Now that the Rules of Combat change at every new battle, you will see some of the more rare rules appear a bit more frequently, though there are more common ones that appear more often than the others. There is no specific rotation to these as it is completely random. Here are the 12 Rules of Combat and what I've learnt playing each to optimise my chances of winning, with a few tips I've picked up playing. # Standard ![SM Rule Standard.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWVowwsEmVb2Es169hvBbLcJbmGWEiuF4iGpJsEYpqYse/SM%20Rule%20Standard.jpg) *No modification to the standard gameplay rule and mechanics.* This basically means that the game is set up exactly as it was designed with no alteration. So magic bypasses shields, melee monsters can only attack in the first position, ranged can't attack in the first position, magic can attack from any position, each monster's abilities is activated, each Summoner's abilities is activated, etc. It,s pretty straight forward. # Back to Basics ![SM Rule Basics.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmf9PiVt1XHfV75LQXHyozkpYiT1qh2Dy5yWwnCq8THytg/SM%20Rule%20Basics.jpg) *Monsters lose all abilities.* This is another pretty straight forward one, basically, monsters lose their special abilities that they have, indicated at the bottom of the card, like: Shield, Sneak, Heal, Retaliate, etc. This is *only* for monsters. Summoners *retain* their special unique abilities. So keep that in mind when forming a team. You might not be able to sneak or snipe a bunch of enemy monsters from your opponent's team, but you can still buff their health, or attacks, or reduce your opponent's attack power, etc. This can play to our advantage more than to our disadvantage. # Melee Mayhem ![SM Rule Melee.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmaHdCNn6hvd3iXfGp3azAC5nX3bqbCTtvnk6Z298zPqxk/SM%20Rule%20Melee.jpg) *Melee attack Monsters can attack from any position.* This one can be a bit tricky depending what Splinter you are playing against. While it's fun to have a lot of Melee monsters on the battle field, depending on the randomly chosen Mana Cap of course, it's also good to keep in mind the Splinter you opponent might choose to play. Knowing that Melee will be at the forefront and make up the majority of monsters, I find that playing with the Death Splinter sometimes helps me win, since Zintar reduces the opponent's Melee attack by one. In turn, I always ensure that my monsters have more than 1 attack, so at least 2 or more, so that if reduced, they can still attack. I also like to switch it up a bit. Some Melee Mayhem mana caps allow for me to win win only Melee monsters, other times, I require magic and ranged monsters. The choice is yours and it depends what Splinter you choose to play, but it's good to keep in mind the possibilities that depend more greatly on the Splinter your opponent is likely to play. While we can't predict that, we can make an educated guess based on the Splinters used by our opponent to win the last few battles. # Lost Legendaries ![SM Rule Legendaries.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdrpwYFy7j5AQt1EMc8p4CzrbFb4SjSi7cpszAqZHvNuy/SM%20Rule%20Legendaries.png) *Legendary Monsters may not be used in battle.* Each Monsters has a little coloured circle below its image in the center, above its name. The colour of that circle indicates its rarity. Legendary Monsters have a *Golden* circle. When you arrive at the Monster selection screen, all your Legendary monsters will be gone, they'll have disappeared, so you won't be able to use them for this battle. This also means that the Dragon Splinter cannot be used, as all Dragon Splinter cards, all four of them, are Legendary monsters. Legendary monsters tend to be a bit more powerful and have more abilities when a higher level, so this just means, you'll have rely on everyone else, but since all Rare and Epic cards can still be used, you shouldn't have too much trouble forming a strong enough team to win. It just means your opponent is not going to have any insane monsters that will make them win for sure, meaning this is actually an advantage when you are lower level and have fewer Legendary or high level monsters. # Unprotected ![SM Rule Unprotected.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQVWJMST9uw9CuP13cqMfhZkqGkR41ScojTe3RCuszA9T/SM%20Rule%20Unprotected.jpg) *Monsters do not have any armor and do not get armor from Abilities or Summoner Buffs.* The Rule is pretty simple, no armour whatsoever, at last, gilts. This means that it's probably less advantageous to play with the Life Splinter, given you can't have your armour buff from your Summoner. Whatever Splinter you choose to use, best have Monsters with a high level of life, at least for your tank. This also means, that while you might be a little bit more vulnerable, you don't have to worry about having to bypass your opponent's armour either. If you place your monsters strategically, you should be fine. A disadvantage in Steem Monsters can always be turned into an advantage. # Silenced Summoner ![SM Rule Summoner.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmURmeTSvCVF3yCrviqguYQLNWv3qSd1pbgfjR4uUueaWC/SM%20Rule%20Summoner.jpg) *Summoners do not give any stat buffs or debuffs.* So in he same way monsters lost all their special abilities with the *Back to Basics" Rule, this time, it's the Summoners. So no +1 to Health or attack, no -1 to your opponent's attack or Health, no extra armour. So you don't have to worry too much about which Splinter your opponent chooses. Your monsters retain all of *their* special abilities, so choose accordingly, place your monsters strategically, and you should be fine. If you're used to using a Splinter that gives you a certain buff, then you can use another Splinter instead perhaps, one that relies less on Summoner buffs, or choose monsters whose performance doesn't rely on Summoner buffs. # Target Practice ![SM Rule Target.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdMBu8ZsgexH9nWvm7CCJXxGvUmJKCFEUYZN9zm4cBqbj/SM%20Rule%20Target.jpg) *All Ranged and Magic attack Monsters have the Snipe ability.* All right, so first we must review what *Snipe* does: "*Targets the last Monster on the enemy Team instead of the first Monster.