Hello all and welcome!
There is no doubt that Djinn Oshannus is one of the best cards in Splinter Water. When it first came into the game it was widely used as a tank with Alric Stormbringer or Valnamor as a summoner, but then came the Modern format and this took both summoners out of the range of use in that format, forcing players to look for other alternatives. This did not diminish its use, but on the contrary, it was given even more importance in the search for utility, making it continue to be one of the best tanks in the game, not only in its splinter. Today I will explain all this in this post, so welcome.
As you can see Djinn Oshannus is a card made to be at the front of a team, as a tank, although because he has magic attack he can serve behind in the second line as well as if he was in the first position. It is made to be used against magic lineups because of its first two abilities.
Void decreases the damage received by the card as long as the attack received is magic.
Forcefield is perfect for use as a tank, as it decreases the damage from 5 or more points to only 1.
Magical attacks have the peculiarity that they cannot be dodged or repelled by the enemy armor.
But cards with the Phase ability, just like Djinn Oshannus can dodge those attacks using the same dodge calculation that is used in the other two attack types, Melee and Ranged.
So, how to use it?
In the Modern format these 4 summoners can call Djinn Oshannus to the field.
Of all of them, Bortus and Lir Deepswimmer are the most powerful for Oshannus.
Vera Salacia seems to me a very specific summoner, to use against Brigton Bloom in earthquake battles and I think Oshannus is not a good choice in this case.
Lir Deepswimmer is more focused on facing Melee/Ranged, giving armor to the Djinn but also Blind, and as Oshannus has a lot of speed you will increase his dodge range a lot, that is the most important point of this summoner, the bad thing about this is that it is quite expensive to use in mana issues, you need 15 points only for these two cards.
When it comes to face magic alignments Bortus makes a lethal duo with Djinn Oshannus because it decreases the magic attack and that combined with the Void of the Djinn can even make it not suffer damage during the battle, also when he has Phase which is from Silver rank, he can dodge those attacks, making him almost immortal in this type of battles and as an extra to all that, you can send this powerful combination to the battlefield for only 11 points of mana.
Kelya Frendul is a cheaper option in mana for Lir Deppswimmer, increasing the speed causes almost the same effect as the Blind and the armor is always welcome, 12 mana points only and I think it is with this summoner that Oshannus works best in a secondary line, using a Melee tank.
Bests cards for Djinn Oshannus:
Of course there are many other cards that serve as support for Djinn Oshannus but I think these are the best in that case, or at least for me they are the ones that have worked the best for me and the ones I have seen the best in battles.
- Meerdali Guardian:
Perfect if you use Oshannus with Kelya or Lir Deepswimmer because it repairs his armor and also heals him every turn, it's the only card in splinter agua with the tank heal ability so I think it's very important to have it in your deck, with or without Oshannus.
- Flying Squid, Giant Squid, Lir Deepswimmer and Spirit Hoarder:
These 4 cards share the same ability, Blind, which increases the Oshannus' chance to dodge attacks and that's great for this card because it has a lot of base speed.
- River Nymph & Supply Runner:
These two cards what they do is increase the speed of Oshannus, and as Oshannus has Phase it will make it very easy to dodge all kinds of enemy attacks, plus you can combine them with other cards that appear here to make Oshannus virtually invincible.
- Baakjira, Scavo Hireling & Venator Kinjo:
The Slow ability present in these cards is spectacular for Oshannus because it slows down enemies and besides, they are cumulative, for example if you play all 3 you will subtract up to 3 speed points from your enemies (remember that it can never be less than 1) and if your opponents have 1 speed point and your Oshannus has 9 or more... that's where Virtually Invincible comes in.
A perfect lineup.
I think it would be like this.
Lir Deepswimmer as a summoner.
Baakjira as tank.
Djinn Oshannus in second position.
Meerdali Guardian healing Baakjira and repairing her armor.
Scavo Hireling slowing down the enemy and also repairing the tank's armor.
Ryver Nymph and Supply Runner increasing the speed of your cards and serving as damage support.
Example Battles.
Here I leave you a compilation of battles that I was reviewing (they are not mine) in which are tested these tips that I left in this post on how to use Djinn Oshannus, enjoy them, because they are great.
Bronze:
Here is a proof of why it works better as a Tank using Bortus, so from the first moment he starts to hold all that enemy damage while giving space to his own cards to be the ones who really destroy the enemy, who wanted to play with the same combination of Bortus + Oshannus but making the mistake of sending a high mana card in a battle with only 27 points.
Silver:
Here, even though his opponent played with a powerful antimagic like Grandmaster Rathe, he ended up giving the advantage to Oshannus by sending practically an entire magic lineup. All the cards had the Snipe ability by the ruleset so in this case it is wise to send Oshannus in second position, so he cancels the damage of all enemy cards and if he takes damage, with the speed he will take thanks to Rage and his other ability Phase, no card will be able to hit him. 8 points of base speed, crazy.
Gold:
In Gold the battles start to be much more strategic and here is a proof of that, first we see that he uses Oshannus with Kitty, giving him 7 points of speed and the ruleset has Spreading Fury, that will cause Oshannus to increase his speed to incredible levels and making himself literally untouchable for almost all enemy cards when he takes damage and besides that, He has Byzantine Kitty healing him every turn, and compensates for the high summoner and tank cost by using cards with very low mana cost but terrible damage, like Pelacor Bandit and Doctor Blight, the best friend of almost every Modern format player. The only disadvantage of all this is that Kitty, by healing him, can eliminate the effect of Rage for a turn, but as you can see in the battle it's not something that affects too much.
Diamond:
In this battle we see that the player sends Oshannus in third position using a Melee tank and a card with Reach, this first of all guarantees durability for Oshannus, this is produced thanks to the mana cap which is very high and as you can see, at high ranks Oshannus becomes very friendly with Byzantine Kitty for the speed, as it is a perfect way to take advantage of the summoner's buff.
This battle was lost until the point where Oshannus becomes the tank, where the deadly combination of the summoner's tank heal, plus his tremendous speed and Phase to dodge attacks, while his two support cards are in charge of sweeping the enemy.
Champions:
These are very entertaining battles to watch, here we can see at its best Oshannus destroying Zaku thanks to the combination of his abilities together with those of Lir Deepswimmer, which is already a great counter for the dangerous fire summoner, Oshannus doesn't get to position himself as a tank but if he did the result would have been even worse for Zaku, thanks to the Forcefield of the Djinn Oshannus wouldn't have received much damage from the Cornealus, and returning damage for his ability, an incredible battle in which Zaku didn't stand a chance.
