Hello Guys!

I'm back again for the Splinterlands Secret Mage Weekly Challenge. This week's theme is Counterspell ruleset, and I'm pretty hard pressed to find these rulesets. I've been playing for 2 days until my energy runs out but still haven't found a battle with these rulesets. Luckily, before my card rental runs out, I can get an interesting battle with Counterspell.

You know, honestly, this Secrets Mage Challenge is really challenging, because the rulesets that we get during battle are unpredictable. I've been absent from this challenge for 3 weeks, and the reason is because until the deadline I still haven't found a battle with the specified rulesets. Sometimes when I get rulesets according to the battle determination, it's not interesting because I don't have decks in the rulesets, or I might lose. Well, honestly, it's not interesting to make a post when I lose 🤣

Well, I'm neither a proplayer nor a tournament hero. I just enjoys sharing strategy and battles that I find interesting in my own view. I played on modern and wild battles on Gold leagues, and maybe the battle strategies I'd share weren't suitable to apply in other leagues because the differences in ability that open up are different from each league.

Ok guys, without further ado, let's get straight to the heart of this post!

BATTLE PREPARATION

Challenge Rules

RULESET: COUNTERSPELL

Description:
All monsters receive the Magic Reflect ability at the start of the battle. Enemy monsters that attack with magic receive damage back.

Damage returned is equal to the damage of the attacker divided by 2, rounded up.
Magic monsters with the Reflection Shield ability do not take damage from reflected magic attacks.
The Amplify ability increases damage.

Battle Rulesets

The rulesets in this battle are:

• Even Stevens (Only Monsters with even Mana costs may be used in battles)
• Counterspell (All Monster have the Magic Reflect ability)
• Aimless (All Monsters have the Scattershot ability)
• Mana Capacity 30
• Active Element Fire, Water, Earth and Death.

Line Up and Strategy

Because my Decks are limited and only even mana monsters can be used, I will still use magic monsters even on Counterspell rulesets. But to solve this problem I used Summoner Immortalis which has a Void buff, so if the opponent doesn't use Amplify monsters then monsters with damage 2 magic still don't receive reflect magic.

This is indeed the first time I have used this strategy, before I had shared a post about Immortalis with Counterspell rulesets, and it proved to be successful. So in this battle I will use the same strategy. Well, the order of the composition of monsters and the strategy of each monster I will explain in the table below.

Monster	Position	Abilities	Strategy
Immortalis	Summoner	+1 Health, Void, Shatter	The main reason I use Immortalis is because this Summoner has a Void, so all the magic monsters I have will not be affected by reflect magic.
Venari Knifer	First (Tank)	Thorn, Backfire	I chose Venari Knifer because of its high Speed and Backfire ability, as well as its Thorn ability. This is very useful because my prediction opponents will also avoid using Magic monsters.
Venator Kinjo	Second (Second Tank)	Reflection Shield, Camouflage, Immunity, Slow	Vonator Kinjo as the second tank, the remaining mana 2 complement and I chose this monster because it has very good abilities. In addition to the Reflection Shield ability, the Slow ability is also very useful for providing a debuff to reduce the speed of all enemy monsters.
Acid Shooter	Third (Attacker)	Scattershot, Cripple	Acid Shooter is indeed a range monster, but I put it in third place because this battle has Aimless rulesets where all monsters have Scattershot abilities. Both this monster in front and behind has no problem and still has the risk of being attacked by the opponent's non-melee monster.
Queen Mycelia	Fourth (Attacker, Support)	Protect, Amplify, Triage	Queen Mycelia who has Protect, Amplify and Triage is an important monster in this formation. Protect will give +2 Armor to all friendly monsters, Amplify will increase damage from Reflect magic and Thorn. In addition, the Triage ability will restore the HP of other monsters that get the most attacks. This is very useful because all monsters have Scattershots.
Goblin Psychic	Fifth (Attacker, Support)	Thank Heal, Affliction, Silence	As an attacker because he has 2 magic damage, and as a support because of his ability. Thank Heal will Restore HP Venari Knifer and other monsters that will later be in the first position, Affliction will make the affected target can no longer be healed, and Silence will reduce magic damage from all enemy monsters.
Doctor Blight	Last (Main Attacker)	Affliction, Camouflage, Poison, Scavenger	Those of you who follow my posts must be aware that I use Doctor Blight very often even though the rent is expensive. This is because I think this is an OP monster that must exist in low and middle battles in the gold league and above. Although this monster is slow, but with 2 magic damage equipped with Poison and Scavenger that has been active, this monster is often the winner of victory.

You can see the full line-up of both teams in this picture. The opponent used Contessa L'ament with the troops of the Phantasm mosnter in first position, Venari Bonesmith in second, Ravenwood Warden in third, Clockwork Aide in fourth, Twisted Jester in fifth, and Centaur in last.

I think the opponent's formation is very unique because it consists of monsters from all editions. This is natural because I play in wilds, and you know wild battles are beyond prediction. Are you curious about how this battle is going? Lets jump to battlefield arena!

BATTLEFIELD ARENA

(Click the image above to direct to the battle link)

I've also included a youtube video of this battle that you can play right away.

This battle runs quickly because it only takes 3 rounds to win. What's interesting about this battle is the many buffs and debuffs from all summoners and monsters as well as from rulesets that make abilities visible to the full.

The second attacker is still from the opposing team, this is because the opponent's monsters have a higher average speed than mine. Even though the opposing team gets a Slow debuff from Venator Kinjo, but also gets Swiftness buffs from Clockwork Aide, so their speed doesn't change. The most interesting of the first is the attack from the Venari Bonesmith which is actually like a suicide bomb, not at all injuring the target but instead turning around. Until the end of the first round no monsters died.

The second round began with Phantasm's attack on Venari Knifer, but instead Phantasm himself was killed by Thorn. Not long after, Venari Bonesmith also died from being hit by Reflect magic while attacking the Venari Knifer. Coincidentally, Queen Mycelia and Doctor Blight's attacks both hit Twisted Jester, and finally Twisted Jester also died. After that, followed by Clockwork Aide also because it was hit by a Psychic Goblin attack. The second round ended with only 2 range monsters on the opposing side.

This battle ends in the third round after all the opponent's monsters die without being able to attack first. I won with the formation still complete. None of my monsters died, even with the HP of all monsters still full, only the HP of the Venari Knifer was reduced. You can see the final result of this battle in the picture below

STRATEGY DISCUSSION

The strategy I applied worked very effectively in this battle. I think the use of summoners who provide Void buffs such as Immortalis and Mimosa Nightshade can be a solution if you want to keep using Magic monsters on Counterspell rulesets. Another alternative is to use Grandmaster Rathe which has +1 Armor buffs and Void Armor as well as Amplify. So you can apply both defensive and attacking strategies with Grandmaster Rathe.

Some strategies that you can apply to Counterspell include:

• Avoid using Magic Monsters, maximize attacks with Melee and Range.
• Its ok to using Magic monster if they have Void.
• Using Summoner with buff Void if you still wanna used Magic Monsters.
• Using monsters with Amplify ability to increase reflect magic.

Ok guys, I think my post is enough here, thank you for visiting my blog, don't forget to upvote and leave a comment. If you want to start playing Splinterlands and don't have an account yet, don't hesitate to use my referral:
https://splinterlands.com?ref=anif1908

Credits:
The wonderful divider by kyo-gaming
Thumbnail created using canva
All images taken from Splinterlands website