Greetings Summoners! Welcome to Battle Mage Secrets. The Battle Mage Secrets is a challenge where every week players must test their strategic skills in battle for specific rules.

This week the specific rule is "Briar Patch". All monsters receive the Thorns ability at the start of the battle. Enemy monsters that use melee attacks receive damage back.

• Damage returned is equal to damage of the attacker divided by 2, rounded up.

• Melee attack monsters with the Reflection Shield ability do not take damage from thorns.

• The Amplify ability increases damage.

This battle was played in Brawl with a novice fray limit. Therefore, we were only able to play level 1 cards.

Battle Rules & Strategy

This is a 33 mana battle with 3 battle rules (Odd Ones Out, Healed Out and Briar Patch). All elements except Fire, Life and Dragon are allowed to play.

Icon	Name	Description
	Odd Ones Out	Only Monsters with odd Mana costs may be used in battles.
	Healed Out	All healing abilities are removed from Monsters and Summoners.
	Briar Patch	All Monsters have the Thorns ability.

Strategy & Tips

• You can skip monsters and summoners having Affliction.
• Do not use monsters with Heal or Tank Heal abilities.
• Do not use monsters with melee attack.
• To benefit as much as possible from the effect of our summoner, we will try to use as many Magic Attack monsters as possible.
• Monsters with high speed are important.
• Lining up monsters in ascending order of their health is a good idea.

My Lineup

The oldest AZMARÉan Summoner, Alric Stormbringer, founded the modern arts of Chaos Magic. He has many pupils from around the Splinterlands. Alric’s gift is not so much bringing the storm, but channeling it. He has lived for hundreds of years, and some stories claim he was alive before the Splintering.

Alric Stormbringer: I really like this summoner as it gives +1 magic attack to all friendly magic attack monsters.

Venari Marksrat: When this Monster dies, adjacent Monsters get +1 to all stats.

Nerissa Tridawn: This is an amazing Magic attack card that can be used as a tank due to its high HP. Even if its mana cost is high, it's a perfect card for high mana battles.

Musa Saline: This card gains 1 max health each time any monster dies. It becomes stronger and stronger every time a monster dies.

Venari Wavesmith: This card gives +2 armor to all friendly monsters. I think it is very useful since none of our monsters have armor. Armor will allow us to resist more attacks from enemy monsters with melee and ranged attacks.

Mischievous Mermaid: This card is incredibly fast. The high speed is very important as it allows us to attack first and dodge melee and ranged attacks.

Water Caller: When this Monster hits a target, it has a chance to stun the target causing it to skip its next turn.

The Battle

Click here to see the full battle!

I think my strategy worked well. Venari Marksrat died in round 1 and gave +1 to all of Nerissa Tridawn's stats, which made her very strong. Many monsters died quickly, so Musa Saline was able to quickly gain a lot of health. The enemy had no chance to win as he used some melee attack monsters, which is very disadvantageous with the Briar Patch rule. I am happy with the result and the strategy I used.

Personally I like the Briar Patch rule, but we must be careful not to use monsters with melee attack in order not to be at a disadvantage. If you use a monster with melee attack, make sure it has the Reflection Shield ability, as they do not take damage from Blast, Magic Reflect, Thorns, or Return Fire.