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Ahoy and welcome to my latest Battle Mage Secrets post.

The ruleset featured for this week's challenge is the Born Again ruleset. With this ruleset active all Monsters gain the Rebirth ability. Which allows them to revive themselves one time. This brings them back to life with 1 Health but they do get all their Armor again. For that reason it's quite smart to bring Monsters that have some Armor to defend against Melee/Ranged attacks. Or bring a Monster that provides Armor. Abilities that trigger on death like Martyr and Redemption can be good to bring as they will trigger upon death, then the Monster revives itself from that Rebirth ability and when it dies a 2nd time it'll trigger that on death ability again. Allowing for a Martyr unit to provide the buffs twice.

You can recognise the ruleset with this icon.

The battle I want to share this week is making use of the Martyr ability that I mentioned earlier in the info about this ruleset. It's from the Gauntlet Wild Bronze Invitational Tournament that started yesterday. The battle was against the player kaeltegott.

Here is a picture of our initial lineup.

Battle Rules

This was a battle with a 59 Mana Cap. Almost all Elements were available, the only one unavailable was the Life Element. The battle had 2 rulesets which were:

• Born Again: All Monsters have the Rebirth ability.
• Rise of the Commons: Only Common and Rare Monsters may be used in battles.

Here is a link to the battle if you want to check it out: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sm_b6sGSNF6P8MYPVKrXAk4&ref=athunderstruck

Battle Lineup

In these kind of battles I'm often quite tempted to go for a full Magic lineup. However we could only use Common and Rare Monsters so it wouldn't be possible to bring for example Djinn Oshannus to have strong Magic damage while also reducing incoming Magic damage. So I figured maybe I'll be better off going for Blast in this case to deal damage to 2 Monsters at once. Even if my opponent brings some Armor at least I would be hitting 2 Monsters at once and hitting their Armor. That's why I ended up going with Yodin Zaku. With the Fire team there are some Monsters with the Close Range ability so they pair really well with Yodin as they can still attack from the first position to continue having good damage output. One of them is an Epic Monster though which I couldn't bring but I can still bring 2 Monsters with Close Range.

I did assume there is a quite good chance my opponent might go with a Magic lineup like I had been thinking about myself. So I bring Prismatic Energy up front with the Magic Reflect ability. If my opponent has Magic attack monsters then that Magic Reflect can help me deal just a bit more damage to my opponent to hopefully defeat their Monsters faster.

Up next I have Arkemis the Bear. He provides Armor to the team so that my front line and backline are protected a bit from Melee/Ranged attacks. Also if my opponent brings Opportunity Monsters then my low Health units are also protected better. Especially since the Born Again will cause all of them upon their first death to come back with that 2 Armor provided by Arkemis the Bear.

Then I have my first Martyr Monster being the Venari Marksrat. I placed it in front of Molten Ash Golem so that when it gets into first position and dies it'll provide a Martyr buff, come back to life and be able to provide a 2nd Martyr buff to Molten Ash Golem. Who would then have 4 Ranged attack after receiving those. Also if my opponent brings Opportunity then this one will get hit first and in that case it could give the Martyr buff to Arkemis the Bear as well.

Now I have Molten Ash Golem, one of the cards I mentioned with Close Range. Allowing it to attack from the front with its Ranged attack. Which will get buffed from the Martyr ability.

On the other side of the Molten Ash Golem I have placed Firecaller, another card with the Martyr ability, this one being from the Fire Element itself. I placed this one here so either it might end up in the front line and give 2 Martyr buffs to Tinderlock. Or if it gets hit by Opportunity after Venari Marksrat then it could give Martyr buffs to both Molten Ash Golem and Tinderlock.

Tinderlock is in the back because while he has the Close Range ability he also has the Last Stand ability. Which gives him strong buffs if he is the last Monster alive on my team. Of course having him in the back can be tricky as he could go down to Sneak attacks. Though most of the Common and Rare Sneak attack Monsters are pretty low Mana Cost. So I'm not really expecting my opponent to bring much of Sneak if any because then they wouldn't be able to utilise that high Mana cap so well.

Battle Analysis

Well it seems that my opponent was thinking about playing a Magic heavy lineup like me. With the difference being that they did actually go through with it and didn't change their mind. They're making use of the new Rebellion card, Moxian Rebel, to provide Magic weapons training to Kelp Initiate and Merdaali Guardian. That's just 1 Magic damage but it gets buffed up to 2 by them using Alric Stormbringer as their Summoner.

They also brought a Monster with the Protect ability to give +2 Armor to the whole team. A smart play and that will make my Ranged attacks a bit less effective as they'll have to destroy the Armor first and every time a Monster comes back to life from Born Again my Monsters will have to destroy that Armor again. They placed that Venari Wavesmith very well in the back as I have no way to get rid of it quickly so all their Monsters come back to life with that Armor.

