Another week, another Battle Mage Secrets challenge. This time around I will be showcasing a battle featuring the Briar Patch ruleset. The definitely very thorny Great Porcupine depicted on the thumbnail is very fitting for the occasion for sure.
Let us see what this ruleset does before we get into the nitty-gritty of the line-up and the battle itself.
The Briar Patch ruleset is pretty straight-forward - All Monsters have the Thorns ability, which essentially means that when a Monster is hit with a Melee attack, it does damage back to the attacker. This effect normally does 2 damage but could be amplified by Monsters with the Amplify (Increases Magic Reflect, Return Fire, and Thorns damage to all enemy monsters by 1) ability as well as negated by abilities such as Reflection Shield (the Monster doesn't take damage from Blast, Magic Reflect, Thorns, or Return Fire).
Now that we've got a good idea of what Briar Patch ruleset practically does, let's see now how it can be effectively utilized.
There is not that much that could be misunderstood about this ruleset but I do have a few things to say:
Other than the obvious fact that the best way to avoid getting Thorns damage is to just not use and Monsters with a Melee attack, the other possible approach is to incorporate Monsters with the Reflection Shield (The Monster doesn't take damage from Blast, Magic Reflect, Thorns, or Return Fire) ability in your line-up. I have shown all such Monsters currently available in the Modern format. Some of them are pretty meta, others you will see play very rarely but the Briar Patch ruleset definitely gives them a chance to shine.
In the 2nd row I have listed a lot of the currently available Monsters with Amplify (Increases Magic Reflect, Return Fire, and Thorns damage to all enemy monsters by 1) in Modern. Amplify is great to be played in conjunction with Briar Patch for obvious reasons, especially if your opponent does not do a great job building a team which plays around the ruleset.
Now that we have a decent understanding of the featured Ruleset and its potential advantages and disadvantages, let us have a look at the battle I have chosen to showcase.
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- The line-up of the Battle and the Ruleset:
The rulesets for this battle are Even Stevens (Only Monsters with even Mana costs may be used in battles), Briar Patch and Up to Eleven (All Monsters have the Amplify ability). The mana budget is 44 which is an average amount of mana so it does not give me the ability to play whatever combinations of Monsters I want. The available Elements are Fire, Water, Death and Dragon. I have decided to give the Fire Element a shot this time around. The battle I have chosen is a ladder battle from earlier today.
In the tanking spot I have one of the most recent additions to the Meta in the form of a Soulbound card - Iidri Fyre. It is specifically a great addition to the Fire Splinter which does not have that many Splinter-specific Taunt Monsters. I have it at level 4 and at that level it has Taunt (all enemy Monsters target this Monster (if they are able to)), Redemption (when this Monster dies, it does 1 damage to all enemy monsters) and Return Fire (when hit with a Ranged attack, Monsters with Return Fire will return reduced damage back to their attacker). I love playing Taunt Monster because they often manage to ruin the main strategy of the enemy.
The 2nd spot goes to another one of the last batch of reward Monsters - Ferexian Hero. He is a Legendary Monster with decent stats for a Melee card and some useful abilities, namely Weapons Training (Adjacent units with no attack gain this unit's attack, up to a maximum of 3), Reach (Melee attack Monsters with the Reach ability may attack from the second position on the team) and Reflection Shield (This Monster doesn't take damage from Blast, Magic Reflect, Thorns, or Return Fire)
The 3rd spot goes to the Molten Ash Golem. It is a beefy Archer with Demoralize (Reduces the Melee attack of all enemy Monsters), Close Range (Monsters with the Close Range ability can perform ranged attacks from the first position) and Weaken (Reduces the Health of all enemy Monsters). It also has a decent amount of Ranged damage with its 3 attack. So generally it is here to soak scatter shots and act as a tank if it has to.
4th in the line-up is the Supply Runner. Some more Speed for the team can never be a bad thing unless it's during the Reverse Speed ruleset. It is not the case this time so the Supply Runner with definitely help. Apart from Swiftness (All friendly Monsters have increased Speed) it also has Strengthen (All friendly Monsters have increased Health).
The 5th place in the line-up goes to Countess Sinash. Countess Sinash is a great Ranged Attacker specifically for the abilities she has - Opportunity (Monsters with the Opportunity ability may attack from any position and will target the enemy Monster with the lowest health), Swiftness (All friendly Monsters have increased Speed), Camouflage (This Monster cannot be targeted for attacks unless it's in the first position) and Blast (Does additional damage to Monsters adjacent to the target Monster) . Hopefully she'll get luck and survive until the end because Camouflage is no longer invincible to Scatter Shot as it used to be in the past.
Last but definitely not least is the best Monster in the Chaos Legion set and one of the best Monsters in the game as a whole, that's right, I am talking about Doctor Blight. I could write pages upon pages of praise for this Monster of a Monster but I'll keep it short and just list its tool kit in order of appearance - Affliction (when a unit with Affliction hits a target, it has a chance of applying Affliction on the target causing it to be unable to be healed), Camouflage (this unit cannot be targeted for attacks unless it's in the first position), Poison (attacks have a chance to apply poison, which does automatic damage to the target at the beginning of each round after the poison is applied), Scavenger (gains 1 max health each time any unit dies), Weaken (reduces the health of all enemy units). All this for the cost of 4 Mana, which also makes it a perfect candidate for the Little League ruleset. You can basically use it on any occasion and not make a mistake if you have the space in your line-up for it.
It is time for a quick round by round analysis:
The Summoner I am going with for the battle is Jacek. I like going Jacek when I'm trying to build a mostly Ranged Attack line-up. My opponent has opted for a pretty similar line-up to me but not quite. I am not really sure about their inclusion of a Recharge (This monster attacks every other round but does 3x damage) Monster. Usually when you play Jacek doing as much damage as possible in the initial round is key as RNJesus can help you kill off a few enemy Monsters quickly before they have had a chance to do their moves. Let's see how this battle goes.
After one round nothing has died so far on the enemy side of the board while I have lost my Countess Sinash but note that my Iidri has been poisoned and the poison damage has not ticked yet. When it tick my enemy will lose 3 of their Monsters so that's fantastic news for me.
Round 3 - Well I basically demolished the remaining enemy forces during the second round and all that's left now is to finish off their last remaining Monster.
Well this was definitely a fast but fun battle, and an entertaining way to showcase the Briar Patch ruleset. See you next week with another exciting post related to the brand new Battle Mage Secrets Weekly Challenge!
Over and Out,