BATTLE MAGE SECRET Weekly Challenge! BRIAR PATCH

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Hello there, this is my entry to the new "Battle Mage Secret Weekly Challenge!". If you want to participate or know more about the challenge, click here. There are still a few days left to enter this challenge. This week we have to formulate a strategy with Briar Patch.

RULESET: BRIAR PATCH

With the Back to Basics ruleset, all monsters receive the Thorns ability at the start of the battle. When a melee attacker attacks it receives damage back.

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

Briar Patch has always been a common appearance in my battles and I have a ton of experience with it. It makes for some interesting gameplay and today it came with two other interesting rulesets. I will talk more about them but first, let's take a look at my lineup.

My Lineup

This is my lineup for the battle

Position	Summoner/Monsters
Summoner
Position 1	Unicorn Mustang
Position 2	Oaken Behemoth
Position 3	Queen Mycelia
Position 4	Goblin Psychic
Position 5	Sporcerer
Position 6	Magi of Chaos

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This was a 57-mana battle and I feel comfortable in this range. Let me remind you that the battle had the following rulesets.

• Even Stevens - Only monsters with even Mana costs may be used in battle.

• Close Range - Ranged attacks may be used in the first position in battles.

• Briar Patch - All monsters have the Thorns ability.

Once I saw the 'Close Range' and 'Briar Patch' together, I knew that the main focus of the battle would be either ranged attackers or magic attackers. And if you want to ignore the armour one must go with good magic attacks so I was expecting a magic attack from my opponent as well.

All the splinters were active except Life so I had many options but I chose to go with Obsidian as my summoner which of course increased the magic attacks.

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Since I was expecting a magic attack, I used the Unicorn Mustang in the first place. Its Void ability helps in reducing the damage taken from magic attackers. I was not surprised to see my opponent using this as their tank. It has a good attack as well. Although, I had to be careful with using melee attackers with Briar Patch.

In the next position, I used a legendary beast called Oaken Behemoth. It dealt 2 magic attacks and 2 melee attacks as well. Also, it came with Void Armor ability which should help in countering magic attacks as well. And the Reach ability is a nice addition so I can place it in the second position and it can still deal with both of its damages.

Queen Mycelia came in the next position, it is a less powerful mage and deals only 1 magic attack with just 1 speed but its Amplify and Protect abilities were just perfect for Briar Patch. All this with just 4 mana is truly legendary.

Next came the Goblin Psychic with its heavy magic damage and two interesting abilities, Tank heal and Affliction. This was my only source of healing in this battle and its affliction abilities help as well making the tank unable to heal.

At the fifth place in my lineup, I used the Sporcerer, it is an interesting unit which deals with 2 magic attacks (at lvl 2) and comes with a Rust ability that reduces the armour of all enemy monsters. This was helpful in my battle as I had two heavy hitters at the front of the lineup who would benefit from the reduced armour.

Last but not least was Magi of Chaos, yet another mage which dealt 3 magic attacks on its own. However, it didn't come with any abilities which is fine of course. Its stats were good enough for me.

Now that my lineup was set let's talk about my strategy for this game.

My Strategy

My strategy was simply to use brute magic damage and get through the defences of the opponent. It doesn't mean that I didn't focus on my defences, I did. I used two heavy tanks at the front of the lineup and it should take some time to get past them while my mages deal heavy damage.

Since all the monsters had thorns abilities, I used the Queen Myclia which gave extra armour to all my units and with its Amplify ability those thorns' damage was increased. Amplify's ability goes so well with Briar Patch, I love it.

I will share my battle here, which I have uploaded to YouTube. Battle Link

Round 1

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As I expected, my opponent used Obsidian as well to increase their magic attacks and I was prepared as well.

Every monster attacked both of the tanks and my opponent's tank was dead much before mine but my Unicorn Mustang couldn't get past round 1 as well. By the end of the round, I had an advantage over the other team. My strategy of giving extra armour to all my units worked very well.

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Round 2

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Round 2 was a nightmare for my opponent and saw the demise of 2 more units while my Oaken Behemoth took all the beating and didn't die by the end of this round. My heavy magic attack took down two important units and now my victory was looking easy.

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Round 3

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This round went as expected, my opponent's units were no match to mine.

Finally, they manage to kill my Oaken Behemoth but it was too late too little. Too much to ask from Goblin Psychic who got one shot by my Magi of Chaos and the last one also followed soon. This was inevitable.

They should have put more anti-magic measures in their lineup. This gave me an easy win in the end.

Conclusion

Briar Patch is an interesting ruleset. It punishes you for using melee and forces you to focus on Ranged and Magic attackers. This also gives an opportunity to use Amplify and increases the thorns damage. However, most of the tanks are melee attackers and they can help if used correctly even with this rulest.

I had fun playing with this ruleset. Let me know what are your thoughts about the ruleset.

Splinterlands is a popular NFT-based play2earn game. If you have not joined the game yet, then you are missing a lot of fun. You can join by using my referal link.

Note:

• Text dividers are from freeztag.
• The banner is from @splinterlands

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