_{Thumbnail for the weekly challenge provided by @splinterlands}

Ahoy, welcome to my Battle Mage Secrets post.

This week the featured ruleset is Equalizer. When the Equalizer ruleset is active all Monsters gain the same amount of Health equal to the highest base Health of a Monster on either team. So it can be beneficial to just play strong Monsters with low base Health and let your opponent set the Health for all your Monsters. If you want to rely on Healing for example then it might be good to be the one to choose the Health so you can try to Heal as much as possible. Monsters with low Health that have a lot of Armor can potentially benefit a lot from this Ruleset because their low Health will be made Equal to that of the highest Health. You can still have a difference in Health with your opponent if you have a Summoner/Monster that buffs your Monster's Health or lowers the opponent's Health.

You can recognise the ruleset with this icon.

The battle I'm sharing with you for this week's challenge is from the Poseidar Wild Silver Invitational Tournament recently. It was a battle against the account monsterstamer.

Here is a picture of our initial lineup.

Battle Rules

This was a battle with a 99 Mana Cap. The highest possible amount for Ranked and Tournament battles. Only the Death Element was available here so we were quite limited in our Summoner choices. The battle had 3 rulesets which were:

• Equalizer: The initial Health of all Monsters is equal to that of the Monster on either team with the highest base Health.
• Born Again: All Monsters have the Rebirth ability.
• Target Practice: All Ranged and Magic attack Monsters have the Snipe ability.

Here is a link to the battle if you want to check it out: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sm_LXKpIEYwFWdHIctzlHee&ref=athunderstruck

Battle Lineup

Alright this is a battle with only the Death Element available, which limits the options. BUT it is a Wild mode battle, so it does mean that ALL the Death Summoner are available. There are some interesting choices for Debuffs with the Summoners. Since there is the ruleset that all Ranged and Magic attackers get the Snipe ability it could be good to use Contessa or Thaddius to debuff Ranged or Magic. However I decide to go with Lux Vega, a Neutral Summoner. She gives an extra Health to my whole Team, provides +1 Speed and also +1 Armour. With the Born Again ruleset this Armour also comes back when a Monster on my team dies which allows it to tank a Ranged hit. I'm hoping this is better than a Ranged or Magic debuff.

Up front I bring the Haunted Spirit, it has the Heal ability so it's going to be a decent frontline tank as it can sustain itself for a while.

Then I have Lord Arianthus, he has the Shield and the Void abilities which makes him take half damage from Physical and Magic damage. With all Ranged and Magic attackers getting the Snipe ability he will do really well being in this position as he can take quite some hits.

I have Skok Duskblight up next, he has Weapons Training so he's giving Magic attack to Lord Arianthus. He also gives it to the Monster on his other side if it doesn't have an attack.

Up next I pick Clockwork Aide. Earlier I mentioned low Health Monsters with high Armour can be great picks with the Equalizer ruleset and Clockwork Aide is such an example. Having 1 Health and 8 Armour at level 2. So that Equalizer ruleset is huuuuge for it. Clockwork Aide also gets some Magic attack from Skok Duskblight.

Let's go for more Weapons Training! I bring Zyriel up next in my team. She has 3 Ranged attack and Weapons Training so she is giving 3 Ranged attack to Clockwork Aide.

Last but not least I bring Phantom Soldier. He has the Silence ability so that way I at least do have a debuff. I do have to put him all the way in the back though otherwise my Weapons Training lineups won't work if he's in between.

Battle Analysis

My opponent goes for Waka Spiritblade as their Summoner. Which gives all his units the Poison ability. That's a potentially good play as it could help him deal some nice additional damage.

Our teams are very different, we only have 1 Monster the same. The Phantom Soldier with the Silence ability for the Magic debuff. For Debuffs my opponent also brought Octopider with the Demoralize ability to reduce my Melee damage.

Normally my Lord Arianthus, Skok Duskblight and Clockword Aide would have 2 Magic attack, but because of the Silence from my opponent's Phantom Soldier their Magic attack got reduce to 1.

