HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Welcome to yet another week of the "new" iteration of the Splinterlands Weekly Challenges 😜.

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, an eerie silence has crept across the battlefield. Where commanders used to roar out their commands to their legions, it is now a free for all as they have been cut off from all communication with their armies!

No matter! I present to you the ruleset — SILENCED SUMMONERS 🙊🙊🙊

The game's description of SILENCED SUMMONERS is as follows: "Summoners do not give any stat buffs or debuffs or grant/use any abilities."

I will take advantage of this ruleset in my battle showcase today to show how 1 of my units in particular becomes a lot stronger than one would expect with SILENCED SUMMONERS. Introducing the unit, LEGIONNAIRE ALVAR.

The Chaos Legionnaires are ruthless warriors and the Chaos Legion's elite fighting force. Alvar Veralyn was conscripted into their ranks at a young age after his family was slain and his world conquered by the Chaos Legion. The harsh conditioning that all conscripts receive nearly broke the child, but in the end, his old, easy way of life was subsumed by the desire for battle and conquest. Alvar dedicated himself to his training, intent on reshaping his mind and his body until he had no equal on the battlefield. Eventually, he rose to the rank of General and now stands as leader of the Chaos Legionnaires.
Alvar is a most imposing sight on the battlefield. His armor is imbued to withstand the strongest of magical attacks, and even the mightiest of foes is no match for his massive, two-handed sword, which some say was forged in the Realm of Nightmare. He lives for battle, wading through his enemies and striking them down as he seeks out the strongest among them to engage in single combat. He enjoys nothing more than watching the life fade from his opponent's eyes. His conquests are legendary even among the Legionnaires, and he earned the title of Godkiller after the Battle of Dargnilat, during which he single-handedly defeated one of the Old Gods.

From Splinterlands Lore on LEGIONNAIRE ALVAR

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LEGIONNAIRE ALVAR is a Legendary card released during the Chaos Legion expansion. At LEVEL 1, it has 2 ⚔️ ATTACK⚔️ and 2 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 8 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 6 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the VOID ARMOR ability. It's summoning cost is 9 🧪MANA🧪.

As a unit itself, LEGIONNAIRE ALVAR might look lacklustre. It has a very high casting cost and all it seems to have is a very high Armour stat. It's Damage, Speed and HP is nothing much to shout about as there are plenty of lower cost units which have better stats than that.

However, what is often overlooked is it's VOID ARMOR ability! This ensures that ALL attacks, even magical ones, will have to eat through that obscene amount of armour before they can damage him!

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 SILENCED SUMMONERS was in effect. My opponent used the Chaos Legion edition Summoner General Sloan from the LIFE splinter as his main pick, while I used the Rewards edition Summoner Pembrook Nymph from the WATER splinter. 🔥 VS 🌊

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

• My opponent was using a Summoner which was 2 levels higher than I was!

• His units were similarly higher levelled than mine.

• This gave his entire team a huge advantage in terms of DPS.

• To exacerbate matters, the ruleset SILENCED SUMMONERS would remove all Summoner advantages and leave it entirely up to the units on the field to make the difference!

I was honestly expecting this to be a really bad matchup for me 😜🤣. This was a team who had an innate advantage in this ruleset. His team had one purpose only and that was to overwhelm my team with their huge level advantage. 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 SILENCED SUMMONERS 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 Legionnaire Alvar is chosen for this slot. He plays the role of the Main tank perfectly with his great stats. His high Health and Armour stats AND the VOID ARMOUR ability 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

Arkemis the Bear occupies this slot. It's main role here is to give the entire team armour buffs via it's PROTECT ability. It will also be the backup tank if the main tank falls.

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3rd CARD SLOT

The Djinn Oshannus occupies this slot. It's role is to provide Magic DPS for the team. It is also an amazing tank on it's own with high Speed, Health and the VOID ability.

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4th CARD SLOT

River Hellondale occupies this slot. Safely protected in the middle, it's role is to offer support to the team via it's RESURRECT ability. It is also a hard hitting Magic DPS.

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5th CARD SLOT

Nerissa Tridawn occupies this slot. It's role is simply being a hard hitting Magic DPS unit. It has a huge amount of Health and is able to take it's fair share of hits too.

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6th CARD SLOT

Cornealus occupies this slot. It's role is to be the backline tank with it's high Health and HEAL ability. It can also dish out a decent amount of Ranged DPS.

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 very different units in our matchup. My opponent went mainly for Ranged DPS, while the bulk of my DPS units were Magic based. 😱

👼🏻LIFE👼🏻 VS 🌊WATER🌊

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My opponent used the Chaos Knight as his tank in the 1st slot which was a VERY good choice. With his great defensive stats and SHIELD ability, this is a unit which will protect it's entire team until it falls.

Luminous Eagle occupied his 2nd slot and was another great choice. It's REACH ability allowed it to attack, while it's high health stats made for a great backup tank too!

The Shieldbearer occupied his 3rd slot, and it's role was to draw attacks to it via it's TAUNT ability.

The Time Mage, Pelacor Arbalest and Portal Spinner following that were his Magic and Ranged DPS.

All in all, I would say that the opponent picked a really strong team.

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My choice of the Main Tank was the Legionnaire Alvar who is perfect for this task. He has really high defensive stats in order to take extra hits to ensure that all the other units are protected. It's VOID ARMOR ability also allowed it to take hits from Magic units. This allows it to last longer on the battlefield.

Arkemis and Oshannus followed next. Although they both served different purposes, they had really high health to serve as amazing backup tanks.

My next 3 units, River Hellondale, Nerissa Tridawn, and Cornealus formed the rest of my DPS team.

As you can see here, I was basically picking the largest bulkiest units to hopefully out last the opponent through sheer tankiness!

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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 99 mana as the limit. The rulesets were SILENCED SUMMONERS.

• The first round saw both our sides launch a flurry of attacks. Given such a high mana game with no Summoner support, both sides naturally had very tough tanks and when the smoke cleared, barely anything happened.

• Round 2 was very different as the sheer amount of damage finally brought down BOTH our tanks! My Legionnaire Alvar fell followed quickly by his Shieldbearer.

• However, I had anticipated this and my River Hellondale's RESURRECT kicked in and revived Alvar! The biggest difference was that even though he had only 1 HP, his entire Armour was completely intact!

• Round 3 saw my team pressing home the advantage I now had. His Chaos Knight and Luminous Eagle was quickly taken out while my Legionnaire Alvar hung on having depleted all his armour with just 1 HP left.

• Round 4 saw the rest of his army destroyed as my faster attacks left his ranged units unable to attack when they lost their frontal units.

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

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the SILENCED SUMMONERS ruleset to give me a slight advantage. Individually, on their own, my units would face a huge disadvantage against an enemy which had the level advantage. However, thanks to my choice of Legionnaire Alvar combined with River Hellondale, I was able to turn the tide of battle! The opponent simply could not handle all that at all.

Well as you can see here in this video recording 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 SILENCED SUMMONERS 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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