Hello! This post is for the first entry of this week's Battle Mage Secrets, which is Shades of Gray. Shades of Gray is an interesting ruleset where you could only use Neutral cards. For this post's battle, we have a Wild Silver Tournament battle where I luckily win.

Shades of Gray

Only Neutral Units may be used in battles.

• Summoners are unaffected by this rule. (Or else we only play Lux Vega...)

With the ruleset Shades of Gray, you are highly limited to only neutral cards. This could be good or bad combined with other rulesets. This ruleset is also really easy to understand, but you should probably choose the stronger Neutral units in your lineup. During this ruleset, I usually like to play Ulundin Overseer, Xenith Monk, Magi of Chaos, Venari Marksrat and Supply Runner in Modern, as well as other Neutral cards.

Battle Info

Rank: Wild Silver
Avaliable Type: Fire, Water, Earth, Death
Mana: 26
Close Range: Units with ranged attacks are allowed to attack in the first position.
Shades of Gray: Only Neutral Units may be used in battles.
Equalizer: All units start with the same health, based on the highest health on either team.

This battle had a smaller side of mana limit with the Shades of Gray ruleset. It also had Close Range(Ranged units can attack from the first position) and Equalizer(All units have the same health). The two rulesets benefit both teams and it would be more easier to select ranged units because it could attack from the first position, as well as some 0-1 mana cost units with no attack that could soak a lot of damage.

My Lineup

Summoner: Immortalis. For the Summoner, I picked Immortalis. It gives -1 health to enemy units, as well as Void and Shatter ability for my team. The shatter ability could be useful, but I mainly picked this summoner for the Void ability, because of the ruleset. You are most likely to use at least 1 unit with Magic attack in Shades of Gray.

First position: Venari Marksrat. At the first position, I picked Venari Marksrat. It has Martyr ability which gives +1 buff to adjacent units when it dies. I put this ranged unit at the first position because it could attack from this position and would buff the second unit from my lineup when it dies.

Second position: Cornealus. Then, I went with Cornealus. At level 2, it has the heal ability, which makes it good on its own, and also the Thorn ability, which deals 2 damage to the attacker when this unit was hit by Melee attack. Because of the ruleset, it could also attack from the first position, which makes this unit really good. However, the Equalizer ruleset could disadvantage my unit because this has the highest base health (12) and thus would benefit the opponent more.

Third position: Furious Chicken. Furious Chicken is usually used either at front or at back to absorb only 1 hit, due to having low health. But in Equalizer, it gets really huge for 0 mana! The placement of this card seems kind of weird, though.

Fourth position: Doctor Blight. Doctor Blight is also a good neutral card for only 4 mana. At level 2, it gets Affliction(50% chance to apply affliction to the target, which makes it unable to heal), Camouflage(cannot be targeted directly) and Poison ability(50% chance to apply poison, Poisoned units take 2 damage at the start of the round). As I said above, a really great card even at level 2.

Fifth position: Halfling Alchemist. Halfling Alchemist is not a card that I use often, due to having low health despite the Halving ability(The first time this unit hits a target, cut the target's attack to half). Equalizer makes this unit more powerful by getting more health.

Last position: Creeping Ooze. Same as Furious Chicken, except it has Slow that slows the opponent's speed by 1. It is placed last to absorb Sneak attacks.

Battle Link: HERE

Round 1

The enemy monsters were revealed and they went with Obsidian. It is good news for me because Immortalis counters Obsidian. They also went with a lot of Magic units. Doctor Blight was not a good news to my Cornealous, because it could apply Affliction to it, making it unable to heal.

After exchanging some blows, both Front units got poisoned and were taken down to 4~5 health.

Round 2

Round 2 started and their Chaos Agent was the first to be taken down, followed by my Venari Marksrat that buffed Cornealous. However, it got quickly Dispelled by the opponent. The halving ability was not really useful because Xenith Monk had only 1 melee attack.

Round 3

Round 3 started and their tank, Xenith Monk, was not in a good position. Even though it has heal ability like Cornealous, it was getting Thorn damage from it, and my Doctor Blight was able to apply both Poison and Affliction, while their Doctor Blight did neither of it.

Round 4

The balance have shifted to my side, after Cornealous taking down Xenith Monk, and their Doctor Blight yet failing to apply any negative buffs to my Cornealous, and Venari Spellsmith getting Halved to 1 magic attack.

Round 5~6

Their Doctor Blight fails to apply anything again at Round 5 while my team slowly deals damage to their lineup. At round 6, it finally manages to apply Affliction, but it seemed too late because Venari Spellsmith was already taken down and the next unit, Magi of Chaos was halved to 1 magic attack.

Round 7~14

Their Doctor Blight finally apply Poison, but it is still to late as Magi of Chaos was taken down and I still had Furious Chicken to tank the Poison. The game kept on going, and it ended at Round 14 where their Doctor Blight was taken down from Poison.

Thoughts about this battle

The RNG sided to me. If my Doctor Blight did not apply Poison and Affliction for a few rounds, and they did it, I could've lost because I would not have enough damage then the opponent. However, it seems like I was really lucky in this game.

Thanks!

Thanks to all the people that read this post!

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