My first battle with the new "Born Again" ruleset

By Engilhramn | Starting beggar | 7 May 2023

Greetings Battlemages!

You surely know or at least noticed already: there's a new ruleset!
This ruleset is Born Again, and it promises a lot of fun!

As its name indicates, Born Again gives all monsters the Rebirth ability, meaning that all monsters will come back from the dead to fight again!
They do come back with 1 Health and their complete Armor, as expected.

Now, what do we do with that?
Don't we have recently added Martyr cards that would go well with it? Indeed! Born again monsters are monsters that will die twice!
Speaking of which, wouldn't the Bloodlust ability create absolute monsters with this ruleset? Indeed! Reborn monsters are to be killed twice!

So at the first opportunity, I got that strategy going, let's see it in action!

The battle

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sm_8nIrJJ7Qz5a5xNNjofaS&ref=engilhramn

The battle is played in the Summoner's Novice Beginner Training tournament. Woh, never noticed, but "Novice Beginner Training" indeed doesn't sound super glorious, but anyway, I want a monster!

It is opened to Earth and Life, the mana cap is 58 and the rulesets are:
Odd Ones Out: only odd mana monsters can be used
Born Again: oh yeah let's go!
Ferocity: monsters with Taunt will receive double damage

The lineup

Because of Odd Ones Out rule, I could have a try with Quora (which would have been insane!), but I have a good replacement with my second favorite gladius card: Captain Katie!

So I went with:

Summoner: Franz Ruffmane, for the access to gladius cards

First position: Drybone Barbarian, a meaty tank with massive damages when Enraged
Second position: Junker, decent off-tank with Reach
Third position: Djinn Renova, magic attack and +1 Health for the team
Fourth position: Venari Marksrat, for the evil double Martyr
Fifth position: Captain Katie, magic attack, snipe and bloodlust, isn't she beautiful?
Last position: War Pegasus, Fly is nice in case of sneaky attackers, and Shatter could always be useful

My opponent went with is similar but slightly different team.
Same summoner, same Drybone Barbarian, War Pegasus, Venari Marksrat, Djinn Renova. The differences are the use of Disintegrator in last position, and Marisol Contuma for second position with Reach.
But, but? Man! Why is your Marksrat not on the side of Marisol, your Bloodlust unit? Tsss...

Creation of a monster

As you can guess, the battle was quite violent and escalated quickly to a bloodbath. By the end of round 1, my Drybone Barbarian already died once and was soon to leave the match. Captain Katie needed time to get rid of the War Pegasus before her Bloodlust could snowball.

Now it begins! Katie got her first kill, and she will start to get stronger, turn after turn!

It looks better for me, but now is the turn of the Venari Marksrat to be targeted, and his death will boost the opponent. Twice.
In the meantime, Marisol is on a bad tempo and can't get a kill, always hitting Armor.

Now it is the turn of my Venari Marksrat to be on the frontline.

Really, Marisol not getting a single kill, it couldn't have been worse for my opponent...

By the time Captain Katie reaches the first position, she's already unstoppable. 9 magic damages, 7 Armor, 12 Health and a Speed of 8. And more Bloodlusts to follow!

I can surely stop the reporting here: viewers discretion would be advised before watching the massive and crushing damages dealt.

Of this bloodbath, Captain Katie exits the battlefield more resplendent than ever.