Battle Mage Secrets - Too Many Cooks Spoil The Broth

The theme for the current "Battle Mage Secret" challenge is Close Range ruleset this time! This means units with ranged attacks are allowed to attack in the first position. 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 Legendary Dragon card, Lily Shieldpaw!

For a change, the featured card is not a card that I have, but rather, one that my opponent fielded in this battle. No doubt Lily Shieldpaw has strong abilities, but I have always found it too complicated and hard to use it well. With Camouflage applied to the entire lineup, is it really a good thing? Or is it worse actually? With all these questions in my mind, I have never thought of trying this cute summoner because I can't seem to adopt my playing style to this card.

As usual, here's the lore for Lily Shieldpaw for your reading interest:

The raw force of elemental mana and magic, machinations of the divine, or simply the vagaries of fortune have led to beasts of enhanced intelligence, some as smart (or smarter) than humans and capable of speech and magic.

These rare anomalies, known as awakened beasts, are oftentimes outcasts caught between worlds, fitting in with neither their bestial counterparts nor civilized society. Most lack experience with mundane concepts others take for granted, such as socialization, culture and courtesy, and morality. They wander the land, lost within it.

Myth and legend, however, speak of awakened beasts that have overcome their circumstances and carved a prominent mark in the annals of history. Some are commemorated as heroes, while others are anathematized in infamy.

Such is the tale of Lily Shieldpaw. A red panda born in the forests of Anumun, Lily was taught the ways of the world by the celestial Byzantine Kitty, as well as the ability to harness the elemental magic of dragons to hide the vulnerable and heal the wounded. Lily's best friends are the snow leopard cub Onegin (an orphan and master of camouflage) and the giant panda cub Yumbo (who draws strength from the harsh elements). Together, they protect others against the forces of darkness and tyranny, serving as a beacon of hope that the people and creatures of Praetoria can triumph over the Chaos Legion and other threats.

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Battle Type & Team Lineup

Position	Card/Level	Mana
Summoner	Kelya Frendul	4

Being a Water lineup fan, Kelya Frendul is my go to summoner for most of my Water lineups for battles. The two boosts from Kelya Frendul are very useful to most rulesets and battles.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
1	Sea Monster	8

Sea Monster is one of my favourite tank because of its strong stats. Have a 4 Melee damage and self healing abilities make it a very independent card.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
2	Djinn Oshannus	8

Mana is quite a bit of luxury here so we can afford to field the legendary Djinn Oshannus. Having Void and a high speed of 5, Djinn Oshannus is not an easy card for the opponent to handle.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
3	Deeplurker	6

Deeplurker in my view is one of the strongest Common card in the Chaos Legion deck, also because Opportunity ability is one of best abilities for a card to have. So Deeplurker is definitely a starter for most of my Water lineups.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
4	Riverboat Captain	6

Riverboat Captain has an interesting Blast ability and sometimes it can be very useful. Even though he is a bit squishy, dealing up to 3 damage for a 6 mana card is pretty strong.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
5	Axemaster	7

Axemaster is one of the best Ranged cards for Water in my opinion and he definitely features in the lineup especially when the ruleset is Close Range.

Position	Card/Level	Mana
6	Kulu Swimhunter	4

Water has a wide variety of cards regardless of mana, and with the final 4 mana left, Kulu Swimhunter fits perfectly. That's a Gold Foil card that I recently bought!

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• Pre Battle: When the lineups showed up, my first thought when I saw Lily Shieldpaw was that I was likely not going to make it. Hahaha! There's a reason why these summoners are so costly - because they are just crazy powerful - and using them is usually an express train to clock those wins.
  

• Round 1: My opponent cleverly made use of Lily Shieldpaw's ability to ensure that their Djinn Chwala would be resurrected. With Amplify ability, it was pretty painful fighting that Djinn Chwala, and all the effort in bringing it down, it was now back with 5 armor.
  

• Round 2: My opponent clearly had thought this through thoroughly. Not just the choice of summoner or tank. Their lineup was packed with Sneak attacks and they were hunting my backline. My last card was taken out after the second round, but I was slightly faster. 5 vs 4.
  

• Round 3: Somehow, after all the strategy and positioning, my opponent was struggling to make any progress. And the problem seems to be a different of damage output. It was clearly their damage output was suffering.
  

• Round 4: And we were done! Was it an upset?
  

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

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Post Battle

Did my strategy work? I didn't have a complicated strategy - I just focused on fielding the strongest cards within my card collection, from the best tank/Melee fighter, best Magic attacker, best Ranged attacker, etc, and left it for them to execute the damage output. On the contrary, my opponent put in a lot of thought to build a defensive lineup with the summoner choice, and fielded a tank with Thorns for the ruleset, and partnered with a card with Resurrect ability, and then diversify attacks via Sneak. But what he probably didn't realise, was the damage output was lacking. His lineup only had 11 attack per turn, while I had up to 18 attack per turn.

What's the Battle Mage Secret? Too many cooks spoil the broth for sure. Sometimes it's might be more optimal to go for a simple lineup with good damage output rather than come up with fancy and complicated lineups.

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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