Prelude
Hello everybody, how is it going? Time passed us by so quickly. I have read many good sharing last week in the Back to Basics rule sharing. Kudos to everyone whom have put up their own insights to the ruleset which allowed the growth of the community in terms of skillsets and allowing players to up their playing level.
The ruleset of the challenge this week is: Briar Patch.
Ruleset Spotlight
Briar Patch
All monsters receive the Thorns ability at the start of the battle. Enemy monsters that use melee attacks receive damage back.
Abilities/Cards that get shutdown with this rule set
This is melee cards nemesis. Double strike melee strikers risk getting killed by the thorns within a single turn as well. The only melee that probably still a little usable will be those with shield ability to reduce the damage return from thorns.
What thrives with this ruleset?
Since people will avoid using melee, we will face mainly magic and range monsters. So we probably need to ramp up defences against these kind of cards. Void/Void Armour + Protect are good options. Void absorbs 1 magic damage whilst Void Armour +Protect effectively bumps up the armour and allow the magic to land on armour instead of directly on the card.
Other abilities that will come in handy with the likes of Phase, Magic Reflect and Silence. And if we expecting heavy range, we can also consider abilities such as Return Fire and Headwinds. These will further enhance the team's advantage against Magic and Range cards.
On stats, I would say a higher speed is still good since the faster we strike, the faster we hit and take out cards before they return and take out ours.
With these in mind, let's start to talk about the battle proper.
The Battle
Link: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_6075d7be71b097923e15cccb5d882486&ref=vaynard86
Rules
Briar Patch, Melee Mayhem
Mana Limit: 39
| Splinter | Mana Cost | Position | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kelya Frendul | 4 | Summoner | Reliable Water Summoner with added speed. |
| Venari Marksrat | 3 | 1st | Martyr ability. I placed it right in front to let it set off.. |
| Djinn Oshannus | 8 | 2nd | Fast speed magic attacker with Phase. |
| River Hellondale | 7 | 3rd | Resurrect might have a little surprise for my opponent. |
| Axemaster | 7 | 4th | Fast range double striker. |
| Nerissa Tridawn | 9 | 5th | Hard hitting magic attacker. |
| Hardy Stonefish | 1 | 6th | Some backline protection for Nerissa. |
| Total Mana: | 39 |
Opponent Lineup
Prediction before pressing rumble
A very well thought of lineup by my opponent. Especially with the Queen Mycelia which help to fend off range attack with that additional armour. And my opponent used a full magic lineup so that thorns will not be an issue to them.
Battle Synopsis
Round 1, Marksrat died, resurrected and died again. This allow Martyr ability to be fired off 2 times. Because of this, my Ohsannus become 4 attack with a speed of 8. With the Phase ability, almost every magic attack on Oshannus missed.
Round 2, Another round of misses but Oshannus managed to smashed Mycelic Slipspawn.
Round 3, Regal Peryton got disposed off right at the start by Oshannus. While Magi of Chaos get disposed by Nerissa. Hardy Stonefish suicide itself due to the Melee Mayhem ruleset and got killed by thorns.
Round 4, Goblin Psychic got taken out by Axemaster whilst Queen Mycelia get taken out by Nerissa. Oshannus still held super well.
Round 5, Final blow onto Doctor Blight by Oshannus. Victory secured!
Post Battle Summary
A well orchestrated strategy that helped my team to secure a very strong victory.
The double Martyr created a monstrous Oshannus which essentially avoided so many attack from my opponent lineup.
Whilst both side came up with ideas to avoid fielding monsters, my choice to include Venari Marksrat was what made the difference. Thought there is one thing that I could have even made it better was to use Chaos Agent instead of Hardy Stonehard which ended up suiciding itself because of the 2 rule sets.
Did my strategy work? It totally did. And to top it off, my double Martyr setup made it even better for this match. I was definitely expecting a heavy magic lineup. Hence I set off with Marksrat, Oshannus and River Hellondale to create the combo, which yielded me a super fast and high hitting Oshannus which was able to handle the front line and sufficiently dodge almost all the magic attacks.
What's the Battle Mage Secret?
For this week, because of knowing that I will see many magic attackers, I decided to use a combo to buff up a card to enable it's ability to fend the front line and allowing the backline to do the damage.
While we know the basic was to avoid using melee cards, there are additional ways to tinker our lineup, such as the method I have shown today to boost up cards to make them viable and bring advantage over our opponent to win the battle. So continue figuring out how to make best of the lineup. To also share, Martyr has amazed me quite a number of times and have helped me turn the tide in many matches. Do try it out if you've haven't!
Wrap Up
I hope you guys enjoyed reading my sharing on the rule set Briar Patch. I would really appreciate it if you liked and/or commented to let me know what are you thoughts.
I am currently part of PIZZA, an active gaming and creative arts crypto community on the HIVE blockchain and part of PIZZA guild. Popular cryto games such as SPLINTERLANDS, RISING STAR and HASHKINGS are actively discussed in this community.
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Till my next battle sharing, take care, stay safe and happy battling!
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