Round 1

Phantom Soldier and Skok Duskblight hit Drybone Raider for 3 Magic damage to its Health.
Zyriel also attacks Drybone Raider but her Ranged hit just destroys the Armour.
Octopider attacks my Lord Arianthus to destroy his Armour.
Haunted Spirit hits 1 against the Armour on Goblin Mech.
Lord Arianthus hits Drybone Raider for 1 damage.
Barashukor hits my Lord Arianthus for 2 damage and lands a Poison, taking 2 damage from Magic Reflect too.
Phantom Soldier hits my Lord Arianthus for 1 damage and takes 1 damage from Magic Reflect.
Clockword Aide hits Drybone Raider for 4 damage total (1 Magic, 3 Ranged).
Sand Worm tries to attack my Phantom Soldier but misses.
Goblin Mech hits my Haunted Spirit for a whopping 5 damage!
Drybone Raider misses 1 Ranged hit against my Lord Arianthus, then attacks again because of Dual Strike and deals 1 damage.

That's the end of the round. So here's a screenshot of how our lineups look now.

Round 2

Lord Arianthus takes 2 damage from Poison at the start of the round.
Phantom Soldier kills Drybone Raider. Who does come back to life because of the Born Again ruleset.
Skok Duskblight immediately kills the Drybone Raider again with its Magic damage against her.
Zyriel hits my opponents Phantom Soldier for 3 damage and because she hits its Health she also Life Leeches and gains +2 Health.
Octopider hits Lord Arianthus for 2 damage.
Haunted Spirit heals itself for 3 Health and attacks Goblin Mech dealing 1 damage to its Armour.
Lord Arianthus deals 1 damage to my opponents' Phantom Soldier.
Barashkukor attacks Lord Arianthus for 2 damage and kills it. Taking 2 damage from Magic Reflect. Lord Arianthus does come back to life now because of the Born Again ruleset.
Their Phantom Soldier attacks Lord Arianthus now straight to the Health with its Magic attack so Lord Arianthus immediately dies again. But before he dies he does deal 1 Magic Reflect damage back to Phantom Soldier.
Clockword Aide attacks their Phantom Soldier with the Magic and Ranged attacks for 4 damage total, killing their Phantom Soldier. Which gets Resurrected due to Born Again.
Sand Worm manages to attack my Phantom Soldier, but its 6 damage is stopped by that 1 Armour he has thanks to Lux Vega. So just the Armour gets broken.
Goblin Mech hits my Haunted Spirit for 5 damage again, this time landing Poison too so Haunted Spirit will take damage in the next round.

This round is now over, here's a screenshot of our currently lineup.

Round 3

Haunted Spirit takes 2 damage from Poison at the start of the round, bringing its Health down to 2.
My Phantom Soldier attacks my opponents Phantom Soldier, killing it for good as it has already been Resurrected.
That removes the Silence ability from my opponent's side of the battle, so my Skok Duskblight and Clockword Aide go from 1 Magic attack to 2 Magic attack.
Skok Duskblight hits Octopider for 2 damage.
Zyriel hits Octopider for 3 damage and Life Leeches 2 making her Health go to 14.
Octopider hits and destroys the Armour on my Skok Duskblight.
Haunted Spirit heals itself for 3 Health and deals 1 damage to the Armour on Goblin Mech.
Barashkukor hits Skok Duskblight for 4 damage and lands Poison on it.
Clockword Aide uses its Magic and Ranged attack combo to deal 5 damage to Octopider and kill it.
Octopider gets Resurrected from Born Again.
Sand Worm hits my Phantom Soldier again dealing that massive 6 damage to its Health.
Goblin Mech tries to attack my Phantom Spirit but misses! What a crazy miss with just 1 Speed difference.
That ends the round.

Here is a picture of what our teams look like now.

