Battle Mage Secrets: Fire and Regret - Keep Your Arrows

Prelude
Hello everybody, how is it going? It's time for more Battle Mage Secrets. Last week was a sharing on an accelerated ruleset where every attack can induce spray explosive damage to nearby cards and looking at how to take advantage of the blast. This week the ruleset that will be discussed is going to maim one particular attack type.

The ruleset of the challenge this week is: Fire and Regret

Ruleset Spotlight

Fire and Regret
All units gain the Blast ability.

All units receive the Return Fire ability at the start of the battle. Enemy units that attack with ranged attacks receive damage back.

Damage returned is equal to damage of the attacker divided by 2, rounded up.
Ranged attack units with the Reflection Shield ability do not take damage from reflected magic attacks.

The Amplify ability increases damage.

Abilities/Cards that get shutdown with this rule set
Now, with this ruleset, everybody gains Return Fire. This ability affects only range attacks. So this is why, whenever this ruleset occurs, the most important thing to keep out of your line up is range attack cards. By using them, every attack will be subjected to a return fire damage.

However there is one exception, cards that carry Martyr ability should be considered. This is because the return fire will help you suicide and trigger the Martyr ability faster.

What thrives with this ruleset?
With range attack cards out of the picture, we have 1/3 less of the cards to worry about. But before that one ability that works real well on this should you still play range cards will be cards with Reflection Shield, in the likes of Ash Mirage and Runic Skyclaw. This 2 cards can play without the worry of return fire coming back at it.

Next will be to handle the 2 remaining attack types.

Handling Melee
Shield and Protect are probably the most clear cut and easiest abilities to get access to. Reducing damage and extra armour will most certainly help in absorbing some melee damage to keep the team alive. To further improve survivability, Demoralize is also a good ability to put in the lineup to reduce melee attack. Next ability that is good to be added to the lineup will be dodge or flying to reduce the chances of being hit. To let others have a feel of what it is like, Thorns give them back a taste of their own medicine. Retaliate is good as well but harder to access.

Handling Magic
From above, the strategy against melee revolves around reducing the attack, protecting against it, dodging it and finally returning it. Likewise for handling magic, to reduce the damage, we have Void and Silence. To gain protection, cards with Void Armour will come in handy. Next will be Phase, which give the similar effect in Dodge for melee and lastly will be Magic Reflect that returns the magic attack back to the source.

Stats
As with most other rulesets, for Fire and Regret, I recommend high health, high armour and high speed whenever possible to improve survivability.

With these in mind, let's start to talk about the battle proper.

The Battle
Link: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_c6a57567f074035003d944e3b7d75df8&ref=vaynard86

Rules

Fire and Regret, Melee Mayhem
Mana Limit: 30

Splinter	Mana Cost	Position	Reason
Tarsa	4	Summoner	Boost attack and health
Radiated Scorcher	1	1st	Deliberately placed here to shatter armour
Antoid Platoon	4	2nd	Trusty tank with shield
Radiated Brute	5	3rd	Reaching hitter
Ferox Defender	8	4th	High armour and gives protection
Tenyii Striker	5	5th	High damage sneaker
Uraeus	3	6th	Armoured sneaker
Total Mana:	30

Opponent Lineup

• Summoner - Tarsa
• Position 1 - Living Lava
• Position 2 - Djinn Apprentice
• Position 3 - Disintegrator
• Position 4 - Kobold Bruiser
• Position 5 - Radiated Scorcher
• Position 6 - Serpentine Spy

Prediction before pressing rumble
Both sides used the strategies that I have mentioned above to handle this match. Let's see whose able to stand to the test.

Battle Synopsis

Round 1, Radiated Scorcher shattered Living Lava and after which being taken out, doing what it was meant to do and my sneakers took out opponent's Serpentine Spy.

Round 2, Opponent Radiated Scorcher fell to Uraeus sneak attack, Antoid Platoon under heavy attacks from my opponent front liners also fell.

Round 3, Things are going real fast, Radiated Brute fell alongside opponent's Kobold Bruiser. It is 3 vs 3 now.

Round 4, A peaceful round with no casualties but I can see how Ferox Defender took a massive blow from Living Lava unscathed due to its thick armour.

Round 5, Ferox Defender served well and fell, opponent's Disintegrator fell to the hands of the sneakers.

Round 6, Uraeus took out Djinn Apprentice and Tenyii Striker dodged the attack from Living Lava.

Round 7, Uraeus landed the killer blow on Living Lava and secured victory.

Post Battle Summary
Wow, really a match that go down to the last few cards as good strategies were being mapped out by both sides. The interesting part was my gamble to put in Radiated Scorcher right at the first position.

Did my strategy work? Yes it did. Of the strategies I listed in my earlier section, I deployed Shield and Protect. This 2 abilities saw me through the match. When I saw how Uraeus took out my opponent's Serpentine Spy which did not had any armour, I knew my inclusion of Ferox Defender will give me the edge over my opponent. While Antoid Platoon fell fast, having shield did help it to sustain longer. One unique thing that I did was that I anticipated my opponent to field a tank with armour, so I sneaked in Radiated Scorcher with Shatter ability to disarm the armour fully from my opponent tank, and it did well by smashing the armour of Living Lava.

What's the Battle Mage Secret?
Reduce, protect and disarm. Reduce and protect is well known by many since they bring reduction in damage and also addition armour to cushion off any attack which we saw in Antoid Platoon and Ferox Defender. Next will be on the portion of disarm, this part not only Radiated Scorcher smashing the armour of Living Lava, disarm also include the backline sniping the Tenyii Striker and Uraeus provided which take out my opponent's lineup from the back, especially the well hidden Disintegrator which needs to be taken out quick to remove the Demoralize ability on my team.

Wrap Up
I hope you guys enjoyed reading my sharing on the rule set Fire and Regret. I would really appreciate it if you liked and/or commented to let me know what are you thoughts.

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Till my next battle sharing, take care, stay safe and happy battling!

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