The battle challenge ruleset this week is Melee Mayhem. In this ruleset, Melee attack monsters can attack from any position. Normally they can only attack from first position.
The battle I chose to showcase is a 15 mana battle with the Melee Mayhem and Up Close and Personal rulesets. Water and Life were the two splinters available to play.
Here is a link to the battle:
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_65366139ceca762f8284c56299549cea
I chose the Water splinter and the Kelya Frendul summoner which will provide one armor for each of my monsters. Only Melee attack monsters are allowed in this battle and they will all potentially be able to attack my first position monster. So I chose a mini-tank with an incredible amount of speed. A speed of 7 plus the Flying ability which means my opponent will have an 85% chance of missing. Behind my tank I placed a monster with a Melee attack of 3. Behind that I placed a Sneak attack monster which will still target the last card despite the ruleset. Finally, I filled out my lineup with a couple very low mana cards.
Start of Battle / Round 1
My opponent chose the Life splinter. They have one monster with the Shield ability and one Sneak attack monster.
Round 2
During the first round, my tank took only one hit and is doing well. I defeated my opponent’s monsters in first and last position
Round 3
After the second round, it is clear that the speed of my mini-tank is paying off. It is still at full health.
Round 4
After the third round this match is nearly finished.
Overall my strategy worked for this match. My first position monster simply had too much speed and my opponent got very few hits on it. In order to beat me my opponent’s best chance would have been to come with a strong sneak attack.
This was an interesting combination of rulesets. Usually in the Melee Mayhem ruleset I like to surprise my opponent by going with a strong Magic attack. The idea being that my opponent’s attention will be on preparing for Melee attacks on their tank. So they will use abilities like Shield, Thorns, and Retaliate which means their monsters may be vulnerable to Magic attacks. Of course in this battle that was not an option since only Melee monsters were allowed.