HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Welcome to week 37 of the new iteration of the Splinterlands Weekly Challenges (at least, if I haven't miscounted so far, yet. 😜).

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, we explore a ruleset that will turn even the lousiest blind sniper into William Tell. I present to you the ruleset — AIM TRUE 🏹🎯

The game's description of AIM TRUE is as follows: "Melee and Ranged attacks always hit their target."

Sounds pretty straight forward right? No one can ever miss. This obviously brings an advantage to melee attacks as Magic attacks naturally don't ever miss. However, who is often overlooked is that other abilities like Blind, Flying and Dodge are also negated.

I will take advantage of this ruleset in my battle showcase today to show how 2 of my units in particular become a lot stronger than one would expect with AIM TRUE. Introducing the CAVE SLUG and SAND WORM.

---

In southern Khymeria, near the Crystalline Harbor, there is a dank place known as Baluthar's Deep. There are stories of ancient treasures buried there in the darkness, but the most that treasure hunters typically find is a slew of hideous cave monstrosities. One of the most well-known is the Cave Slug, which hides in plain sight and devours victims quite quickly.

From Splinterlands Lore on CAVE SLUG

Huge Sand Worms have always lived in the desert of Draykh-Nahka, but with the recent uncovering of the various Untamed Prophecies, they have mysteriously grown even larger. They have also become more wild and free, somehow discovering how to escape from the Sands of the Dragon Splinter. Although it has never been witnessed, biologists believe that the Worms have learned how to swim. If they have indeed learned to burrow through water like sand, the Splinterlands will suffer greatly from their proliferation. In Mount Mox battle, Sand Worms can swallow monsters of nearly any size with no need to chew. They can even snatch fliers directly from the air, extending out of the ground even higher than the arena walls.

From Splinterlands Lore on SAND WORM

---

The Cave Slug is an Common card. At LEVEL 1, it has 2 ⚔️ATTACK⚔️ and 1 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 0 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 4 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the OPPORTUNITY ability. It's summoning cost is 5 🧪MANA🧪.

The Sand Worm is also another Common card. At LEVEL 1, it has 5 ⚔️ATTACK⚔️ and 1 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 0 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 5 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the SNEAK ability. It's summoning cost is 9 🧪MANA🧪.

I hope you notice what both of these units have in common. 😉 They both have the SLOWEST possible speed in the game and have abilities that allow them to pick off vulnerable units across the battlefield! 😈 Whilst their slow speeds are generally what holds them back because their chance of MISSING an attack is much higher than usual, AIM TRUE completely changes the dynamics. Now these 2 fearsome units will definitely land all their blows and destroy even the most agile unit in their path.

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 AIM TRUE was in effect. My opponent used the Chaos Legion Summoner Obsidian from the EARTH splinter as his main pick, while I used the LIFE splinter. 🌱 VS 👼🏻

At first glance, it would seem like my opponent would have a huge advantage over me.

• His summoner choice and team was mostly magic based.

• He was also using a Disintegrator with it's DEMORALIZE ability that would nerf my entire melee team.

• To make things worse, 2 of his units were extremely fast units which would normally wreck havoc on slow units.

I was honestly expecting this to be a really bad matchup for me 😜🤣. This was a magic team whose damage would completely bypass all my units armour and rip them to shreds? 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 AIM TRUE 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! 🏆🏆🏆

---

LINK TO MY FIGHT

👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

1st CARD SLOT

Uriel the Purifier is chosen for this slot. He plays the role of the Main tank perfectly with his great stats. This allows all other units to be kept safe until he is taken down.

---

2nd CARD SLOT

The Silvershield Knight takes up the second slot. With his INSPIRE ability, he is able to boost my entire teams DPS. He will also take the place of the main tank as a backup tank too.

---

3rd CARD SLOT

The Cave Slug occupies this slot. It's main role here be as an assassin DPS unit taking out the weakest units with it's OPPORTUNITY ability.

---

4th CARD SLOT

Stitch Leech occupies the 4th slot here. It's role is also as a roving DPS unit to take out the backline via SNEAK.

---

5th CARD SLOT

The Sand Worm occupies this slot. Once again, with his SNEAK ability and huge damage, his main job is to destroy the backline.

---

6th CARD SLOT

Runemancer Atuat takes the last slot. He is a really tanky Magic DPS unit who is able to both deal and dish out damage. However, the main reason he is here is for his HEADWINDS ability. This reduces the ranged attack damage of all enemy units.

⚔️🛡️Battle Action Report🛡️⚔️

As you can see, both of us fielded very different units in our matchup. I went for an all melee physical DPS team with armour as my focus in my summoner choice. My opponent went the opposite way with a magic based team with his accompanying summoner choice reinforcing that too. 😱

👼🏻LIFE👼🏻 VS 🌱EARTH🌱

---

My opponent used the Unicorn Mustang as his tank in the 1st slot which was a VERY good choice. With his great tanking stats and the VOID ability, he makes a perfect tank.

The Disintegrator occupied his 2nd slot. With it's DEMORALIZE ability allowing it to debuff my entire team and stats making it a decent backup tank, this is another good choice.

The rest of his team was rounded off with mostly his magic DPS-ers, save for the last unit which was ranged.

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

---

The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was a pretty high mana game with 46 mana as the limit. The rulesets were AIM TRUE and FEROCITY.

• The first round saw both our sides launch a flurry of attacks. My main tank was almost taken down due to the heavy amount of magic damage taken. His shields were completely useless against magic and he was left hanging on with just 2 health left.

• Fortunately, the devastating firepower demonstrated by my slow units pulled through thanks to being able to land 100% guaranteed hits. His Mycelic Slipspawn and Goblin Psychic were taken out in that first wave of attacks! 💪

• Round 2 saw my main tank, Uriel, falling at last. He could no longer take the magic firepower being dished out unfortunately. However, my units were still destroying all his units across the battlefield just like in the first round.

• of special note was when my Sand Worm smashed his Regal Peryton with a resounding hit! What would have normally given me a lot of trouble due to their speed differences and FLYING ability was completely negated thanks to AIM TRUE.

• The game was wildly in my favour by now as the opponent had taken far too much battle losses to be able to launch any response against me. 😈

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

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the AIM TRUE ruleset to possibly give my team a slight advantage. However it ended up being the entire reason for my win! The opponent was simply unable to cope with the amount of damage he received from units which we would have normally expected to miss some of their attacks. 🤣

Well as you can see here in this GIF 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💭🧐💭

---

I definitely can appreciate the ruleset AIM TRUE 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. 😉

---

To any new players who wish to explore the world of Splinterlands, do feel free to sign up with my REFERRAL LINK 😊.

---

I am also a member of the SPLINTERLANDS PIZZA guild and the PIZZA community.

PIZZA is an active gaming and creative arts crypto community on the HIVE blockchain. Popular games on HIVE like SPLINTERLANDS, RISING STAR, EXODE, HASHKINGS, WOO, BANG!DEFENSE have their own PIZZA communities here.

Don't miss out more events that are always being organised. Join the PIZZA DISCORD. Even if you aren't interested in the 💰🍕🎁GIVEAWAYS & AIRDROPS💰🍕🎁, there is a vibrant and friendly community there awaiting you.

CLICK THIS LINK TO JOIN PIZZA DISCORD!!!