Round 4

Haunted Spirit and Skok Duskblight both take 2 damage from Poison at the start of the round.
My Phantom Soldier attacks and kills Octopider for good.
Skok Duskblight attacks Barashkukor for 2 damage to its Health.
Zyriel attacks Barashkukor and destroys its Armour.
Haunted Spirit heals itself for 3 Health and hits for 2 damage against Goblin Mech's Armour.
Barashkukor attacks and kills Skok Duskblight.
Skok Duskblight gets Resurrected from the Born Again ruleset.
Clockword Aide uses its Magic and Ranged attack combo to kill Barashkuror.
Barashkuror gets Resurrected from the Born Again ruleset.
Goblin Mech attacks Haunted Spirit for 5 damage, bringing it down to 1 Health.
Sand Worm hits my Phantom Soldier, killing it.
Phantom Soldier gets Resurrected from the Born Again ruleset.

That's the end of the round. Here's what our teams look like now.

Round 5

Haunted Spirit takes 2 damage from Poison at the start of the round and dies.
Haunted Spirit does get Resurrected here from the Born Again ruleset.
Phantom Soldier kills the Barashkukor for good.
Now that my opponent only has Melee attack Monsters left, my Magic and Ranged attacks will go to the frontline.
Skosk Duskblight attacks Goblin Mech for 2 damage to its Health.
Zyriel hits and breaks the Armour on Goblin Mech.
Haunted Spirit heals itself for 3 Health and attacks Goblin Mech for 2 damage.
Clockwork Aide uses its combined Magic and Ranged attacks to kill Goblin Mech.
Goblin Mech gets Resurrected from the Born Again ruleset.
Sand Worm attacks my Phantom Soldier and hits it, due to the earlier Resurrected and it having its 1 Armour back it can only destroy the Armour now. But it did land Poison! So my Phantom Soldier is about to die again from that.

That wraps up the round. Here is our current lineup.

Round 6

Phantom Soldier takes 2 Poison damage at the start of the round and dies for good.
Skok Duskblight attacks Goblin Mech with its Magic damage straight to the Health to kill it for good.
Zyriel attacks Sand Worm for 3 damage and Life Leeches 2 making her Health go to 16.
Haunted Spirit heals itself for 3 Health and attacks Sand Worm for 2 damage.
Clockword Aide uses its combined Magic and Ranged attacks to kill Sand Worm.
Sand Worm gets Resurrected from the Born Again ruleset.

That's the end of the round though.

From here you can see it's clearly GG. As my Skok Duskblight will kill the Sand Worm again as soon as round 7 starts. GG!

Was My Strategy Successful?

Yeah this was a good strategy for sure. The additional Armour from Lux Vega hasn't helped my Lord Arianthus when he got Resurrected, but it did help my Phantom Soldier kinda. Well tbh also not so much as it got Poisoned when Sand Worm hit it. But if it didn't get Poisoned it would've helped it too.
The combination of 2 Weapons Trainings to give Magic damage to Lord Arianthus and Clockword Aide and Ranged attack to Clockword Aide was great for a lot of additional damage.
Lord Arianthus definitely worked well in the 2nd position to take less damage.
Also the extra Speed from Lux Vega and Clockword Aide made sure that a lot of my Monsters attacked pretty fast to help take out my opponents.

Conclusion

That miss from Goblin Mech against Haunted Spirit was quite crazy! I'm familiar with it though it often happened to me too where I would miss. In the end it doesn't really matter though as Haunted Spirit would've come back to life anyway from Born Again. And if Haunted Spirit did die, get resurrected and die again, at that point my team already killed so many of my opponents Monsters that I should still have easily gotten the win!

I found this a very fun battle!

My opponent had an interesting play too with the Waka Spiritblade to add Poison. It definitely helped him to take out some of my Monsters.

That's it for my Battle Mage Secrets challenge this week. Thank you for reading!

If you haven't signed up for Splinterlands yet and want to check it out, you can do so with my referral link at: https://splinterlands.com?ref=athunderstruck