HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Welcome to week 49 of the new iteration of the Splinterlands Weekly Challenges (at least, if I haven't miscounted so far, yet. 😜).

For any old Hivers/Splinterland players who've just come back and are confused, fret not! Even with the name and format tweaks, right at it's core, battles are still the foundation of these posts.

In this week's edition of Battle Mage Secrets, all archers had better beware before notching their bow and arrow lest they live (or die) to regret it. For whatever reason imaginable, firing off a projectile in this instance will prove to be more deadly for the attacker than the target.

No matter! I present to you the ruleset — FIRE & REGRET 💔🏹

The game's description of FIRE & REGRET is as follows: "All monsters have the Return Fire ability."

What is Return Fire? Basically, when hit with a ranged attack, units with Return Fire will return damage back to their attacker (equal to damage of attacker divided by 2, rounded up).

This is an interesting ruleset which I would call the "ranged thorns". Simply put, anyone who decides to use a ranged unit will be taking damage back with every attack. Needless to say, the wise strategy to adopt will be to reduce the usage of ranged units as far as possible. They are at a distinct disadvantage here. 😱

I will take advantage of this ruleset in my battle showcase today to show how 1 of my units in particular becomes a lot stronger than one would expect with FIRE & REGRET. Introducing the Death splinter unit, CABALIST.

When High Magus Obin Invaras betrayed the great council and joined with Silus, it split the order in two and caused a rift that might never mend. Obin cast out the temporal masters that remained loyal to the council and the Splinterlands, banishing them from the Temple of Time. Those that sided with the High Magus became known as anachron cabalists.
These cabalists expanded their studies to find new and diabolical means to bend time to their will. They can be a great boon on the fields of battle. However, they are incredibly vulnerable when working their magic, and a dead wizard is no use to anyone.

From Splinterlands Lore on CABALIST

---

The Cabalist is a Rare card released during the Riftwatchers expansion. At LEVEL 1, it has 2 ⚔️Magic ATTACK⚔️ and 2 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 0 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 5 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the AMPLIFY ability. It's summoning cost is 7 🧪MANA🧪.

As a unit itself, the Cabalist might look lacklustre. In fact, I would say that at 7 mana, it's raw stats are on the lower end. However, what is often overlooked is their ability — AMPLIFY. What this does is double the effects of any sort of "reflecting" ability in the game. When combined with a ruleset like Fire & Regret, any ranged units the opponent fields will soon regret it twice as much!

This could make all the difference if the battle comes down to the wire where the slightest advantage is the fine line between victory or defeat! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 This is definitely what I'd consider game changing! 😱😱😱

⚔️🛡️My Battle Showcase🛡️⚔️

Let me present a battle I fought recently in which the ruleset FIRE & REGRET was in effect. My opponent used the Untamed edition Summoner Drake of Arnak from the DRAGON splinter as his main pick, while I used the Dice edition Summoner Owster Rotwell from the DEATH splinter. 🐉 VS 💀

At first glance, it would seem like I was at a distinct disadvantage.

• My opponent's summoner was at level 3 compared to mine at 2.

• His units were also significantly higher level than mine across the board. I was using almost all level 1 units only.

• This gave his entire team a huge increase in raw damage output.

I was honestly expecting this to be a really bad matchup for me 😜🤣. This was a team who had an innate advantage just through their superior levels alone. Would I be able to turn the tide of battle against such an opponent then? Victory or defeat would lie in the small details.

I would say that the ruleset FIRE & REGRET was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. The advantage it gave my team resulted in me outlasting my opponent in this battle. It definitely provided the edge that I needed to overcome my opponent.

This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆

---

LINK TO MY FIGHT

👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

1st CARD SLOT

Djinn Muirat is chosen for this slot. He plays the role of the Main tank perfectly with his great stats. His high health stats and the VOID ARMOR ability will also allow him to have much longer staying power on the battlefield even if he faces magic units. This allows all other units to be kept safe until he is taken down.

---

2nd CARD SLOT

The Silent Shavi occupies this slot. It's main role here to be the DPS for the team. It will also fulfil the role of the backup tank should the main tank fall.

---

3rd CARD SLOT

The Cabalist fills this slot. It is protected in the middle and it's ability AMPLIFY will cause make all reflected damage twice as potent.

