This weeks Battle Mage Challenge is about the Briar Patch rule.

Splinterlands tells us the following about the Briar Patch rule:

All units receive the Thorns ability at the start of the battle. Enemy units that use melee attacks receive damage back.

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

This rule punishes us for using melee monsters, so it can be considered a light variant of the Keep Your Distance ruleset. However, since Thorns damage is always 2 (or 3 when amplified), it might not be such a big deal for some of the heavier melee monsters like Uriel the Purifier, Mycelic Infantry etc.

Some meta cards also have Reflection Shield allowing them to ignore the thorns. The two most relevant units that come to mind are the Tide Biter and Corsair Bosun.

If we really think our opponent is going to use melee monsters, we can further punish them by adding an Amplify. This can also work well if we slot in one of the other Magic Reflect or Return Fire cards, since in general we're going to see more magic and ranged monsters in these matches.

Incompatible Rules

Briar Patch is incompatible with Keep Your Distance, Going the Distance, Wands Out.

Desirable Abilities

Magic Reflect, Return Fire, Silence, Void

Advantaged Summoners

In general I believe that the summoners that reduce or amplify magic damage has the largest advantage in this rule. Ranged summoners are also good but have to rely on a melee/magic/noattack tank, so they can't take full advantage of the rule like the magic oriented summoners can.

Disadvantaged Summoners

The clearly disadvantaged summoner in this rule is Mylor since he already gives Thorns. Secondly, melee oriented summoners like Malric Inferno, Tarsa etc. are also at a disadvantage but at least give some useful bonuses to their teams.

Desirable Monsters

Disadvantaged Monsters

My Battle : Briar Patch battle

Battle configuration
League	Modern Diamond league.
Mana	26
Rules	Are You Not Entertained?, Lost Magic, Briar Patch
Splinters	Death, Water, Dragon, Earth, Fire, Life

This is clearly a match where its beneficial to play ranged units. Melee units are punished, and magic units are not allowed. What we're left with is ranged. Also, this is not that high mana so we're gonna have to consider mostly low mana ranged damagers. In modern, Water and Death have strong ranged decks. Another option is to use Ilthain, since we do expect ranged, to get automatic reflection from all our monsters. Finally, there are gladiators to consider aswell. Death and Life have the best ranged gladiators, in my opinion, with Ajax Lightfoot and Whistling Damon. Ajax is best played when it can be used to trap Sneak units (high speed and dodge), so maybe Whistling Damon is the play.

My Lineup

Since its not that high damage, I went for an annoying setup with Lily, Baakjira and Merdaali Guardian. The health restoration in from these guys is huge, and can be a significant barrier to any ranged-based damage team at this low mana. To further add salt to that wound, I included the Torrent Fiend which has Headwinds, and then Kraar Xoc as a cheap 1 mana tank for a last resort in case Baakjira dies. Finally, my damage comes from Merdhampir (who has Cripple to counter another healing setup) and Deeplurker for its high damage and Poison. Since I have Triage with Lily, I can afford playing one melee monster since I know I can heal back the damage from one monster in my backline.

Opponent's lineup

My opponent went for Astral Entity and a host of low mana ranged attackers. This was pretty much as expected. In front, he put Cursed Windeku, who even though it has thorns in all matches, does have high health and Heal, so it is not that hurt by the return damage.

Battle progress and Result

In round 1, my Baakjira toughens up and takes the beating like a good tank. He gets a light top-up from Merdaali Guardian midway, and at the worst goes down to 10 health before he heals himself back up to 16. As far as attacks go, Merdhampir lands his hit and adds Cripple to Windeku, while my Deeplurker hits and lands Poison on the Weirding Warrior.

In round 2, my Merdhampir misses, but Deeplurker kills the Weirding Warrior who is resurrected by Astral Entity. After Merdaali Guardian heals Baakjira, it is back to full health. Now we've really seen that the sustain in this lineup is too much to handle for the ranged setup my opponent has. However, we did really benefit from the Torrent Field with its Headwinds here. Without it we would take another 5 damage each round, and the Baakjira would only last a few rounds.

In round 3 Baakjira gets Poison though, so now Baakjira's health could begin ticking down. Fortunately, in round 4 I finish off the Windeku, removing 4 damage from my opponents team, and now the Poison doesn't matter anymore.

In round 5 the situation looks settled. It takes a few more rounds to finish the game because I don't have a lot of damage, but slow and steady they fall.

This style of play is not one I particularly like. But sometimes, like here, it can be very effective. The key was seeing that a ranged setup was likely, and adding the Headwinds and sustain to counter that.

Alternative lineups

Lux Vega (Water)

Lily Shieldpaw (Water)

Quix the Devious (Water)

Skargore

I hope you found this post interesting. If you did, you might also enjoy my other content.

Battle mage challenges

Battle Mage Challenge: Born Again
Battle Mage Challenge: Back to Basics
Battle Mage Challenge: Armored Up
Battle Mage Challenge: Aimless
Battle Mage Challenge: Aim True
Battle Mage Challenge: Rise of the Commons
Battle Mage Challenge: Weak Magic

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Kalkulus