Round 1

Kelp Initiate will initiate the battle attacking my Prismatic Energy for 2 and taking 1 damage back from the reflect. Then Prismatic Energy attacks Kelp Initiate but also deals 1 Blast damage to that Moxian Rebel.
Merdaali Guardian heals Kelp Initiate back to full Health before attacking Prismatic Energy and taking 1 damage from reflect.
My opponents Riverboat Captain, Venari Wavesmith and Water Caller then combine their attacks to take out my Prismatic Energy in the first round. Of course it goes revive itself once now from the Born Again ruleset.
Meanwhile my Tinderlock also attacked Kelp Initiate but had to hit its Armor and the Armor on Moxian Rebel from Blast.
Moxian Rebel now has its turn and kills my Prismatic Energy, which is its 2nd death so now it is completely out of the game, but not before its Magic Reflect also takes out Moxian Rebel. Of course Moxian Rebel only had its 1st death now so it does get revived there.
3 of my Ranged Units still have to hit now, almost all of them are at 1 Speed so yeah really slow.
Venari Marksrat goes first but misses against Kelp Initiate.
Molten Ash Golem does hit Kelp Initiate successfully for 2 damage to its Health and 1 Blast damage to Moxian Rebel's Armor.
Firecaller also successfully hits Kelp Initiate and that 4 Ranged attack was just enough to take Kelp Initiate out and so dealing 2 Blast damage to destroy Moxian Rebel's Armor.
Kelp Initiate does revive here so comes back to life with 1 Health and 2 Armor meaning I have to hit it at least twice again. Maybe even more times as Merdaali Guardian will be able to heal it.

Here is a picture of our lineups at the end of round 1.

Round 2

Kelp Initiate goes first to hit Arkemis the Bear for 2 damage, followed by Merdaali Guardian who heals Kelp Initiate for 2 and then also attacks my Arkemis the Bear for 2 damage.
Arkemis the Bear now has its turn and hits Kelp Initiate to destroy its Armor. His Blast damage against Moxian Rebel does take that Moxian Rebel out.
My opponents Riverboat Captain, Venari Wavesmith and Water Caller now take out my Arkemis the Bear, triggering his rebirth.
Tinderlock kills the Kelp Initiate for good and the Blast also destroys the Armor on Merdaali Guardian.
Venari Marskrat misses against Merdaali Guardian.
Molten Ash Golem kills the Merdaali Guardian and Blasts 1 Armor from Water Caller.
Merdaali Guardian revives itself thanks to Born Again, but immediately loses its Armor again to my Firecaller and the Blast from that also destroys the last Armor on Water Caller.

That marks the end of Round 2. Our lineups now look like this.

Round 3

Merdaali Guardian heals itself for 2 and then kills my Arkemis the Bear for good. This now also removes the +2 Armor on all my remaining Monsters as Arkemis is gone. Not that it matters cause my opponent has only Magic attacks anyway that ignore this Armor.
Riverboat Captain already did 2 Blast damage to my Venari Marksrat last round, so this round his direct hit takes out my Venari Marksrat for the first time and dealing Blast damage to Molten Ash Golem.
Venari Marksrat dying causes it to trigger the Martyr ability giving +1 Ranged attack, +1 Speed and +1 Health to Molten Ash Golem. It also revives itself from Born Again.
Venari Wavesmith now kills my Venari Marksrat again for the 2nd time meaning its dead for good, but it does trigger that Martyr ability again. Giving another +1 Range, Speed and Health to my Molten Ash Golem.

Here is a quick screenshot once both Martyr buffs have been applied.

Molten Ash Golem now attacks and kills Merdaali Guardian for good, dealing 2 Blast damage to Water Caller.
Tinderlock then attacks and kills the Water Caller and his Blast damage destroys the Armor on Riverboat Captain.
Water Caller does come back to life here from Born Again, but because it's a self revive that happened before it could attack it does cause her to lose her turn this round.
Firecaller then hits Water Caller to destroy her Armor and with the Blast damage she kills the Riverboat Captain. Who does get revived from Born Again.

That's the end of that round so here is a picture of our lineups at this point.

Round 4

Thanks to the Martyr buffs my Molten Ash Golem is faster now so it goes first and kills the Water Caller while breaking the Armor on Riverboat Captain.
Riverboat Captain and Venari Wavesmith now attack Molten Ash Golem bringing his Health down to 6.
Tinderlock kills Riverboat Captain for good and destroys the Armor on Venari Wavesmith.
Firecaller kills the Venari Wavesmith, triggering the Rebirth from Born Again so it does come back to life at the end of the round.

Now for the final round Venari Wavesmith still gets a chance to attack. Molten Ash Golem does go first to destroy that Armor on the Venari Wavesmith. Venari Wavesmith doesn't want to go out without an attack so it hits my Molten Ash Golem down to 4 Health.
Tinderlock then kills Venari Wavesmith to secure the victory.
GG

Was My Strategy Successful?

Yeah it went pretty well. I think the Prismatic Energy pick was quite well, it did die in the first round but it helped me to weaken my opponents Monsters and being paired with the Blast ability from Yodin Zaku it seriously helped take out the Moxian Rebel for its first death.
Most of my Ranged Monsters were quite slow though which was a drawback. It caused some misses to happen. But all in all those weren't an issue because Molten Ash Golem didn't even die let alone my Tinderlock. Who would still get that Last Stand if my opponent did succeed in killing my Molten Ash Golem AND Firecaller.
It was a good plan to go for Yodin Zaku here with the Martyr buffs for Molten Ash Golem and having the Blast damage on all my Monsters.

Conclusion

Arkemis the Bear didn't end up being really useful because my opponent only used Magic attack Monsters that just attacked my Monster's Health straight away. Of course it's still a decent pick because I didn't know if my opponent would go for a full Magic focus or not. Also Arkemis the Bear did help deal some damage so yeah I'm still satisfied with the pick.
It would've been nice to see Tinderlock go into Last Stand after getting 2 Martyr buffs but it's okay that he didn't because it means that my team was strong enough not to have to fall back on that.

That's it for my Battle Mage Secrets challenge this week. Thank you for reading!

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