Hi everyone, Welcome to my BATTLE MAGE SECRETS post. BATTLE MAGE SECRETS itself is a replacement for SHARE YOUR BATTLE CHALLENGE, where if SHARE YOUR BATTLE CHALLENGE takes 1 monster as its weekly theme while BATTLE MAGE SECRETS takes 1 Ruleset as its theme. And the theme for this week is...

TAKING SIDES

"Neutral Monsters may not be used in battles."

In the TAKING SIDES ruleset, players cannot use Neutral Monsters and can only use Monsters from certain elements. As we know, Neutral Monsters can be used in various types of elements (SPLINTER) to fill in the needed parts (if you don't find the appropriate monster in one of the elements).

There are various monsters that are very useful in NEUTRAL. The 2 cards that are my favorites in NEUTRAL monsters are Uraeus (only in GOLD league) and Venari Marksrat*.

The option to use more than one element (SPLINTER) besides using NEUTRAL CARDS is to rely on DRAGON SPLINTER. DRAGON SPLINTER itself does not have many cards compared to other SPLINTERs, so DRAGON SPLINTER has the advantage of being able to use one of the other additional elements.

RULESET & FORMATION

In addition to TAKING SIDES, the Ruleset in this battle is...

BORN AGAIN

BORN AGAIN is a Ruleset that gives all monsters in the battle arena an additional ability in the form of REBIRTH. REBIRTH itself is an ability similar to RESURRECT but applies to yourself. That is, if a monster with this REBIRTH ability is defeated, it can live once again with 1 HP. Unlike the RESURRECT ability which only applies to monsters other than itself.

The BORN AGAIN Ruleset can be utilized in various ways. One of them is by using MARTYR monsters. Usually when MARTYR monsters are defeated, nearby monsters will only receive 1 additional point in all their stats, then with the BORN AGAIN Ruleset, they will get 2 points (when MARTYR monsters are defeated again after coming back to life using REBIRTH).

My Line-Up

Cards	Ability	Reason
	- Give a reduction of 1 SPEED to All Enemies - Give a reduction of 1 ATTACK POWER to All Enemies Ranged monsters	The reason I used Quix the Devious I explained at the beginning, which is that I wanted more monsters to choose from. If we use DRAGON SPLINTER, we can choose 1 more element that we will need monsters for. And I used monsters from WATER SPLINTER because there are some important monsters there.
	MARTYR	AI wanted to use a monster MARTYR but Venari Marksrat cannot be used in the TAKING SIDES Ruleset. Finally, I decided to use a replacement that is also part of the DRAGON SPLINTER, namely Vruz. I will only utilize the MARTYR owned by Vruz in this battle.
	FLYING + VOID	The monster I most often use to receive "benefits" from MARTYR is Void Dragon. Although at level 2 it doesn't have PHASE ability, it still has FLYING ability which when combined with great SPEED will be able to avoid attacks from Melee and Ranged monsters that don't have FLYING ability.
	FLYING + SCATTER SHOT + BLAST	At level 2, Chaos Dragon doesn't have BLIND ability yet. But with the combination of SCATTER SHOT and BLAST ability that he has, Chaos Dragon can attack many opponent's monsters at once (As long as the opponent does not use Summoner which reduces the ATTACK POWER of Magic monsters or SILENCE ability).
	BLIND	As a replacement for Chaos Dragon which doesn't have BLIND ability, I used Giant Squid which is a monster from WATER SPLINTER. If in Gold League, I would rely on Flying Squid to use BLIND ability. It turns out that in Silver League, WATER SPLINTER already has a monster that has this ability.
	REFLECTION SHIELD + RESURRECTION	I was confused between using River Hellondale or Oshuur Constantia, because they both have RESURRECT abilities. But in the end, I chose Oshuur Constantia because River Hellondale doesn't have DISPEL ability at level 2 yet. And I only brought 1 Melee monster (Vruz*) in this battle (and even then I used it as a "sacrifice Pawn")
	RUST + DODGE	I use Noa the Just and place it in the last position to avoid attacks from opposing monsters that have SNEAK abilities. With its DODGE ability and high SPEED, it can increase the chance of avoiding attacks from opposing monsters with SNEAK abilities.

BATTLE START !!!

Luckily this time I used Quix the Devious, because unexpectedly the opponent had Yodin Zaku even though it was only level 1 (I didn't expect it because, in the opponent's last five battles, he didn't use Yodin Zaku at all).

The buff of additional ATTACK POWER for the opposing monster's Ranged was successfully thwarted by Quix the Devious and the opposing monster only received additional HEALTH and BLAST ability.

The opponent only gives me 1 debuff in the form of HEADWINDS (1 ATTACK POWER reduction to all ranged monsters)

Meanwhile, the debuffs I gave to the opponent were RUST (reduced 2 ARMOR), BLIND (decreased attack accuracy), and a reduction of 1 SPEED from Quix the Devious.

In the first round, attacks from Vruz, Void Dragon, Oshuur Constantia, and Giant Squid defeated Fire Caller for the first time and made Living Lava receive additional stats points. Meanwhile, the attacks from Chaos Dragon in this round went for Blood Maker and also hit Ferexian Hero and Ferexia General.

Ash Mirage tried to attack Vruz but his attack missed. Meanwhile, Blood Maker and Ferexia General* managed to hit their targets. Blood Maker aimed an attack at Chaos Dragon and hit Void Dragon and Giant Squid. Meanwhile, Ferexia General successfully attacked Void Dragon and hit Vruz and Chaos Dragon.

In the second round, Fire Caller was defeated for the last time by Void Dragon, and Living Lava again received additional stats points (as well as now, Living Lava and Ferexian Hero can attack). the attack from Chaos Dragon now aimed at Ferexian Hero and hit Blood Maker (defeated) and Living Lava*.

Ash Mirage defeated Vruz for the first time. Ferexia General failed to hit Void Dragon. Ferexian Hero and Living Lava defeated Vruz for the second and final time respectively.

In the third round, Void Dragon and Oshuur Constantia defeated Living Lava. Chaos Dragon now attacked Ferexia General and hit Blood Maker (losing for the last time) and Ash Mirage.

Ash Mirage, Ferexian Hero, and Living Lava failed to land attacks on Void Dragon.

In the fourth round, Living Lava was again defeated by Void Dragon. Chaos Dragon again attacked (and now defeated) Ferexia General and hit Ferexian Hero and Ash Mirage. Ferexian Hero was defeated twice in a row in one round by Oshuur Constantia and Giant Squid.

To see the entire battle, you can watch it at >> FULL BATTLE LINK
And this is the challenge link >> CHALLENGE LINK

Review of this battle

Luckily, I was able to win this battle despite having to fight Yodin Zaku. In addition, another cause of my victory was Ash Mirage's attacks that always failed to hit Void Dragon who had received a few extra stats points. Even though Ash Mirage actually has a closer SPEED difference distance to Void Dragon than the other opposing monsters. If only his two attacks managed to hit the Void Dragon, there was a possibility that the opponent could win the battle this time.

Perhaps all of this is due to the existence of Giant Squid who has BLIND ability. If I hadn't realized that Giant Squid had BLIND ability, I probably wouldn't have rented and used it this time.

That was the post BATTLE MAGE SECRETS for this time. Thank you for visiting and taking the time to read. See you in the next post....

_{Thanks to:}

• @splinterlands
• @thepeakstudio for Dividers