In the fight I chose to feature this week, we have not only the SHADES OF GREY ruleset but also Fire and Regret, limiting a lot of the available and viable monsters to choose from since range won't generally be an option, and Armored UP!.

First, the Rules of the Encounter: 🚩

Fire and Regret: 🏹

All monsters have the Return Fire ability. This is a very annoying ruleset because it limits the card pool significantly. When this ruleset is present, generally using range monsters is not an option.

Armored UP!: 🗿

All Monsters Have 2 Armor In Addition To Their Normal Armor Stat.
This is a very interesting ruleset and its one of the reasons why I choose the Immortalis summoner.

Now lets take a look at what the fight looks at first glance 👀:

Next, let's take a quick look at the lineups 👀:

My Lineup: 🥇

	Immortalis: Earth. Immortalis is one of the best classic summoners released in the Chaos Legion expansion and is the main reason I ended up winning the fight. This summoner provides the Shatter and Void ability to your units. It also reduces the enemy's health by 1.
	Mantaroth: This is one of the best tanks in the game right now. Armored Strike and Blast make for a very good offensive kit while Shield provides enough defense. If we add Void from Immortalis we have the perfect tank. Repair is also very useful.
	Junker: This unit is a decent off-tank/support. Repair comes in very handy in an Armored UP! matchup and goes really well with Mantaroth. Double repair can make a diference.
	Magi of Chaos: Pure magic damage dealer. It's generally weak and slow, but if you can protect it, it can deal a lot of damage to your enemies.
	Nalara Geinek: This card is pretty much a debuffer. It works because it has Stun that prevents the enemy from attacking for 1 turn and Silence, which helps you deal with magic damage dealers.
	Runi: Runi hasn't always been the best unit around. It's generally too slow to make an impact, but in a Neutral matchup, it is generally a good choice.
	Dr. Blight: Since it was released, Dr. Blight has been a beast in taking down small and big enemies alike. He also debuffs the enemy with -1 health, which synergizes with the -1 health coming from Immortalis. This guy is a no-brainer in most Neutral matchups.

Enemy Lineup 🥈:

As you can see, the enemy chose a very strong team for this kind of ruleset. Cryptic has been one of the best summoners released so far in the Rebellion set. Objectively, it's not the strongest around, but it fits really well in the meta. In fact, by picking this summoner, the enemy effectively countered my entire tank strategy. As I pointed out before, using Mantaroth with Immortalis gives us a strong tank with Repair, Shield, and Void. However, since the enemy picked Cryptic, they can remove both of my tank’s defensive abilities, making it a very squishy unit that wouldn't last many turns.

Battle Highlights 🎮:

☢️Turn 1: The fight is brewing ⭐️

Regardless of what I just mentioned about Cryptic, the enemy player made a significant mistake. Why? Because they didn’t give the “Expose” ability to his Mantaroth to effectively deal with my tank. Instead, they chose to assign the Expose ability to both Runi and Venka, but only Venka will target my tank. Runi has the Opportunity ability, so it will go after my RUNI.

This is how the fight looks at the end of Turn 1. As you can see, nothing is decided yet. My Runi is technically dead (though it still has the Revive ability, it will likely be out of the fight soon), and all of the enemy’s units appear to be in good shape. The key difference lies in the Mantaroth vs. Mantaroth matchup. As mentioned earlier, the enemy didn’t focus on my tank, so my Mantaroth is still at full health, while the enemy's Mantaroth is already down to half health and has no armor left. The enemy's strategy to protect their tank involves using Coeurl Lurker with Taunt in the backline. Fortunately for me, Coeurl Lurker is also nearly dead (it will likely be taken out by poison) and won’t be a factor going forward😈.

☢️Turn 2: The Decisive Turn ⭐️

The first attack of Turn 2 comes from Venka. Venka hits my tank and removes one of its tanking abilities (Void), but does not remove the other (Shield). Given that the enemy team relies mostly on physical damage, this means my tank can continue to perform its role for a while longer.

In the middle of Turn 2 my Magi of Chaos was able to kill their Mantaroth Tank. This pretty much guaranteed me the win. Without a tank the enemy's team is weak and I'm able to kill his RUNI 1 time. Also my own Runi managed to stay alive and didn't end up dying twice. This happened because the enemy tank died before the enemy Runi could attack my own Runi.
By the middle of Turn 2, my Magi of Chaos managed to defeat their Mantaroth tank. This pretty much secured my victory. Without a tank to rely on the enemy team is completely exposed

☢️Turn 3: The End.⭐️

☢️Turn 4: Cleaning up the board.⭐️

By turn 4, the fight is effectively over. Only his Dr. Blight remains, while I still have four units in play. After a few more hits, Dr. Blight will be defeated, and the match will conclude.

⚔️Conclusion:

This battle highlights the importance of strategic summoner selection and understanding the enemy team’s strengths. In this case, the enemy made a significant mistake by not giving the summoner buffs to Mantaroth and Venka thus concentrating all their power on my tank. With only Venka attacking my frontline, it was ineffective for him to also be the unit removing buffs. Ideally, one card should focus on removing buffs and defenses, while another handles the damage. On my part, my choice of summoner was quite effective. Anticipating that the enemy would likely select a tank like Mantaroth, I opted for Immortalis, which provides Shatter to every unit—a consistently strong choice.

I hope you enjoyed this exciting battle and appreciate the depth and strategy of Splinterlands. If you want to check out the entire fight, here's the link.

If you are thinking about joining this amazing game you can use my referral link. Let me know and I will delegate you some strong cards to start battling!

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