For our battle mage secrets this weeks, we have the return fire ruleset. This ruleset calls for all ranged damaged to be returned to the sender and can be increased with the amplify ability. Naturally, some may feel not using ranged damage is the main strategy here but that is not necessarily the case given the ruleset as you will see in the battle breakdown. As usual, we will examine two different strategies for this ruleset and then do a round by round breakdown of a battle with the ruleset in play. For the full battle, please use the following link: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_134aa913ca2828bcd26ecab6219b8c52&ref=bluedevil0722
Strategies
Rathe amplify: Probably my number one strategy for this ruleset as well as other similar rulesets like thorns and magic reflect is to use amplify and put in cards that will damage the opponent no matter what. For example in return fire, one can assume magic and melee will be used so putting in thorns or magic reflect damage can be real nice. Rathe will also amplify any ranged damage your opponent uses if they feel they can sneak by with it.
Self heal and Triage: To trick your opponent, you can play ranged damage to avoid the thorns and magic reflect by including ranged monsters such as earth or water elemental with self heal or a triage monster such as djinn renova in order to keep your heavy DPS range monsters alive. This can be the difference in winning especially if your opponent is using the strategy above and nerfing all your other forms of damage except for range.
Now let us breakdown this unique battle with the return fire ruleset where myself and my opponent had a similar strategy and I was lucky enough to come out on top. Let us get into it!
Round 1
An interesting combo of rulesets in this battle as we have return fire, earthquake, and no magic. The high ruleset also makes things interesting as you will not want to play low health monsters with all the damage coming out. We both had the mindset of playing amplify for any ranged damage played. My choice was to not have any of that and rather shield up with arkemis and put my flying reach monster in the middle of the pack to let my opponent beat himself. In round 1, I was a little unlucky as his sandworm hit my coeurl lurker which had a 40% miss chance on it.
Round 2
Round 2 my amplify starts doing work as I am able to eliminate all of his ranged damage in the backline while only hitting them once. His taunt monster is also down letting my sandworm do some work to his sandworm in the next round.
Round 3
Everything still going as planned as he is down to two monsters by the end of this round and my luminous eagle is now ready to do damage where his sandworm will eventually die off to earthquake damage.
Round 4
In round 4, this is the beginning of the end as his sandworm is hitting my bear while my eagle is beating up his uriel. After a few rounds his sandworm is dead and I am able to eliminate his uriel with one shot of my uriel however my eagle was ready to assist as needed.
Strategy number one worked in this battle however more to amplify the ranged damage than others which was an interesting choice from my opponent. As mentioned in strategy number two, you really need self healing or triage to play ranged damage here or you are only going to die off quick. Please upvote or comment if you enjoyed this installment of the battle mage secrets and have any other strategies for this ruleset.