*" All right, so this means that a monster with Snipe may or may not attack (it's randomly chosen if an attack occurs) any monster that is not in the first position, so the 2nd, or 3rd, etc, and never the same one, always at random. So now, with this Rule, it means that ALL monsters who are Ranged and Magic attackers have this ability to Snipe or not at any random monster from your opponent's team, never the same one. If you have monsters with a ranged or magic attack of 3, this can be very useful. While sometimes it will take a few hits to take down a monster, with enough attack power, one hit could be all it takes, and then that opposing monster is down before it even got a chance to attack. In turn, it's good to select monsters with enough Health that they won't be taken down with one hit, thus giving you better chances of surviving and of being the victor. # Taking Sides ![SM Rule Sides.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVqSaYBynvzYivjAfz4jqdASVFXv4MURXBV979khWn5y5/SM%20Rule%20Sides.jpg) *Neutral Mosnters may not be used in battle.* Sometimes this can be a bit of a bummer, given I personally like to use certain Neutral Monsters depending what Splinter I'm using (without giving away my strategy hehehe) and they can come quite in handy at times, especially if you don't have many monsters in a certain Splinter. But, alas, with this Rule, they are not available to be used, so you need to make do with whatever Splinter you choose to go with, despite that you might have a favourtie team that might include a Neutral monster. This actually gives the opportunity to try some monsters that we might not be in the habit of using and discovering their usefulness on the battlefield. # Weak Magic ![SM Rule Magic.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQfBQpWdnpVRP6d1pcbgJkxv2KoxZARsDNgJ7x3jQLg93/SM%20Rule%20Magic.jpg) *Magic attacks hit Armor before reducing Health.* This one's a bit of a bummer at times, but can be turned into an advantage. Ranged and Melee attacks always hit armour first. Magic usually bypasses the armour, but with this Rule, it does not. So why not choose more Ranged monsters than Magic monsters, why not choose monsters with more armour, since that armour will protect them even from magic! I like to choose either the Life Splinter of monsters with armour and vary my monsters by *not* having magic on my team, unless the Magic attacks prove stronger than Ranged attacks for the Splinter I chose. Maybe you can't bypass your opponent's armour, but you can be protected in turn by your own armour, and thus survive perhaps longer than your opponent. # Rise of the Commons ![SM Rule Commons.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYzWsfcC6ucSmENdLhYsuAmP7TyfA4ephBaR8uGTjGcdK/SM%20Rule%20Commons.jpg) *Only Common and Rare Mosnters may be used i battle.* Similarly as to the *Lost Legendaries* where all monsters with Golden coloured circles cannot come to fight for you, well this time, it is strictly the Common and Rare monsters who *can* come fight for you. Epic and Legendary monster cannot. So the colours of the circles are as such: Grey-blue and Blue can fight in your deck; Purple and Golden cannot. On your Monster selection screen, only the Common and Rare monsters will appear. You will have to choose and place your monsters carefully, but keep in mind that not super duper Epic or Legendary monsters with super duper abilities will be there to defeat you, thus making your possibilities of winning as equal as your opponent's. This is good when you don't have many Epic or Legendary cards to begin with. If you're used to using the Epic and Legendary ones, then this allows you to discover the nice little abilities of smaller monsters and how beneficial they can be on the battlefield. # Aim True ![SM Rule Aim.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmXRKUnV7fRuA9GhQuXaqAaebcpxE5gr1gWqfLaGZCBVL4/SM%20Rule%20Aim.jpg) *Melee and Ranged attacks always hit their targets.* This Rule basically bypasses Speed differences and any special abilities that might allow a monster to dodge or make you miss them. So even if their speed is much greater than yours, if you have Ranged and Melee, those monsters will hit the target no matter what, regardless of speed or abilities. It's pretty straight forward and guarantees hits. So choose your monsters accordingly, have the ones who will attack placed strategically, and have ones that can take on damage placed so that they can take the damage your opponent shills at you while your other monsters are busy shilling out and defeating your opponent. # Super Sneak ![SM Rule Sneak.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmaodUDjsTM3bqpq5AHr1BG2du1yEuMyhDxB5esSPo5auA/SM%20Rule%20Sneak.jpg) *All Melee attack Monsters have the Sneak ability.* This one's a fun one! It means that all your Monsters who are Melee monsters who are not placed in the first position, will attack your opponent's last monster. That's what Sneak does: "*Targets the last Monster on the enemy Team instead of the first Monster.*" So make sure to have monsters that can shill out quite a bit of damage so you can get your opponent's monsters down one by one, boom-boom-boom. BUT, here's the caveat, you're opponent will be aiming to do the same to you. So make sure that your last and second to last monsters either have armour or a lot of Health or both and can take on the damage. When both of you have monsters placed this way, it can be a game of who hits first, and can become the funny kind of frustrating. Placing a monster with armour AND Retaliate in the last position can ensure that your monster will survive and take down the attacking monster before your opponent has tiem to take down *your* monsters. It's a tricky one at times, this rule, but a fun one all the same. And those were the 12 Rules of Combat! Let me know in the comments if you have picked up any special tricks for some of these Rules. Have you had the chance to play *all* the Rules of Combat yet? Let me know your favourites ones. *And as usual, remember to Upvote, Resteeem, and Follow. I post quite a bit on gaming, Dragon Age, and Steem Monsters, with other things as well.*