HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Welcome to week 42 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, it is all about countering... spells? When I first heard of this ruleset in my first few days of Splinterlands, the initial image which came to my mind was the iconic Magic The Gathering card, Counterspell. This was one of my favourite cards back when I first started MTG all those decades ago. So it's no real surprise that I would encounter this term in a web3 based card game too right?

The COUNTERSPELL ruleset in Splinterlands is slightly different though. Sure, it counters spells, but not in the way most MTG vets would have expected.

No matter! I present to you the ruleset — COUNTERSPELL ❌🪄🧙🏻‍♂️

The game's description of COUNTERSPELL is as follows: "All Monsters have the Magic Reflect ability."

I wouldn't say there is any countering of spells per se, but it's a more direct form of countering magic. In this case, magic attacks. This ruleset basically turns all magic damage units against themselves. A portion of all magic damage dealt will be returned in kind. This makes it very dangerous to field any magic damage units for fear that you will end up taking far more damage and die prematurely.

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 COUNTERSPELL. Introducing CABALIST.

When High Magus Obin Invaras betrayed the great council and joined with Silus, it split the order in two and caused a rift that might never mend. Obin cast out the temporal masters that remained loyal to the council and the Splinterlands, banishing them from the Temple of Time. Those that sided with the High Magus became known as anachron cabalists.
These cabalists expanded their studies to find new and diabolical means to bend time to their will. They can be a great boon on the fields of battle. However, they are incredibly vulnerable when working their magic, and a dead wizard is no use to anyone..

🪞🪄From Splinterlands Lore on CABALIST🪞🪄

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The Cabalist is a Rare card released during the Riftwatchers expansion. At LEVEL 1, it has 2 ⚔️MAGIC ATTACK⚔️ and 2 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 0 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 5 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the AMPLIFY ability. It's summoning cost is 7 🧪MANA🧪.

It might seem counter intuitive to be using a magic card, especially when I previously mentioned that when facing the COUNTERSPELL ruleset which grants REFLECT MAGIC DAMAGE to everyone, it is best to avoid magic altogether.

At first glance, the Cabalist might seem like a terrible choice, with such low stats too! Coupled with it's magic disadvantage, one would be forgiven for thinking I had completely botched the entire game.

However, what is often overlooked is the Cabalist's AMPLIFY ability. It DOUBLES the amount of damage reflected back. That means in a magic VS magic scenario, it's all about who takes more damage in return and dies from their self inflicted damage first!

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 COUNTERSPELL was in effect. My opponent used the Untamed edition Summoner Yodin Zaku from the FIRE splinter as his main pick, while I used the Chaos Legion edition Summoner Thaddius Brood from the DEATH splinter. 🔥 VS 💀

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

• His summoner level was higher than mine. My level 3 rare Summoner was simply completely out levelled by his level 2 Legendary 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 COUNTERSPELL 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 Djinn Muirat is chosen for this slot. He plays the role of the Main tank perfectly with his great stats. His Void Armor will also allow him to have much longer staying power on the battlefield. This allows all other units to be kept safe until he is taken down.

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2nd CARD SLOT

The Phantom Soldier takes up the second slot. With his high health, he is able to handle a huge chunk of damage. This is perfect in a battle of attrition. 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 Magic Necrosi occupies this slot. It's main role here to be a SNIPE ranged DPS for the team. Hopefully, he is able to take out some weak unprotected units.

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4th CARD SLOT

The Life Sapper occupies the 4th slot here. He is here mainly because of like LIFE LEECH ability. Every damage dealt will allow him to leech some life, which works to counter the damage from REFLECT MAGIC.

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5th CARD SLOT

The Venari Bonesmith occupies this slot. Once again, like the unit before, it's main role here because of like LIFE LEECH ability. Every damage dealt will allow him to leech some life, which works to counter the damage from REFLECT MAGIC.

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6th CARD SLOT

The Cabalist takes the last slot. This card is the lynchpin of the entire strategy to get an advantage against my opponent in a magic VS magic battle. As long as my opponent takes more damage than I do, I will have a huge advantage in the battle.

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 ALL Magic units in our matchup. Thanks to the secondary ruleset being WANDS OUT, only Magic units are allowed. This meant it will be a really damaging battle as both sides strive to last the longest as our damage is turned against ourselves! 😱

🔥FIRE🔥 VS 💀DEATH💀

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My opponent used the legendary unit Sorriel the Bale as his tank in the 1st slot which was a VERY good choice. With his DOUBLESTRIKE allowing him to do double the amount of damage, his strategy was probably to burn me down ASAP.

The Elemental Phoenix occupied his 2nd slot. This unit is an amazing all rounder. With great speed and health stats, with strong damage and the FLYING ability to boot, this is truly a fearsome card.

In his 3rd slot was the Naga Fire Wizard. It is yet another tough unit that packs a punch. Fortunately, it's SHIELD ability is pretty much pointless in this all magic battle.

His 4th slot contained the Djinn Apprentice. This unit has no special abilities, but it packs a real punch too!

Finally, his 5th and last slot is occupied by the Efreet Elder. With it's LAST STAND ability, he basically enrages if the battle should get to a point where it is the last man standing.

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 high mana game with 42 mana as the limit. The rulesets were WANDS OUT & COUNTERPSPELL.

• The first round saw both our sides launch a flurry of attacks. And boy was it a spectacular amount of fireworks, so to speak. 🤣

• After dust settled from the first round of attacks, the only units left standing in the opponent's army was his Naga Soldier and Efreet Elder. Even I was surprised by that result.

• I had been so fearful of his extremely over levelled units as compared to mine, and his powerful Yodin. That amount of raw damage would have killed me outright in any normal battle.

• However, with the ruleset COUNTERPSELL and my Cabalist's AMPLIFY, all that extra firepower he brought to the battlefield backfired spectacularly on his army.

• Every bit of damage, including the splash damage from BLAST, was returned to him 2 fold! This meant his units were taking 4 times the damage in return! (BLAST+AMPLIFY+COUNTERSPELL) 😱

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

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

• The 2nd round saw his 2 units die once again to my AMPLIFIED REFLECT DAMAGE.

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the COUNTERSPELL 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 an entire team meant to just reflect everything back with a vengeance. Coupled with the additional reflect damage from AMPLIFY conferred upon my units by the Cabalist, 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 COUNTERSPELL 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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