HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Welcome to week 41 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 turns even Legolas into an expert at hand to hand combat (not that he isn't already highly proficient in melee 🤣).

I present to you the ruleset — CLOSE RANGE ⚔🏹

The game's description of CLOSE RANGE is as follows: "Ranged attacks may be used in the first position in battles."

For any players still new to the game, one of the combat rules in Splinterlands is that Ranged units are UNABLE to attack from the very first position. This puts them at a huge disadvantage once their tank falls and they are forced to move to the front.

This ruleset completely removes this disadvantage and turns them all into extremely powerful units, able to attack from behind and even at the frontlines. Any ranged disadvantage can be said to be completely nullified with this one ability, enabling them to go toe to toe with the strongest melee units out there.

I will take advantage of this ruleset in my battle showcase today to show how one of my units in particular becomes a lot stronger than one would expect with CLOSE RANGE. Introducing YODIN ZAKU.

Yodin Zaku was a War Demon of the times before the Splintering so long ago. He was a hybrid child born of two warring races, the Efreet and the Bulludae, the Demons of War. But he never perished. His being was imprisoned in an ancient artifact that preserved his life, and now, nearly a thousand years after the Splintering, Yodin has opened his eyes and risen from his bondage.

☄️💥🔥From Splinterlands Lore on YODIN ZAKU☄️💥🔥

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Yodin Zaku is a Legendary card released during the Untamed expansion. It has definitely found it's place in many Fire decks given its availability and usefulness. It's effects on the battlefield are 🏹+1 RANGED ATTACK🏹, ❤️+1 HEALTH❤️ and the 💥BLAST💥 ability to all your units. It's summoning cost is, like all other Untamed Legendary Summoners, 7 🧪MANA🧪.

The stat buffs it gives are nothing out of the ordinary, so at first glance, he might look pretty bland. However, it is the BLAST ability that makes this Summoner one of the strongest in the game!

Blast allows any unit which attacks to also deal half it's damage to adjacent units. You can see then how Yodin has the ability to multiply your unit's damage 😱. The battle will very quickly turn against the opponent after a round of attacks wears down his backline.

I would venture to say that with the CLOSE RANGE ruleset in play, we are heavily incentivized to pick Ranged units. Add one and one together and I hope it's glaringly obvious by now that Yodin is a match made in heaven for this situation. Yodin is almost undoubtedly the master of all ranged units. He is like a cheat code which is able to give all ranged units much more firepower! There is no stopping the monstrous Yodin from devastating the entire battlefield! 🔥

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 CLOSE RANGE was in effect. My opponent used the Alpha/Beta edition Summoner Zintar Mortalis from the DEATH splinter as his main pick, while I used the Untamed edition Summoner Yodin Zaku from the FIRE splinter. 💀 VS 🔥

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

• His summoner level was higher than mine. My level 1 legendary Summoner is about the equivalent of a lv 2 Rare. Here he was fielding a level 4 Summoner!

• Needless to say, my units were also vastly out levelled. My opponent was able to field a max level team against what were mostly under levelled units from me. 😭

• We all know that in any battle, raw strength still plays a huge role, and the higher level your units are, the more raw stats they gain. That means before the fight has even started, the opponent already has a commanding lead! 😱

I was honestly expecting this to be a really bad matchup for me 😜🤣. This was a team who was of a superior level. Pound for pound, there was no way my units could match up against them. 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 CLOSE RANGE 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 Antoid Platoon 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 Lava Spider takes up the second slot. With his SNIPE ability, he will be able to deal even more damage with Yodin's BLAST. He will also take the place of the main tank as a sacrificial one hit backup tank.

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3rd CARD SLOT

The Goblin Fireballer occupies this slot. It's main role here to be a low cost ranged DPS for the team.

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4th CARD SLOT

The Fire Beetle occupies the 4th slot here. Like the unit before, it's main role here to be a low cost ranged DPS for the team. It's SNIPE ability once again also synergizes well with Yodin's BLAST.

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5th CARD SLOT

The Grenadier occupies this slot. Once again, like the unit before, it's main role here to be a low cost ranged DPS for the team. It even has the added advantage of dealing extra damage against units with no attack because of it's OPPRESS ability.

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6th CARD SLOT

The Spark Pixies takes the last slot. Once again, like the few units before, it's main role here to be a low cost ranged DPS for the team. It is also a very fast unit with FLYING, and hence can provide anti SNEAK protection.

I hope you're starting to see the pattern here in my team setup. 😉

⚔️🛡️Battle Action Report🛡️⚔️

As you can see, both of us fielded a healthy amount of Ranged units in our matchup. Our lineups weren't totally identical though. I went for just one melee main tank backed up by a whole bunch of low cost ranged units. My opponent went a different way with multiple backup tanks. 😱

💀DEATH💀 VS 🔥FIRE🔥

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My opponent used the Peaceful Giant as his tank in the 1st slot which was a VERY good choice. With his great tanking stats and low cost he makes a perfect tank that can easily take a hit, thus protecting the entire team even more effectively.

The Haunted Spirit occupied his 2nd slot. This unit is an amazing all rounder. With HEAL and MAGIC REFLECT and is also able to deal great DPS. This is one of his backup tanks.

In his 3rd slot was the Undead Priest. It is yet another backup tank but it has the WEAKEN ability to reduce all my units health, thus giving his army an even bigger advantage on the battlefield.

The rest of his slots were occupied by his 3 ranged dps units.

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 low mana game with 26 mana as the limit. The rulesets were CLOSE RANGE & EQUALIZER.

• The first round saw both our sides launch a flurry of attacks. Even with Equalizer boosting all units to a really high amount of health, the power of the BLAST ability from my Yodin shone through!

• After dust settled from the first round of attacks, the opponent's Peaceful Giant had fallen. Even I was surprised by that result.

• My own main tank was still pretty much unscratched, having negated most of the damage with SHIELD.

• Round 2 was even more devastating than the first. Both his 2 extra backup tanks, the Haunted Spirit and Undead Priest, fell to my attacks and the BLAST splash damage!

• Round 3 was the same story again with 2 more units taken out until only 1 lone ranged unit of his was left.

• Normally this would have been the end but CLOSE RANGE allowed him to land a blow from the frontlines to take out my main tank. However, the same rules also applied to me and my Lava Spider was able to hit back at him.

• 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 CLOSE RANGE ruleset to give me a slight advantage. I had already lost out horribly in terms of levels and stats. However it ended up being the entire reason for my win! By capitalizing on the ruleset, I was able to safely pick almost an entire team of devastating ranged attack units without fear that they would lose their potency if the main tank fell. Coupled with the additional firepower conferred upon my units by Yodin, the opponent simply could not handle all that firepower at all.

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 CLOSE RANGE 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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To any new players who wish to explore the world of Splinterlands, do feel free to sign up with my REFERRAL LINK 😊.

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