Sometimes The Summoners Determine The Outcome

With the new summoners, abilities and rulesets, sometimes the outcome of a battle is determined mainly by the summoner. One such example is the Up Close & Personal ruleset where you can only use melee monsters.

In such a battle, using Mylor Crowling who gives all his monsters the Thorns ability automatically does 2 damage to each of your opponent's cards every time they attack.

It is particularly effective when your opponent plays cards with low health as well like the Serpentine Spy and Parasitic Growth. Can it be countered?

I don't think there's any way to quite avoid the thorns completely but one mitigation strategy would be to use fewer but stronger cards with higher health and shields. Also, cards with a melee + range component like the Oaken Behemoth and War Chaang would be helpful as well.

Mylor Crowlings go for way too little on the rental market in my opinion but that's another story.