Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Battle Challenge! (Briar Patch)

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I love the idea that the Weekly Battle Challenge changed instead of featuring a monster to represent a ruleset. It is so good to do something different than usual and I hope they will continually do this in the future. The best way would be to mix these challenges, so every week would be more interesting.

This week we need to show a ruleset, which is the Briar Patch and the way I used it to my advantage in the Battle I played. 😇

My only problem with this new system is that it is very difficult to do battles with the ruleset featured for the week challenge, because it is random what you are going to get and even if you have that ruleset you need to win it somehow, which is not always easy. 😳

All monsters receive the Thorns ability at the start of the battle.
The enemy monsters that use melee attacks receive damage back.

• Damage returned is equal to damage of the attacker divided by 2, rounded up.
• Melee attack monsters with the Reflection Shield ability do not take damage from thorns.
• The Amplify ability increases the reflected damage.
  

The Briar Patch ruleset is reminds me of my first rented card in this game, which was one and half years ago. That card was Mylor Crowling and I remember that I rented him for 10 DEC, which was very expensive that time, becaue I got like 0,1-0,5 DEC per battle.

He stepped up my game significantly thanks to his ability, which provided Thorns to all of his friendly creatures. The same is happening these days as well with this new ruleset where we can use the same (dis)advantage combined with any available Splinter.

We need to be very careful what to bring into our battle, because the Melee attack monsters could kill themselves easily if we are not cautious. 😁

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Ruleset	Description
Holy Protection	All Monsters have the Divine Shield ability.
Lost Magic	Monsters with Magic attack may not be used in battles.
Briar Patch	All Monsters have the Thorns ability.

The mana cap was 31 in my next battle, which is nice, but I can not bring whatever I want. I can not really bring too much Melee attack creature for obvious reason and all the Magic attack monsters were banned from this battle, so I had only one choice and that was to bring the Life Splinter with General Sloan and take advantage his +1 Ranged attack buff. 😁

My lineup and the decision behind it!

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Summoner
General Sloan

General Sloan is an amazing cheap summoner, but only if you can protect his monsters from the enemy fire, because Sloan gives only +1 Ranged attack to all of his monsters. Luckily the Life monsters has got a lot of protection ability and high Health creatures in order to do that. 😉

The tactic playing with this summoner is to hit the enemy first and strong, so you can not get the same or more amount of damage back from them. This summoner is quite cheap on the market, but his monsters not so much, so you need to make sure you hire the right monsters for the battle.

As a Ranged Summoenr he is also excellent in the Briar Patch ruleset, because I mostly bring Ranged attackers with him. 😎

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Main Tank
Chaos Knight

The Chaos Knight cost is 6 mana, which is a bit too much compared that he has only 5 Health. The Shield ability makes him a bit more tougher and all the Magic attack creatures were banned, so he was quite safe from them. 😇

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Off-Tank
Blinding Reflector

The Blinding Reflector is an excellent low mana cost tank, because he cost only 3 mana and allows me to put him in low mana battles or to use a more mana monster in my backline. He has the Magic Reflect ability, which is nice, but I used him because for only three mana I am getting a verio good ratio of Armor and Health meatshield. 😁

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Damage Dealer
Celestial Harpy

I included the Celestial Harpy into this team, because I ran out of mana and this little beast cost only 2 of that also she gives me the chance to hit the weakest (lowest health) monster from my opponent team using her Opportunity ability. The Divine Shield and the extra Armor is there to protect him a little bit against the Thorns. 😇

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Support
Truthspeaker

I do not really use the Truthspeaker in my battles, but in this matchup it was inevitable, because he gives +2 Armor to all of our monsters. This Armor and the Divine Shield prooved to be very effective against my opponent especially, because my opponent couldn't bring any Magic attack creature. 😌

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Main Damage Dealer
Pelacor Arbalest

The Pelacor Arbalest is the main damage dealer of this battle, because he is a very good combination with my General Sloan who will increase the damage of this bad boy to three. He has the Double Strike ability, which means that this monster is capable to attack twice in every round for three damage if he hit his target. 😇

Unfortunately this monster doesn't have any protection at all, so you need to hide him in the backline or provide some protection from different creatures. Luckily the Briar Patch kinda protect him, because all the Sneaker creatures are Melee attack creature, so it is very unlikely that my opponent will bring any of that. 😊

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Backup Damage Dealer
War Pegasus

The War Pegasus is my new favorite Soulbound reward card and I was lucky enough to pull out a Gold Foil one for my self. He cost 7 mana, but he is a perfect fit into any General Sloan team. He has huge damage and a pretty good speed and he has the Shatter ability, which will destroy all the Armor on his target if he hits them.

The high Health also unusual for a Ranger attack creature, but in this way he is well protected from the enemy Sneaker monsters as well. 😉

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Click on the picture for the replay

My opponent picked Drake of Arnak who is a Dragon Splinter and the reason behind it that he gives +1 Armor to all of his monsters, which is a good layer of defense. He also choosed the Life Splinter like me in order to utilise the Ranged attack monsters from there.

The first round was uneventful, but in the second round I lost my Chaos Knight even though he had the Shield ability. The incoming damage was just too much to bear for him and my off-tank had to make an appearance. At the end of this round he also lost his cheap tank and I had to kill his Corsair Bosun at all cost. 😎

With two lucky shot from my Arbalest his Bosun stepped into the afterlife hand in hand with my Blinding Reflector who killed himself from a reflected damage and unfortunately everyone laughed at him on the other side with such an act. 😅

My monsters started to fell into the pit and I got really scared about the direction that this battle was going. 😱

Even my Pelacor Arbalest became a tank at the end and luckily my War Pegasus killed their Venari Crystalsmith with a precise 4 damage and their only Ranged damage dealer fell into the first position where he couldn't do any damage anymore. 😇

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I like to help new players 😉, so if you are just starting this game and you can use my referral link to sign-up and also write me a message on Discord (LordDiablooo#3750), so I will send you 100 DEC and few key cards (delegated for an entire season) to kick off your career in Splinterlands. 😊

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If you would like to use some of my dividers I have created for your blog feel free to use them following this link. 😉

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Thank you so much 🙏 that you took the time to read my Weekly Battle Challenge.
I hope it was informative and you liked it. 🤞