---

4th CARD SLOT

The Undead Priest fills this slot. It is a unit which will debuff the opponent with -1 health thanks to it's WEAKEN ability.

---

5th CARD SLOT

Skok Duskblight occupies this slot. With his WEAPONS TRAINING ability, he will give his adjacent non attacking units the ability to attack with half of his Magic DPS.

---

6th CARD SLOT

The Will O Wisp occupies the last slot. It's main role is to debuff all the opponents with WEAKEN and also defend the team against SNEAK attacks.

I hope you're starting to see the pattern here in my team setup. 😉

⚔️🛡️Battle Action Report🛡️⚔️

As you can see, both of us fielded very similar units in our matchup. Even though we both used the different splinters, our unit selection was a similar mix of magic, ranged and melee units. 😱

🐉DRAGON🐉 VS 💀DEATH💀

---

My opponent used the Haunted Spirit as his tank in the 1st slot which was a VERY good choice. With his great defensive stats and the HEAL ability to restore his own health, this is a unit which will protect it's entire team until it falls.

The Diamond Dragon occupied his 2nd slot. This is another tough unit with it's very high ARMOUR stat and it also packs a punch with the amount of damage it can dish out. It would likely also be the backup tank after his main tank falls.

His other slots were filled with Magic and Ranged DPS units. They would be well placed to unload all their damage on any opponent while being protected by the tanks.

All in all, I would say that the opponent picked a really strong team.

---

The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was a high mana game with 41 mana as the limit. The rulesets were FIRE & REGRET & TAKING SIDES.

• The first round saw both our sides launch a flurry of attacks. Both teams took a lot of damage trading blows, with both sides picking lots of offensive minded units. 🤣

• The opponent naturally hit harder than me due to his significant level advantage.

• However, this would prove to be his downfall as I set up my team to reflect as much damage as possible back to him. The harder he hit, the more he took in return.

• That barrage of attacks in just the first round saw the opponent losing his main tank in just round 1!

• Round 2 saw almost all his other units wiped out thanks to THEMSELVES as the damage they dealt was mercilessly reflected back.

• In fact, only 1 unit with 1 health was left standing by the end of the round.

• It was all over for the opponent now as I eventually mopped up his entire army. 💀💀💀

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the FIRE & REGRET ruleset to give me a slight advantage. Individually, on their own, my units would never be able to output such ridiculous amounts of damage. However it ended up being the entire reason for my win! By capitalizing on the ruleset, my units were able to just sit tight and let the opponent kill themselves whenever they attacked! The opponent simply could not handle all that at all.

Well as you can see here in this GIF of my battle, the results were pretty good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

This was truly an eye opener! 😁🏆

Slowly, but surely, I wore down the opponent's team and the match ended up with me inflicting a crushing defeat. My team selection proved to be the edge I needed to eventually overpower my opponent. 💪🏻

🔮🔮🔮Hindsight is 20/20🔮🔮🔮

Would I have done anything differently? 🤔 This might have seemed like a disadvantage at the start but I ended up winning handily. IF I had to use the same cards again, there would be no better lineup than what I had already used for the match. Any other combination MIGHT have resulted in a loss for me. I'm really satisfied with the results against such a worthy opponent. 🏆🥇

💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

---

I definitely can appreciate the ruleset FIRE & REGRET and how it changes the dynamics of usual gameplay. This is one of those rulesets which can be turned into a huge advantage if surrounded with the proper team. The role it brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

---

To any new players who wish to explore the world of Splinterlands, do feel free to sign up with my REFERRAL LINK 😊.

---

I am also a member of the SPLINTERLANDS PIZZA guild and the PIZZA community.

PIZZA is an active gaming and creative arts crypto community on the HIVE blockchain. Popular games on HIVE like SPLINTERLANDS, RISING STAR, EXODE, HASHKINGS, WOO, BANG!DEFENSE have their own PIZZA communities here.

Don't miss out more events that are always being organised. Join the PIZZA DISCORD. Even if you aren't interested in the 💰🍕🎁GIVEAWAYS & AIRDROPS💰🍕🎁, there is a vibrant and friendly community there awaiting you.

CLICK THIS LINK TO JOIN PIZZA DISCORD!!!