This week's Battle Mage Secrets challenge features Briar Patch! When I was starting out in Splinterlands, this was one of my least favorite rulesets - after all, who likes taking Thorns damage every time your monsters attack? But as I have gained experience and - very importantly - more cards, this ruleset isn't so bad. Once you have a fair number of lineup options in your deck, then you are likely to have one that works well with Briar Patch.
As I alluded to earlier, Briar Patch grants every monster on the battlefield Thorns. This means that the fight will be distinctly unfriendly to melee attackers, as they will be taking return damage whenever they attack. This naturally means that ranged and magic attackers become quite a bit better in this ruleset. Oh, and Reflection Shield is pretty decent too - any melee attackers with that ability will be able to ignore Thorns.
If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!
First up: the ruleset. As you might expect on account of the subject of the challenge, we have the Briar Patch ruleset. So this will be a Thorn-y battle. We also have plenty of mana to work with, as 50 is one of the higher mana caps we can get. Finally, we have most of the splinters available, with a selection of the Fire, Water, Life, or Death splinters.
Lots of mana to use and Fire being an available splinter means that Yodin Zaku is a strong selection for this fight. Yodin is excellent in most rulesets, and Briar Patch plays well to Yodin's strengths. Ranged attackers won't be taking Thorns damage, and Yodin conveniently buffs ranged attackers. So my lineup for this battle will be heavy on ranged damage, with the aim of minimizing the damage my monsters take from Thorns.
I started my team with my tank and secondary tank. I led off with Antoid Platoon. Antoid Platoon is a melee monster, but it's Shield ability means it will only be taking half damage from Thorns. Forgotten One is also melee, but has plenty of armor and health to stand up to attacks and Thorns damage.
With the melee tanks out of the way, the rest of my lineup would focus on monsters who wouldn't take Thorns damage. Lava Launcher and Gargoya Devil are both strong ranged attackers with Close Range, which allows them to benefit from all of Yodin's buffs and to attack even from the front position.
I finished off my team with Djinn Inferni and Ash Mirage. Djinn Inferni is a great magic attacker, dishing out 3 damage while also having a chance at doing terrible, terrible damage with its Giant Killer ability. Ash Mirage is a solid anti-ranged ranged attacker. As it is also the only monster who can't attack from that front position, I was careful to stick it at the very back of my team.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am not sure how the battle is going to turn out. My opponent's team has a serious advantage in levels, coming in mostly at the Gold league cap, while my monsters are only levelled for the Bronze league. I do have some things going for me though - Yodin's Blast summoner ability will be very helpful, and while Harklaw is a huge tank my Djinn Inferni is well positioned to be able to take it down before things get too out of hand.
In the first round of battle there is plenty of damage but few casualties. My Antoid Platoon goes down quickly, but every other monster in the battle is still standing. Things are looking okay for me though, as both of the tanky monsters at the front of the enemy lineup have taken heavy damage and are about to fall.
One more round and the field is beginning to clear up. Both of the enemy tanks are gone, along with Lira for a good measure. My two melee monsters at the front are also off the table, but the majority of my team's firepower is still in the fight.
It ended up being a quick one - my team closed out this battle before the end of the third round with a hail of arrows, a bit of magic, and some Blast damage. And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
Briar Patch battles can be tricky (or should I say prickly?), but are very manageable with careful monster selection and placement. Usually going heavy on the ranged and magic monsters is a recipe for success. With that said, there is also something to be said for throwing in some Reflection Shield or a sacrificial tank or indirect attacker - though the price of bringing in those options can be quite a bit higher than they would be in other battles.
In this fight, I went with the obvious play - some relatively budget tanks and plenty of ranged and magic damage. In the end, my Yodin lineup was able to pull off the quick, if a bit dirty, victory.
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:
Showing Some Range - Battling with Going the Distance! - A battle analysis, featuring Going the Distance!
Splinterlands Economics: Causation - A look at causation, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
Splinterlands Economics: Ceteris Paribus - An introduction to the concept of Ceteris Paribus, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands!
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All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.