Hello Guys!

Yeeeey it's not too long since my last post, Are You Sure Will Win with 2 Gladius? Splinterlands Amazing Battle! and I'm back again for the Splinterlands Secret Mage Weekly Challenge. This week's theme is Armored Up 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 this Armored Up ruleset.

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 battles on Diamond 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: Armored Up

Description: All monsters get a +2 armor buff at the beginning of the game.

Battle Rulesets

The rulesets in this battle are:

• Armored Up (All monsters get a +2 armor buff at the beginning of the game)
• Mana Capacity 22
• Active Element Fire, Water, Life and Death

Line Up and Strategy

This is a low mana battle where the possibility of monsters to be used is mostly also a low mana monster that has relatively small HP. I've shared some strategies that can be applied to the Armored Up rulesets in my previous post. So I will also use that strategy in this battle.

I chose a summoner who also gave an Armor buff, and if you look at the active Element, then Grandmaster Rathe and Kelya Frendul, and Lux Vega are the right choices. However, since I don't have Kelya Frendul or Lux Vega, I used Grandmaster Rathe. The order of monster formation and the strategy of each monster that I recovered will be explained in the table below:

Monster	Position	Abilities	Strategy
Grandmaster Rathe	Summoner	+1 Armor, Void Armor, Amplify	Grandmaster Rathe is the best Summoner on this ruleset because it will strengthen the defense not only from Melee and Range attacks, but also from Magic attacks. This is because of the Void Armor buff possessed. In addition, Summoner's Amplify ability is also very useful if we use monsters that have attack reversals such as reflect magic, Return Fire, and Thorn.
Pelacor Conjurer	First (Tank)	Flying, Reflect Magic, Devine Shield, Phase	Pelacor Conjurer as a low mana non damage tank. It is a low favorite tank, because it has the ability to make defense also difficult to penetrate.
Celestial Harpy	Second (Attacker)	Flying, Opportunity, True Srike	Celestial Harpy in the second position as an attacker because it is an Opportunity monster also has a True Strike ability whose attack will not miss. This is one of the lows where monsters are most used by players
Uraeus	Third (Attacker)	Sneak, Poison	In third place is another attaker, Uraeus who is a Sneak Monster who also has poison. Poisons are especially useful in Armored Up rulesets because poisons hitting a target will reduce 2 HP in each round. This remains true even if the target still has Armor.
Venari Crystalsmith	Fourth (Attacker, Support)	Thank Heal, Dispell	Venari Crystalsmith who has the Thank Heal ability is a support in this battle, which will restore the monster's HP in the first position. In addition, this monster also as an attacker has 3 attack ranges and great speed. If the monster's Dispell attack hits the target then all the positive thunder received will be lost. It is also very useful.
Doctor Blight	Fifth (Attacker)	Affliction, Camouflage, Poison, Scavenger	Doctor Blight with Poison ability is also the Core in this battle. It could be this monster that will determine victory. This is because this monster has some very useful abiity. Affliction that hits the target makes the target no longer able to heal, and Scavenger ability that will increase HP every time another monster dies. Camouflage ability makes this monster invisible to Snipe, Sneak, and Opportunity monsters.
Chaos Agent	Last (Tank)	Dodge, Phase, Backfire	I put Chaos Agent in the last position as a tank from Sneak monster, because it does not rule out the possibility of the opponent using a rear attack strategy. So other monster attackers can stay protected with this Chaos Agent. Even though this is a non-damage monster that has mana 1, so on a lavel up like this it will be very annoying. Dodge, and Phase abilities increase the chance of avoiding enemy attacks, as well as Backfire abilities that will return the opponent's attack if the attack misses.

The opponent uses the Lux Vega summoner which has +1Speed, +1Armor and +1 Health abilities. This is a Neutral Summoner that can be combined with all elements. In this battle, the opponent combines with the Life element. This will be a little troublesome because obviously the speed that the opponent has will be higher because I don't use monsters that give buffs to increase speed or reduce speed.

Just like my formation, the tanks that the opponent picked were Pelacor Conjurer, followed by Shinkai Harverter in second place, Time Mage who had Slow and Rust bebuff in the second position, Celestial Harpy in fourth, Venari Crystalsmith in fifth, and Chaos agent in last place. The formation and strategy of the opponent look similar to mine.

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 went quite tough and required a long round because the strength of the two teams was evenly matched. Even the victory that is obtained is also very slim. I think it's very exciting, and it makes me very enthusiastic. And sure enough, as you can guess from the thumbnail of this post, Doctor Blight is a savior, because of the poison he has. Even though obviously the speed of my monsters is inferior to the opponent's monsters, and this makes me have to accept the barrage of attacks first and then can reply to the opponent's attacks.

As usual, the battle begins with buffs and party buffs from all summoners and monsters. Time Mage is the first monster to have the opportunity to attack because of its highest speed among other monsters. Unfortunately, his attack was like suicide because of Pelacor Conjurer's Reflect Magic and Amplify. There were several miss attacks in this first round, and no monsters died until the first round ended.

The second round begins with Time mage who dies because his magic attack hits a monster with Reflect magic. Several miss attacks occurred, one of which was when my Uraeus failed to hit Chaos Agent and the attack turned to hit Uraeus again. In addition, Doctor Blight's Poison hits Pelacor Conjurer at the end of this second round.

My Pelacor Conjurer is on the third round after receiving back-to-back attacks from Venari Crystalsmith, Shinkai Harverter, and Celestial Harpy. On the opposing side, the opponent's Chaos Agent also died due to Uraeus' attack. At the end of this round, Docter Blight's Affliction hit the opponent's Pelacor Conjurer, so that the Pelacor Conjurer could no longer be healed by Venari Crystalsmith.

My celestial Harpy died in this fourth round, and was followed by the death of Pelacor Conjurer. Doctor Blight's poison hits Shinkai Harverter at the end of this fourth round. Now the opponent still has 3 monsters left and I have 4 monsters.

I was finally able to win this battle in round 11 thanks to Doctor Blight who has Poison abilities and Scavenger. Besides Doctor Blight, there is another monster, Chaos Agent, that is not touched by the opponent's attack because the opponent does not have it Sneak monsters.

The final result of this battle is solid you can see in the picture below.

STRATEGY DISCUSSION

My strategy worked very well in this battle, even though it took a long round. Doctor Blight's Poison is really very helpful in this battle. Even though I actually didn't benefit from the difference in speed that made me have to accept a lot of attacks first and then be able to fight. Maybe I would lose if I didn't have Doctor Blight by my side.

There are several strategies in utilizing Armored Up rulesets, including:

• Maximizing the use of Magic monsters that can directly stab Health monsters, so Armored Up doesn't mean much.
• Utilizing Poison Monster, where Poison who hits the target can immediately reduce 2 Health in each round, without being affected by Armor.
• Summoners who also have buffs add Armor, such as Grandmaster Rathe is the best Summoner for these rulesets.

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