Good day, summoners! This is 
Today I want to share my experience with one of the most important rulesets for new players to understand — Briar Patch.
As a newbie still learning the game, the moment I see that thorny icon,
the first thought that hits me is simple:
Reduce the number of melee monsters in my lineup to the barest minimum.
Briar Patch looks straightforward on paper, but it quietly destroys unprepared teams. It is one of the most punishing rulesets in Splinterlands for anyone who loves pure melee lineups.
What Briar Patch Actually Does.
The ruleset gives the Thorns ability to every monster on both sides at the start of the battle.
Thorns only triggers when a unit is hit by a melee attack. When that happens, the attacker receives physical damage equal to: Attacker’s melee damage ÷ 2 (rounded up)
That is,the game takes the melee monster’s attack power each time they swung, divides it by 2, and rounds the number up. Here are simple examples:
And it continues the same way for higher attack values.
This means the stronger the melee monster is, the more it hurts itself every time it attacks under Briar Patch.
Higher attacks keep scaling the same way
So every time a melee monster swings, it pays a tax equal to roughly half its own damage.
Why This Ruleset Feels So Brutal.
Most of us naturally want to put strong melee tanks in the front and pressure the opponent. Briar Patch turns that habit against us. Every successful melee hit costs the attacker health or armor. The more melee monsters a player brings, the faster their own team bleeds out.
Ranged and magic attacks, on the other hand, are completely free under pure Briar Patch — they never trigger Thorns. That is why experienced players usually switch to ranged and magic the moment they see this ruleset.
Key Things to Remember.
Thorns does not stack with itself. Even if your Archon also gives Thorns (like Eternal Tofu), you do not get double damage.
Amplify increases the returned Thorns damage by +1.
Shield halves the Thorns damage (usually turning 2 into 1).
Reflection Shield / Deflect completely blocks Thorns — the best protection if you still want to use melee.
Taking Thorns damage can trigger Enrage on the attacker, which sometimes turns the self-damage into a dangerous buff.
My Personal Approach as a Newbie.
I treat every melee slot as a calculated risk. If I must bring a melee monster (usually my tank), I try to make sure it has Shield or, even better, Reflection Shield. Anything less and I keep the number as low as possible — often just one or zero.
The players who auto-pilot their favourite melee tanks under Briar Patch usually watch those same tanks slowly destroy themselves. The players who stay disciplined and respect the thorn tax walk away with the win more often than not.
THE BATTLE
In this battle there were three ruleset.
Briar Patch, Heavy Hitters and Close Range
The total mana cap was 58 and you are to choose splinters from fire, earth and life.
Ambush Round.My opponent came fully prepared with a deck consisting mostly of melee-attack monsters, although I am not sure why he chose that approach under these rulesets. Nevertheless, I admired his strategy. He brought a melee monster with the Deflect ability, which prevented Thorns from affecting it, and he also relied on the high health of his team to withstand the damage.However, the damage over time from Thorns became alarming. Although his Deflect monster was protected, the rest of his melee attackers continued taking damage whenever they attacked, and that cumulative damage eventually contributed to his defeat.
Another slight advantage I had was that my opponent used a dual-attack monster with the Stray Shot ability. Whenever it attacks, an allied monster suffers 2 additional damage.
Briar Patch rewards discipline and punishes greed.🤗
Master this ruleset and you will start smiling every time that thorny icon appears — because you know half the lobby is about to make the same expensive mistake.
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Thank you for reading and watching my post.
