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, life is rarely clearcut. It is hard to designate things as black or white. Hence, grey areas emerge and the ambiguous tactics of less than savoury creatures emerge in the back alleys of the battlefield.

No matter! I present to you the ruleset — SHADES OF GRAY 💨💨💨

The game's description of SHADES OF GRAY is as follows: "Only Neutral Units may be used in battles."

This is a ruleset in which all but ONE splinter are now rendered useless. In fact, I don't even think we can consider the NEUTRAL units a splinter per se. Neutral units have always seemed to me to be mercenaries that can be employed by all factions. If you were banking on your favoured elite troops in whichever splinter you are focused on, you will be in for a world of shock! 🤣

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 SHADES OF GRAY. Introducing the Neutral Gladius card, Tatiana Blayde.

One evening as the orange sun was setting behind the hills west of Mount Mox, a beautiful but deadly warrior stranger strode along the banks of the River Myklo and into the markets of Mox City. Her baggage was scarce; she carried only a small pouch on her back that contained little more than flint and tinder. In each of her hands were weapons like nothing that had ever been seen in the Splinterlands. At a glance, these two fans could be mistaken for glamorous accessories, but upon closer inspection anyone who approached would realize that the blades of her fans were razor sharp and crafted of a stronger steel than can be made from any Splintral quarry's iron.

With eyes as sharp as the blades of her fans, the young woman looked him over, as if deciding whether she could trust the jerky merchant with her identity. Finally she said: “I am not. My name is Tatiana Blayde, and I hear there is a call for Gladiators.” Her tone implied that she would answer no further questions.

From Splinterlands Lore on Tatiana Blayde

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Tatiana Blayde is a Legendary card released during the Gladius expansion. At LEVEL 1, it has 3 ⚔️ATTACK⚔️, 2 🎯RANGED ATTACK🎯 and 5 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 0 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 5 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the BLOODLUST & CLOSE RANGE ability. It's summoning cost is 8 🧪MANA🧪.

As a unit itself, Tatiana Blayde might look lacklustre. In fact, none of it's raw stats show any particular strengths. If that were all to it, most players would probably skip this unit especially at such a high cost of 8 mana. However, what is often overlooked is the ability — CLOSE RANGE AND BLOODLUST. What this does is allow the unit to make use of it's adaptable and potential double attacks, and if it lands the killing blow, all it's stats are increased too! This quickly turns it into an unstoppable monster with a few lucky hits.

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 SHADES OF GRAY 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 Chaos Legion edition Summoner Tarsa from the FIRE splinter. 💀 VS 💧

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

• First off, the secondary ruleset in this battle was that of ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!

• My opponent was one entire level higher than I was! (Level 5 VS level 4)

• My opponent had a Legendary Neutral card to deploy against my limited choices. 😭

• That meant my own units would easily be targeted and killed off by his devastating attacks! 😱

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 superior units could easily shred through my weakened team which had limited means of keeping themselves alive. 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 SHADES OF GRAY 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 Xenith Monk is chosen for this slot. He plays the role of the Main tank perfectly with his great stats. His high health stat and HEAL 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 Mad Ogre Anarchist occupies this slot. It's main role here to be an assassin melee dps for the team with it's OPPORTUNITY ability.

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3rd CARD SLOT

The Uraeus takes up the 3rd slot. Just like the unit before it, it's role to be the assassin melee dps for the team, albeit with a slightly different skill, SNEAK. This allows it to target the vulnerable backline of the opponent's army.

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4th CARD SLOT

NIL

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5th CARD SLOT

NIL

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6th CARD SLOT

NIL

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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. The opponent went for almost all MAGIC units while my own units were all MELEE. 😱

🔥FIRE🔥 VS 👼LIFE👼

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My opponent used the Uraeus as his tank in the 1st slot which was a VERY good choice. With his LOW COST allowing him to take a few hits, his other weaker units are very well protected.

The Tatiana Blayde occupied his 2nd slot. This unit is a very strong unit was his main DPS. It had dual attacks of Ranged and Melee along with the abilities CLOSE RANGE and BLOODLUST.

In his 3rd slot was the Xenith Archer. It's low cost and Ranged attack ensures it will be able to continue to contribute DPS to the team.

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 low cost mana game with 17 mana as the limit. The rulesets were ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED & SHADES OF GRAY.

• The first round saw both our sides launch a flurry of attacks. Both sides suffered a casualty but the round ended quite evenly.

• The 2nd round was more of the same as both sides inflicted some damage on each other but failed to take anyone down. Once again, both sides were still evenly matched.

• The 3rd round was where things got interesting. In terms of unit loss, both sides were still even as they lost one unit each. However, the key difference was that Tatiana Blayde had managed to land a killing blow, thus activating her BLOODLUST!

• The 4th round showed the power of Tatiana as she swept the battleground clean to win the day!

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

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the SHADES OF GRAYS ruleset to give me a slight advantage. I had expected both sides to be evenly matched because of the limited unit choice for both sides. However it ended up being the entire reason for my win! By capitalizing on the ruleset, Tatiana Blayde showed her devasting double attack and BLOODLUST powers overwhelming everyone else! The opponent simply could not handle all that DPS at all.

Well as you can see here in the 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 SHADES OF GRAY 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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