Hello there.

This week's Battle Mage Secrets [BMS] challenge is a battle with the Born Again ruleset. The ruleset is named Born Again, but they should just change it to Martyr Time, am I right? During this ruleset all units receive the Rebirth ability which allows them to self resurrect once. The Rebirth, is a different ability from Resurrect, so some players can definitely go crazy with the Marty stacks.

You know what else is crazy during this ruleset, Gladiator cards; or monsters with Bloodlust in general. Upon killing an enemy monster, a monster with Bloodlust will get +1 to all of its stats. Now imagine that with the Born Again ruleset where monsters can be killed twice, so twice as much Bloodlust stacks are up for grabs, on top of the Martyr stacks. So if a player uses 2 or more Martyrs, together with a Bloodlust monster, it's going to be raining stacks.

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But of course, all is not lost. Like in life, where there is nothing constant except death, taxes, and haters; in a Born Again ruleset Dispel completes the trio. The Dispel ability removes all positive buffs on the target. This includes Martyr and Bloodlust stacks.

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But enough with my self made memes. Without further ado, let's get into the battle.

The Ruleset

This was a Gold tournament battle, and it had Fog of War, Explosive Weaponry, and Born Again Rulesets. A 30 mana battle is on the normal amount. Only the Earth element is available, I can think of a few strategies so I will try to counter as much as I can.

The ideal team is Quora sandwiched between Venari Marksrat and Fungus Flinger, which are both Martyr monsters. This should take advantage of both the Explosive Weaponry and Born Again. If you want to be defensive, putting Kinjo after the Martyr to protect against the Blast damage is good. A Goblin Psychic would round out the team perfectly. I prefer to be offensive, so I would use Venari Spellsmith instead.

The Lineup

I don't have Venator Kinjo, so that option is already out. I also expect a Quora with Martyr, so Venari Spellsmith is really important. I decided to go with Mycelia to grant my Quora with Armor, to help deal with the mirror matchup.

The Battle

Link to the Battle

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The Matchup

As expected, my opponent also went with a Quora team, and they even have a GF Quora. We are in a Gold tournament and they used a Silver level summoner, so I am lucky that they didn't have a higher level Quora. The decided to go with a level 1 Regal Peryton, and a level 1 Goblin Psychic, which was interesting. They did have a level 5 Fungus Flinger.

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End of Round 1

The Regal Peryton initially worked out well for them since it lowered my Marksrat's HP enough for their Quora to get a Bloodlust stack. My Quora wasn't as lucky since it didn't get any Bloodlust stack from my opponent's Fungus Flinger.

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End of Round 2

Round 2 is where the importance of the support monsters, and the difference in their effect on the battle really showed. Regal Peryton helped get their Quora another Bloodlust stack, and the Goblin Psychic healed their Quora. Mycelia helped protect my Quora from Damage with the armor, and Spellsmith removed all those Martyr and Bloodlust stacks that their Quora has accumulated. Having a higher level Quora doesn't matter when it loses all its stacks and becomes slower than my Quora. This battle is over.

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End of the Battle

I will have to say that I was surprised that my opponent didn't use a Dispel. They would have won that battle instead since they had a level 2 Quora that heals 4 HP naturally. Mycelia's Protect helped me win, but I do think a Kinjo with any ranged/magic 2 cost monster at the back would be the best team.

The Result

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Conclusion

In tournaments where there are additional limitations on top of the Rulesets and banned elements, I try to make it a point to look at the possible teams and imagine them fighting against one another. I will then choose the team which I think is best. For this specific battle, I already figured I will be facing a Quora with Martyr because of the rulesets. I just countered it, and came out with the win.