Hello Battle Mages of Splinterlands! silentwill here with another entry for the Weekly Battle Challenge.
This time our focus is the Kulu Swimhunter, which is included in the Chaos Legion set. It is a 4-mana, common Water Splinter ranged monster card which at level 1 has 2 Range Attack, 2 Speed and 4 Health. It gets more attack, speed and health in later levels but does not gain any abilities. For this reason, I believe it's best used in the lower leagues.
To be honest, I don't use this fish-eating squid with humanoid legs and arms that much. I'd often put him only in Little League rulesets since for only 4 mana he has decent attack power and health, and paired with Kelya, his speed ain't bad either.
For this battle, there were only 2 Splinters available and based on their previous battles, I correctly deduced that my foe would be using a level 2 Valnamor plus a mostly magic line up led by Oshannus.
I don't have a summoner that can match that firepower so I knew I had to go on the defensive by reducing their magic, and including a monster with Void, and also a tank healer.
That left me with no other clear path to win than with Bortus, despite knowing I'd be heavily out-leveled, since I only own a level 1. Going Death with a Level 2 Thaddius Brood would have narrowed the level gap, but I did not have the speed and healing ability to survive their attacks so I sacrificed the level by going defensive and mixing up my attacks.
Since the only void monster I have for Water Splinter is Oshannus as well, I had to make him my tank and did not use any melee except the fodder Torrent Fiend. But because I knew he'd bring Oshannus too, I had to diversify my attacks or I won't have enough damage and this being a Close Range ruleset, my best course of action was to bring ranged attackers that focus their attacks on the tank.
Axemaster was my obvious choice for his doublestrike and speed, and I chose the Kulu Swimhunter to help him out. Although he missed a lot because of the speed difference with the Valnamor-buffed Oshannus plus they even made my team slower by bringing Ooze, Kulu only needed to land a couple of hits in order for my Oshannus to survive longer than my opponent's. Eventhough their Oshannus did not have a monster to heal him, he was level 2 and had the Phase ability so not only did several of my range attacks missed but also some magic attack.
In the end though, I managed to kill their Oshannus before they had the chance to kill mine, and once he's gone, the battle was already won.
Let's take a look at the match per round. You can also watch it in full here.
Splinters: Water, Death
Ruleset: Close Range
Total Mana: 25
Summoner: Lv1 Bortus (3 mana)
Monsters:
- Lv1 Furious Chicken (0 mana)
- Lv1 Torrent Fiend (0 mana)
- Lv1 Djinn Oshannus (8 mana)
- Lv1 Axemaster (7 mana)
- Lv1 Merdaali Guardian (3 mana)
- Lv1 Kulu Swimhunter (4 mana)
Total Mana: 25
Summoner: Lv2 Valnamor (5 mana)
Monsters:
- Lv4 Kelp Initiate (2 mana)
- Lv2 Djinn Oshannus (8 mana)
- Lv5 Creeping Ooze (1 mana)
- Lv4 Venari Wavesmith (5 mana)
- Lv4 Ice Pixie (2 mana)
- Lv3 Igor Darkspear (2 mana)
Chicken and the Fiend are there only to tank a couple of hits.
Their speed and the slow put on my team made sure he'd go first
and also resulted in a miss by Kulu against Kelp.
But the cannon fodders did their thing
so Oshannus did not receive much damage yet
and my healer put him back to full health.
So far so good.
We killed Kelp but only hit Oshannus once, removing his armor,
so he's still at full health.
They did their damage to my Oshannus
and he's down 1 health from max after being healed.
All attacks from both sides hit the mark,
which is favorable to me considering the speed difference.
My Oshannus health versus theirs 8-5.
I definitely won this round.
My Oshannus and one of Axemaster's strikes missed,
allowing their Oshannus to barely survive this round.
The two Oshannuses health at the end of this round, 7 vs. 1.
Their Oshannus go down along with Ooze.
So even though they dealt more damage to my Oshannus,
with Ooze dealing the additional hit before it died,
the battle was virtually over.
The monsters they had left could only deal 3 damage to Oshannus,
same health my healer would heal him for.
It's just a matter of time now for them to go down.
Axemaster and Kulu missed their attacks.
This allowed Ice Pixie to survive one more round with 1 health left...
...but her death is inevitable with Oshannus in front of her,
while Axemaster and Kulu took care of Igor to formally take the win.
Admittedly, this is not the best showcase of the usefulness of Kulu Swimhunter in battles. He missed a lot in this match and a couple more misses in the earlier rounds could have resulted to a different ending. But it was able to provide the back up damage needed by Axemaster and that was enough to down the enemy's tank and kept mine alive, ensuring we are victorious.
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