fine.
  

• Round 2: Chimney Wallstop was definitely the star of this battle, gaining all the crucial Bloodlust. As far as the battle went, it was clear who would be the winner, but I was still analysing how my team performed regardless.
  

• Round 3: And we were done! Chimney Wallstop ended the battle with 8 Melee damage and a crazy amount of stats.
  

If you are interested to watch the battle, you can find it here.

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Post Battle

Did my strategy work? I won this time because my opponent didn't put on a very strong team, but this battle also showcased how cards like Chimney Wallstop can be very strong in the right conditions, making the Gorth-Chimney Wallstop partnership a very good strategy for future battles.

What's the Battle Mage Secret? Don't overlook Chimney Wallstop among the Fire Gladius cards!

So that's all I have! What are your takeaways from this battle? Feel free to comment below, as I am always keen to learn and improve!

As always, thanks for reading and have a pleasant day ahead!

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