Welcome everyone👋, I'm back again with a new post for the Splinterlands BATTLE MAGE SECRETS Weekly Challenge!

Every week there is a new ruleset for this challenge, this time it's for the Fire & Regret ruleset, we should try to avoid using ranged monsters, as they will take damaged every time they attack because all Monsters will have the Return Fire ability, which will return reduced damage back to its attacker if it is a ranged attack (damage returned is equal to damage of attacker divided by 2, rounded up).

This ruleset only affects ranged monsters, so the simple advice would be to not use those units and play with melee or magic monsters. But let's say we have no choice but to play with ranged monsters because something like the Going the Distance ruleset is also in play, forcing us to only play with those units. Some skills that can help us take advantage are:

Offensive abilities:

With the Amplify ability you can increase the damage of the Return Fire ability to all enemy monsters by +1.

Monsters with the Bloodlust ability would be a good idea, as when they destroy a monster they will get +1 to all stats, including 1 armor, protecting your monsters when they attack again.

It is useful to use some Martyr ranged monsters, as they will take damage when they attack, and when destroyed, adjacent allies will get +1 to all stats.

Defensive abilities:

Monsters with the Reflection Shield ability are immune to all indirect, or reflected damage, so they won't take damage from the Return Fire ability.

Monsters with the Divine Shield ability will ignore the first damage they take.
With the Protect ability, your monsters will gain +2 armor (can stack). The Repair ability will restore part of a unit's armor each round.

You can use a monster with the Taunt ability to protect your monsters with lower health, enemy monsters will prioritize attacking it first. Be careful with units that have the Fury ability as they do double damage to monsters with the Taunt ability.
Monsters with the Shield ability are also a good choice, as they will take less damage from Return Fire.

As always, except when the Healed Out ruleset and/or the Affliction ability are in play, the Heal, Tank Heal, and Triage abilities will be useful for restoring the health of allied monsters that have taken damage.

Curiosities:

At the moment there are only 2 summoners that gives the Return Fire ability to allied monsters:

There are many monsters that have the Return Fire ability:

This time I will analyze a high-ranking battle in the modern format in the champions league between Louis88 VS Kaitokid24. Now, let's go to the battlefield!

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Fire & Regret	Armored Up	Noxious Fumes
All Monsters have the Return Fire ability.	All monsters have 2 Armor in addition to their normal Armor stat.	All Monsters start the battle Poisoned.

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The first player starts with the summoner: Lily Shieldpaw, who will heal the back-line unit that has taken the most damage each round (very good against the Noxious Fumes ruleset) and give +1 Health and Camouflage to all its allies.
On the frontline position is Grimbardun Smith, who although he has no attack, has a good set of abilities : Immunity, Void, Shield and Repair. Then use 3 useful monsters that will heal the tank unit, making it difficult to defeat it.
And two powerful high-mana magic monsters (both Dragons with the Flying ability), Rage (the first card with 16 mana), which will give +3 magic attack to Merdaali Guardian (who has no attack) thanks to its Weapons Training ability, and Chaos Dragon, which will attack a random enemy and deal damage to adjacent units with its Blast, will also gives Blind to enemy melee and ranged units, having a 15% chance to miss its attacks.

The second player uses Avina of the Wolf as his summoner, which makes him choose to give +2 Speed to two units or give the Heal ability to one unit.
On the frontline is Inevitable, a giant monster that not only has Immunity, but also heals a backline ally each turn, repair's a unit armor, gives all allies and itself +1 health and has the Shield ability (takes reduced damage from melee and ranged units).
In the second position, play Iziar, who will force enemies to attack her first, taking reduced magic damage and when destroyed will give adjacent allies +1 to all stats. Also like his opponent he uses Grimbardun Smith (the one chosen by the player to have the Heal ability) but in third position. Then play Aves Sturgis alongside Grimbardun Smith and Evelyn Auvera so they can benefit from its Weapons Training ability that gives them +3 magic attack. It will also reduce the enemy's armor in -2 with its Rust ability.
And in the last position, Adelade Brightwing will resurrect the first allied unit that is defeated (which will probably be Iziar for her Taunt ability, but she will buff her adjacent allies with the Martyr ability twice thanks to that), and make all her allies and herself faster with +1 Speed.

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• Lily Shieldpaw gives its team Health and the Camouflage ability. Additionally, each round will heal a backline unit that has received the most damage.
  Units gain Health from Merdaali Guardian Strengthen's ability.
  Anasth Soothsayer gives the Lookout ability to Chaos Dragon.
  And all monsters lose -2 armor due to the enemy Aves Sturgi's Rust ability.
  Merdaali Guardian gains +3 Magic attack thanks to Rage's Weapons Training ability.

• Avina of the Wolf gives Grimbardun Smith the benefits of the Heal ability.
  Inevitable gives allied units Health thanks to its Strengthen's ability.
  Evelyn Auvera gives Inevitable Melee Attack thanks to her Inspire ability.
  And Adelade Brightwing gives Swiftness (+1 Speed) to her team.
  Grimbardun Smith and Evelyn Auvera gain +3 Magic attack thanks to Aves Sturgi's
  Weapons Training ability.

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Round 1-2:
The monsters attacked each other and were damage by the Poison, but no one was defeated in these rounds.

Round 3:
☠️Iziar dies poisoned and is resurrected by Adelade's ability.
☠️Aves Sturgis also dies of poisoning, but unfortunately it doesn't resurrect.
☠️Iziar dies again this time from Merdaali Guardian's magical attack.
Inevitable and Grimbardun on Avina's side get +2 to all stats thanks to the defeated Iziar's Martyr ability.

Round 4:
☠️Merdaali Guardian dies from the poison, but returns to the game thanks to Oshuur Constantia's Resurrect ability.
The powerful ☠️Inevitable is defeated by Merdaali Guardian.
Chaos Dragon destroys ☠️Adelade Brightwing.

Round 5:
☠️Grimbardun Smith on the side of the light summoner is eliminated by Oshuur Constantia.

Round 6:
Finally Merdaali Guardian ends the battle by destroying ☠️Evelyn Auvera.

Watch on Splinterlands

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CONCLUSION

It was an interesting battle, both players showed strong cards and neither played ranged monsters since they weren't forced to use them. On Avina's side there were mostly magic monsters, but it was not enough to defeat the frontline enemy who had the Void ability (reducing the damage of magic attacks by 50%), which helped him survive the battle. Even having 4 creatures with immunity that are not affected by the poison ruleset was not enough to win this time.
On Lily Shieldpaw's side, while his Grimbardun withstood enemy attacks, three of his allies healed him each round, making it impossible for enemies to defeat him. And his powerful dragons and magical monsters destroyed the enemy, achieving victory without any loss.

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-Return fire is also the name of a videogame developed by Silent Software, Inc released in 1995.

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If you haven't played Splinterlands yet, you can join this fantastic game with my referral link.

I hope you have great battles and a great experience with it.

That's all for now, see you on the battlefield!