HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Welcome to week 37 of the new iteration of the Splinterlands Weekly Challenges (at least, if I haven't miscounted so far, yet. 😜).

For any old Hivers/Splinterland players who've just come back and are confused, fret not! Even with the name and format tweaks, right at it's core, battles are still the foundation of these posts.

In this week's edition of Battle Mage Secrets, we explore a ruleset that is all about defence. Even the icon itself says it all. An intimidating helmet with horns? It actually reminded me of a game I used to play before I came across Splinterlands. I'm positive this looks suspiciously like Clash of Clans/Clash Royale's Pekka! Did they take their inspiration there? Who knows? 😜

I present to you the ruleset — ARMORED UP 🪖🛡️

The game's description of ARMORED UP is as follows: "All Monsters have 2 Armor in addition to their normal Armor stat."

In case any completely new player is unaware, let us touch on the topic of the ARMOR stat in the game. Armor is basically an added amount of toughness in the game ON TOP OF a unit's Health Points. A unit will not take damage to it's HP until it's Armor has been wiped out. The only exception to this is for Magic Attacks and Poison which ignore Armor completely.

So there you have it. Armor is an incredibly effective way to enhance all units EHP. The most obvious way is to counter it with Magic attacks. It is obviously most effective against ALL kinds of Physical attacks, including both melee and ranged forms.

I will take advantage of this ruleset in my battle showcase today to show how two of my units in particular becomes a lot stronger than one would expect with ARMORED UP. Introducing LEGIONNAIRE ALVAR & IMMORTALIS.

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The Chaos Legionnaires are ruthless warriors and the Chaos Legion's elite fighting force. Alvar Veralyn was conscripted into their ranks at a young age after his family was slain and his world conquered by the Chaos Legion. The harsh conditioning that all conscripts receive nearly broke the child, but in the end, his old, easy way of life was subsumed by the desire for battle and conquest. Alvar dedicated himself to his training, intent on reshaping his mind and his body until he had no equal on the battlefield. Eventually, he rose to the rank of General and now stands as leader of the Chaos Legionnaires.

🛡️From Splinterlands Lore on LEGIONNAIRE ALVAR🛡️

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Legionnaire Alvar is a Legendary card released during the Chaos Legion expansion. At LEVEL 1, it has 2 ⚔️ATTACK⚔️ and 2 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 8 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 6 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the VOID ARMOR ability. It's summoning cost is 9 🧪MANA🧪.

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Immortalis, one of the most powerful battle mages of the era, was the leader of one such guild. His training regimen was brutal and demanding, and he required nothing less than absolute perfection from those he accepted into his ranks. The weak were soon weeded out, while the strong flourished and grew even stronger. Immortalis and his guild proved all but unbeatable, and spectators from across the Splinterlands packed the stands to watch him swagger into the arena and direct his guild members as they mercilessly crushed their opponents.

✨From Splinterlands Lore on IMMORTALIS✨

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Immortalis is a Legendary card released during the Chaos Legion expansion. It has definitely found it's place in many Earth decks given its availability and usefulness. It's effects on the battlefield are ❤️-1 HEALTH❤️ and the VOID & SHATTER ability to all your units. It's summoning cost is, like all other Chaos Legion Legendary Summoners, 6 🧪MANA🧪.

I hope all readers are able to see the key similarities these 2 units have between them.

One is a unit which relies completely on it's high armor stat, along with an ability that removes armor's weakness against magic attacks.

The other is a summoner whose ability is to counter magic units and make short work of any armor they might have with an ability that destroys armor.

Combined together, these 2 units are a fearsome anti magic combo. I've anticipated that my opponents will take advantage of the ARMORED UP ruleset by going for the obvious play here in fielding a magic heavy team. What better way is there to counter that than with my own anti magic team? And not just that, I will also use the armor stat against them! 😈

This could make all the difference if the battle comes down to the wire where the slightest advantage is the fine line between victory or defeat! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 This is definitely what I'd consider game changing! 😱😱😱

⚔️🛡️My Battle Showcase🛡️⚔️

Let me present a battle I fought recently in which the ruleset ARMORED UP was in effect. My opponent used the Chaos Legion Summoner Obsidian from the EARTH splinter as his main pick, while I also used the EARTH splinter, albeit with the Summoner Immortalis instead. 🌱 VS 🌱

At first glance, it would seem like I was at a distinct disadvantage.

• His level was straight up higher than mine significantly.

• With a level 4 Rare Summoner and the units at similar levels, he easily had DOUBLE the level as compared to my level 1 Legendary Summoner which was probably equivalent to that of a level 2 Rare.

• He fielded an all magic team which would render any additional armour useless. 😭

• A setup like this would naturally disadvantage me as I picked almost a full physical dps team. 😭

I was honestly expecting this to be a really bad matchup for me 😜🤣. This was a magic team whose damage would completely bypass all my units armour and rip them to shreds? Would I be able to turn the tide of battle against such an opponent then? Victory or defeat would lie in the small details.

