Splinterlands BATTLE MAGE SECRETS Weekly Challenge- Featuring Briar Patch

Featuring Bronze League Summoner and Monsters in Action!

I'm back with this week's challenge to showcase how Superior gameplay and playing towards the rule sets can help lower cards beat hiring cards. In this particular battle I have a level two summoner equivalent, akaa level 1 legendary facing off against a level for rare cards and level 5 Commons. That typically means that my opponent will be much faster, hit harder, and will be harder for me to actually hit.

These will be good reviews for those who are just starting the game with a lower level account and some of the strategies that they can employ to beat teams that might have a deck advantage over you in terms of ranking. This also shows how having a complete deck is extremely beneficial as you unlock powerful cards for all situations

CHALLENGE RULES

RULESET: Briar Patch

• All monsters receive the Thorns ability at the start of the battle. 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 damage.

Reasons Why I like it
This rule said really makes plain with melee cards difficult. Considering that they're going to take damage every time they attack, you might lose some of your biggest weapons pretty quickly. Cards with double strike or no armor or Shield will be very quickly to expire due to their dwindling health. I think that when you play this rule set it makes more sense to focus on magic and ranged cards and splinters the melee. Typically I expect it to either be a life or an earth splinter attack with a few dragons thrown in as counters.

The Matchup - Where Rules Sets, Splinters and Mana Collide

The Rule Sets

Watch the Match Here

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_2a7edebdaa8e723a086d21b02093f2bf&ref=senstless

MANA: 34

Ruleset: Briar Patch: All Monsters have the Thorns ability.

Ruleset: Odd Ones Out: Only monsters with odd mana costs may be used.

Ruleset: Up to Eleven: All Monsters Have the Amplify ability

SPLINTERS: Fire, Water, Earth, Life, Death, Dragon

Initial Rule Set and Mana Gameplay Thoughts

• RULESETS
  The three rule sets really combined to make this a difficult battle to plan for. Having both thorns and up to 11 which will increase the amount of damage that monsters take from thorns means melee monsters will really need to be avoided. Complicating this strategy will be that only odd cards are allowed to be played thus taking away some of the better ranged and magic cards that could be played, but that will not be missing.

• • Splinters
    An extremely limited option this time around, with only Earth and dragon I feel the choice is fairly simple in modern format and it will be Earth for me. I also expect my opponent to mostly play magic cards, although they might place dragons to have access to some of the higher mana cards available there.

• Mana
  With 56 mana there is no limit to the team you can pick. I don't think it'll be a limiting factor in most cases and you can easily find a well-balanced line up your happy with with 56 mana. Clearly you can't pick all your strongest cards every time, but honestly those lineups don't do that well as there's no synergy between them sometimes.

• Summoner IMMORTALIS
  As I mentioned I wanted to focus on magic damage therefore I decided to play the Earth splinter. Since I was counting on my opponent to play Earth and or heavy armor I chose to play immortalis as it would provide my monsters void ability to counter their magic attacks, as well as shatter to remove all of their armor on each attack. I think adding both a counter and an attack advantage will be huge

• First Position THANE NEWSONG
  One of the newer cars I added last month. It's one of the non-attacking cards, but it does provide the inspirability if I were to play a melee monster. I'm also chosen as they can sit in first position and not take any Thorn damage, while absorbing quite a bit of magic and arrow damage will protecting the rest of my lineup

• Second Position CENTAURI MAGE
  I wanted it here in second place to both take snipe attacks first and reflect them back, and once it moves to first position help to push a damage back onto my opponents who are firing arrows.

• Third Position FUGNUS FLINGER
  Wanted to play it in between mage and Runemancer to give it a boost when it died. Not sure which cards will be left but it should boost one, or the other or maybe both if it gets attacked early with opportunity

• Fourth Position RUNEMANCER FLORRE I love this card, and I play it so heavily. The fact that it has both arrows and magic attack that can be boosted I'm at all providing 13 health and a four-speed to means it's almost always going to my lineups

• Fifth Position ULOTH DHAMPIR so they're fairly decent aero card. The reason why I chose this one was to add the stun ability to my car to maybe see if I could get them to miss a turn or two as I wail away on their lineup

• Sixth Position ACIENT REDWOOD
  Another one of my ads from last month and boy is it useful. Having guaranteed hit of five arrow attack is spectacular. The only downside is the slow speed means it goes last.

Opponent Lineup & Match Play

• Summoner OBSIDIAN my opponent also decided to play earth, and of course getting a magic boost is always nice. It's really a toss-up between adding magic or trying to counter magic
• PELACOR MERCENARY solid first choice for monster, but I'm not sure if it's ideal for playing in a thorns match. It does have some armor but that's about it
• DISINTEGRATOR not sure why they're playing this card is I'm unlikely to be playing Bailey monsters to be impacted by its abilities, but it's in second place with some decent armor and health.
• REGAL PERTYON The go-to Golden boy in Earth lineups especially when it has a base of two magic at this level. Once it gets boosted it'll be up to three base with six speed meaning it's almost always guaranteed to attack first delivering big damage
• GARGOYA DEVIL the card that's not great in bronze League it's a big boost up into silverware it picks up another damage point meaning each attack we delivering three damage and it has close up a very solid choice.
• GOBLIN TOWER who doesn't love a little splash damage in your lineup, this is an old classic card that has fallen out of favor with me lately but it's still extremely useful
• MYCELIC SLIPSPAWN adding a card with taunt simply means that the rest of your lineup will hopefully not take a lot of damage as you concentrate your fire on your opponent. It's a great play at the back of your lineup

Round 1

Round one starts off and as always speed is important. These two teams are fairly well mixed for speed and we more or less take turns in the first round attacking each other and delivering damage. I do lose Thane New song quickly and managed to offset that by knocking out slip spawn.

Round 2

Round two starts in both teams have already taken some pretty heavy damage. I have several cards that are close to going out and won't require much damage before they do. This round is going to be difficult for my lineup but I'm hoping to get an upper hand. Within the first couple of attacks, I lose another card when Centuri Mage is eliminated. This is quickly followed by Fungus flinger which is actually nice as it will then boost Runemancer. The round comes to an end when truth strike delivers another knockout blow for the ancient redwood.

Round 3

As you can see when round three starts neither of our teams look great anymore. I don't think there's a clear advantage necessarily and it'll be interesting to see what happens. We take turns delivering blows, and I knock out disintegrator. This leads to ancient redwood and true strike delivering another knockout on Regal Peryton

Round 4

Round three was a huge round for me, and I think the tables have turned in my favor. As the round starts I secure another knockout and they are out of monsters that can attack from the front row. By the end of the round I have secured the victory with another knockout from ancient redwood. All it took was a couple of knockouts and things really started to roll.

Thoughts - and Chances to Win Again

Interesting that using the tool to compare my chances of winning those little more lopsided than I thought. I thought maybe I had gotten lucky codes for a while there in the middle of the match it looked a little dicey for me. It's nice to know that I had a 100% chance to win in this matchup given my opponents lineup and what I chose. This just goes to reiterate the fact that lower level cards AKA bronze League cards are fully capable of beating silver league cards if you play a better lineup for the rule sets, or a perfect counter for what your opponent is going to play. Don't get discouraged if you face some higher cards and just know that they are beatable if you pick a great lineup sometimes.

~~@senstless

#sbi-skip