This week's Battle Mage Secrets challenge features the Holy Protection ruleset! Holy PRotection is an interesting ruleset, because while on the surface it affects every monster in the exact same way, there are still winners and losers, as well as different wrinkles that you can use strategically in these battles.
Holy Protection gives every monster in the battle the Divine Shield ability. This prevents the damage from the very first time they will take a non-Poison damage in the fight. For some monsters this is not impactful at all in battle - Diving Shield just triggers on the first attack and they die a turn later than they would normally. But some other monsters become much more helpful in Holy Protection battles. Monsters with two attacks can trigger their target's shield and still have an additional attack to work with. Monsters with counterattack abilities can cause monsters attacking them to lose their shield. And monsters who can inflict Poison can get around that shield. And finally, a monster who gets Rebirthed or Resurrected can get their Divine Shield a second time if and when they come back to life.
If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!
First up: the ruleset. Of course we have Holy Protection, which gives every monster Divine Shield. We also have Up to Eleven which gives monsters Amplify, and Heavy Hitters, which gives everything Knock Out. To go along with it we have a fairly generous set of splinter constraints - 32 mana to spend, and 4 splinters to choose from.
Looking at the rules, two of them stood out to me as more impactful - Up to Eleven and Holy Protection. Mylor Crowling works well as a summoner choice under both of these rules. Mylor gives our entire team Thorns. This is great with Up to Eleven, since Amplify will increase all of that Thorns damage from 2 to 3. This is also great with Holy Protection, because Divine Shield gets triggered by any type of damage. This makes monsters with additional attacks particularly useful. Thorns effectively gives our whole team an extra attack whenever a melee monster hits them.
I started my team with my tank and secondary tank. Mylor Crowling covers melee attacks pretty well, so we'll lead off our lineup with some anti-magic in order to cover more possibilities. Unicorn Mustang is fairly bulky, has a decent attack, and also has the Void ability. This makes for a great frontline tank if you expect or are concerned about your opponent using some magic attackers. Regal Peryton is a decent tank as well, but for a different reason - instead of bulk, Regal Peryton is relatively difficult to hit, with 6 speed as well as the Flying ability. This can give enemy attackers fits, and Regal Peryton can even dish out some damage with its magic attack as long as it stays on the battlefield.
Next up were some support monsters. Queen Mycelia is an excellent support, as her Protect ability will give the entire team an extra 2 armor. This gives my monsters some extra bulk and more chances to deal Thorns damage to enemy melee attackers. Goblin Psychic is a relatively straightforward magic attacker with Tank Heal - magic damage and helping out your frontline tank is a great combination!
By this point there wasn't much mana left, so I was going for maximum cost efficiency. Hunter Jarx is a super solid ranged attacker, offering 3 ranged damage and Snipe for just 6 mana. Fungus Fiend was a buffer at the back of my lineup - it certainly won't be attacking from that position, but with Divine Shield and Thorns it should be able to make any Sneak-y enemy monsters think twice.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I feel pretty good about my chances. My opponent has chosen a team which is nearly perfectly countered by my Mylor Crowling summoner selection - nearly all of their monsters and every single one of their attackers is melee! With my entire team gaining the Thorns ability, the battlefield conditions are very favorable for my monsters.
The battle begins a bit slowly thanks to Holy Protection, but by the start of round 3, the Thorns damage is beginning to take its toll. The opposing Djinn Chwala has already fallen, as well as their unfortunate Dhampir Infiltrator, whose Double Strike ability meant that it was taking twice as much Thorns damage per turn.
A couple of rounds later and my team's material advantage continues to increase. Most of my opponent's attacking monsters have been swept off the field, and the majority of my lineup is still in the fight.
It ended up being a bit anticlimactic, but by the start of round 6 the stage was set for my team to close out the victory - all that remained on the other side of the battlefield was a lone Soul Fiend. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
My strategy for this battle ended up succeeding even more than I could have hoped for - Mylor Crowling worked exceedingly well with the Holy Protection and Up to Eleven rulesets. And while it took several rounds longer than I thought it might, the outcome was never in doubt.
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:
Keeping it Simple - Battling with Keep Your Distance! - A Splinterlands battle analysis, featuring Keep Your Distance!
Splinterlands Economics: Causation - A look at causation, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
Splinterlands Economics: Ceteris Paribus - An introduction to the concept of Ceteris Paribus, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
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All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.