I would say that the ruleset ARMORED UP was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. The advantage it gave my team resulted in me outlasting my opponent in this battle. It definitely provided the edge that I needed to overcome my opponent.

This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆

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LINK TO MY FIGHT

👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

1st CARD SLOT

The Legionnaire Alvar is chosen for this slot. He plays the role of the Main tank perfectly with his great stats. This allows all other units to be kept safe until he is taken down.

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2nd CARD SLOT

The Bramble Pixie takes up the second slot. With his REACH ability, he is able to land his melee attacks even from this position. He will also take the place of the main tank as a backup tank too.

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3rd CARD SLOT

The Goblin Thief occupies this slot. It's main role here be as an assassin DPS unit taking out the backline units with it's SNEAK ability.

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4th CARD SLOT

The Scavo Hireling occupies the 4th slot here. It's role is as a healer of sorts with it's REPAIR ability.

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5th CARD SLOT

The Mushroom Seer occupies this slot. It's role is as an anti magic unit with it's SILENCE ability. This will reduce all enemy magic damage across the board.

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6th CARD SLOT

The Mitica Headhunter takes the last slot. This is ranged unit with extremely fast attack speeds and high DPS. His job is purely as a DPS unit.

⚔️🛡️Battle Action Report🛡️⚔️

As you can see, even though we BOTH picked the EARTH splinter, both of us fielded very different units in our matchup. I went for an all physical DPS team (with an armoured main tank) as my focus in my summoner choice. My opponent went the opposite way with a magic based team with his accompanying summoner choice reinforcing that too. 😱

🌱EARTH🌱 VS 🌱EARTH🌱

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My opponent used the Unicorn Mustang as his tank in the 1st and slot which was a VERY good choice. With his great tanking stats and the VOID ability, he makes a perfect tank that is also anti magic, thus protecting the entire team even more effectively.

The Regal Peryton occupied his 2nd slot. With it's FLYING ability and high SPEED giving it a really good chance of evading attacks, this is another good choice.

In his 3rd slot was the Goblin Psychic! It's TANK HEAL and AFFLICTION abilities will keep his main tank healed, while preventing the opponent from doing the same thing.

This was followed by the Mycelic Slipspawn in his 4th slot which would play the role of a TAUNT Tank too.

His 5th slot was yet another healer type unit in the form of the Scavo Hireling with it's REPAIR ability restoring units Armor.

His last unit was the Venari Spellsmith. Yet another magic unit, it can also DISPEL any buffs on units it hits.

All in all, I would say that the opponent picked a really strong team.

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The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was a pretty high mana game with 42 mana as the limit. The rulesets were ARMORED UP.

• The first round saw both our sides launch a flurry of attacks. With both our teams having such great tanks, this round was pretty uneventful.

• Round 2 was no longer that friendly. I managed to take out his Mycelic Slipspawn as it fell to the onslaught of attacks. It's armour was of no help as my Immortalis with his RUST ability ensure that my units would destroy all armour with just 1 hit. 💪

• Round 3 saw his Unicorn Mustang down. Even though his healers tried their best to keep up it's health and armour, it could not withstand my sustained DPS.

• The game was wildly in my favour by now as the opponent had taken far too much battle losses to be able to launch any response against me. 😈

• Subsequent rounds was just a matter of me killing off more and more units as their tanks had all but fallen.

• Amazingly, I even ended the battle with ZERO damage taken to my health pool! The only thing the opponent managed to do to me after all those attacks was scratch some armour! 🤣

• It was all over for the opponent now as I eventually mopped up his remaining units. 💀💀💀

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the ARMORED UP ruleset to possibly give my team a slight advantage. However it ended up being the entire reason for my win! The opponent was simply unable to cope with the HUGE amount of armour that my Legionnaire Alvar had combined with his VOID ARMOR ability and REPAIR. 🤣

Well as you can see here in this GIF of my battle, the results were pretty good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

This was truly an eye opener! 😁🏆

Slowly, but surely, I wore down the opponent's team and the match ended up with me inflicting a crushing defeat. My team selection proved to be the edge I needed to eventually overpower my opponent. 💪🏻

🔮🔮🔮Hindsight is 20/20🔮🔮🔮

Would I have done anything differently? 🤔 This might have seemed like a disadvantage at the start but I ended up winning handily. IF I had to use the same cards again, there would be no better lineup than what I had already used for the match. Any other combination MIGHT have resulted in a loss for me. I'm really satisfied with the results against such a worthy opponent. 🏆🥇

💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

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I definitely can appreciate the ruleset ARMORED UP and how it changes the dynamics of usual gameplay. This is one of those rulesets which can be turned into a huge advantage if surrounded with the proper team. The role it brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

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