The other day I was given a water daily quest just when this week’s “Share Your Battle” was announced. Seeing that the SYB featured the Deeplurker, an oft’ used water splinter card, I felt confident that I could come up with a good battle to share.
After playing a match I thought was interesting enough to make the focus of a SYB post, I took a break from Splinterlands to begin to compose my post… pick stills from the battle, organize my thoughts, those kinds of things. If you are interested you can find that original post here.
Returning to Splinterlands an hour later, I immediately played another match using the Deeplurker that was just as interesting in its own way.
So, this week looks like a two-for!
As we can see, the Deeplurker is a 6-mana-cost, water-splinter card that starts out quick and powerful and progressively gets faster and more powerful as it levels up. Starting with the opportunity ability, the Deeplurker excels at taking a big bite out of an opponent’s weakest team members. When summoned by the Chaos Legion summoner Kelya Frendul, the Deeplurker gains +1 armor and +1 speed making it harder to kill, more deadly to its opponent’s backfield, and a definite favorite among bronze-league, starter-deck-dependent players.
At level 6, the Deeplurker gains the poison ability, and at level 10 it gains the demoralize ability. Both of these abilities make it even more deadly at higher levels.
The second of my back-to-back matches was also a high mana-ed affair allowing the use of 30 mana as compared to my first match's 28. Further, as it was still the beginning of a new season, and I had been reset back into the bronze-III league, this match also was played with standard rules and all splinters enabled.
But that’s where the similarities end. In this match my opponent’s last 5 matches were all earth, all magic. This time I had a pretty clear idea on what to expect from the match. As part of my first posting, I had noted that the use of Kelya Frendul as summoner boiled down to not being confident that I would be facing magic. Seeing a new opponent's last five teams, I was happy to immediately get a match where I could make a bold play for the bronze league and use Bortus as my summoner.
Feeling sure that I would be facing magic, a large part of my strategy rested on my summoner’s shoulders. I would use Bortus with his -1 to opponent’s magic debuff.
Beyond Bortus, I would again be planning for a frontal assault. Stacking health in the front of my team and filling my back ranks with backfield attackers to directly attack my opponent’s anticipated low health magical ranks.
Finally, I would include the water spinter’s tank healer to help keep my frontline intact for as long as possible.
As already noted, I assigned the role of summoner to Bortus. I rarely see Bortus led teams in the bronze leagues, and I can understand why. The death splinter has Thadius Brood for a starter-deck summoner and he has the same -1 magic debuff with a -1 health debuff as well. I myself usually use death as my anti-magic splinter with the kicker being the availability of the seldom used Bone Golem with its void magic ability. Even so, water can put forward a very capable anti-magic team headed by Bortus. Where death uses sneaks to attack the backfield, water has opportunists. While death is struggling to take down an anchor Regal Peryton, water can go straight for lower health targets including the essential tank healing Goblin Psychic.
For my tank I again used the Diemonshark. With its 7 health its main job is to bear the brunt of the expected straight ahead magical assault.
My secondary tank is the Angelic Mandarin. I am continuing to stack my frontend with health to give the rest of my team time to work on my opponent's backfield. The Mandarin’s 5-health to 3-mana cost ratio makes it a choice similar to last week’s SYB feature—the fire splinter’s Lava Spider. Strategically speaking, I often use these two cards the same way.
In third position I again placed the Feasting Seaweed, wanting his good attack power and opportunity ability to continue to work on my opponent’s backfield.
Once again, fourth in line stands the Merdaali Guardian. Simply a tank healer, its job is to let my front lines hold for as long as possible. But in the face of a full on frontal assault and with a healer placed deep in your ranks “as long as possible” can be forever, if the opposition is unable to do as much damage to the lead unit as the healer can heal. At that point, the team that can’t do damage, can’t win, provided the healing team still has units that can produce damage.
My fifth rank is filled by the Pelacor Bandit. He is used for his low 3-mana cost and his sneak ability—it's all about attacking the anticipated magical backfield. I debated placing my Bandit fourth and dropping my healer back to fifth. But without any real rationale I didn’t. In retrospect, I think I should have, as doing so would have increased the chances of being able to maintain a forever healing loop.
For my anchor, I used the star of the show: the Deeplurker. This match I wanted him at the end of the line so he could hit the backfield for as long as possible. Further, if it came down to it, I wanted him to be my last unit standing so his 3-attack power could still save my bacon.
Absolutely no surprise. Earth headed by Obsidian for the +1 magic bonus. It is hard to stress how important it is to consider your opponent’s last five matches when assembling your team. And having done so, I am feeling good about my chances right from the jump.
In this match the summoners' bonuses cancel themselves out and what you see is what you get. Starting to add up the damage, both tanks fall in the second round having been healed once each. Then as earth works its way through my secondary tank, my backlines destroy most of his magical attack power and immediately thereafter his healer. Just a quick glance and I think there is an excellent chance that I endup with my back two or three facing off against a lone Regal Peryton.
If you have seen more than one of my SYB posts, you might have noticed that I always form an expected synopsis of the battle after first seeing both teams. Yes, I really do this for myself when I play. Taking fifteen to twenty seconds to play as much of the match in my head as I can, and then comparing my expectations to how it really turns out has given me many insights that come in handy when I am composing my teams.
How did this battle turn out? See for yourself here.
Turns out my back three survived. The resulting infinite healing loop had me feeling like I was caught in a late 80s battle of the band, with my band, “Deep Waters,” performing a rendition of Pat Benatar’s “Invincible” and throwing down again a Regal Peryton belting out a solo interpretation of MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This.”
But, invincible is invincible, and after dancing from round 5 until round 12 the breathless Peryton could sing no more.
Victory was mine.
Once again, the Deeplurker is a total wrecking ball. In this match it delivered the majority of the damage to my opponent’s taunt tank, and delivered the death blow to 3 of the 5 members of the opposing team. And it could have been even better! The lurker should have delivered the majority of damage to and been the death knell of my fancy flying foe, as well. Only by missing on a 45-percent shot an incredible 7 times in a row (3% chance, if my math is right) did it fall short of this mark.
Again, there is little doubt as to why this card sees so much play, especially on my water teams.
