This week's battle challenge involves the Kulu Swimhunter! The Kulu Swimhunter is a Water Ranged card that in my opinion, is useful but requires specific rulesets. I don't use it every time but I use it enough that I rented a Level 3 Gold Foil.
Kulu Swimhunter Highlights
At first glance, the Kulu Swimhunter is an okay card. Good but not great, especially because it doesn't have any special abilities.
Nevertheless, at 4 mana, this can be a useful card once it is leveled up. At Level 5, it has 4 speed which becomes 5 when paired with Kelya Frendul. That's pretty quick and is important for ranged attackers because they're typically placed at the end of the line where they're susceptible to sneak attacks. Add in the 6 health and it is a fairly beefy tank to protect you from sneak attacks.
At Level 6 it has 3 attack which is pretty great for a 4 mana card. It gains another attack boost at max Level 10 for a total of 4!
Since I play in Silver I, my max level for a Kulu Swimhunter is Level 5. I only have a Level 2 Kelya Frendul so my Kulu Swimhunter is Level 3. Still, I find it fairly useful.
Also, at only $0.05/BCX, you can really stack these and level it up for a relatively low cost!
So when do I use the Kulu Swimhunter?
- Low/medium mana battles. At 4 mana it can pack a decent punch. Good card to consider for Little League rulesets (only monsters and summoners with 4 or less mana cost).
- Close Range rulesets where it can attack from the frontline. It has a great amount of health and decent speed which would make a good tank.
Today's Featured Battle
In today's battle, I went with a Water Splinter, Kelya Frendul. My opponent chose the Life Splinter, General Sloan.
Battle Ruleset
- Super Sneak : All Melee attack Monsters have the Sneak ability.
- Close Range : Ranged attacks may be used in the first position in battles.
- 28 Mana Cap
- Water, Earth, Life, and Dragon Splinters
Strategy Highlights
- Super Sneak
- Since all melee monsters gain sneak, you can either use it to your advantage or try to defend against it if you think your opponent will use it
- I generally try to use Mylor Crowling which gives all of my monsters thorns. This is great because the 28 mana limit means my opponent would be playing some lower cost cards that will probably have low health.
- Tarsa would also be a good choice because you can load up on melee monsters and have them all attack your opponent backline
- Close Range
- Since ranged can attack from the first position, this makes General Sloan a nearly obvious choice since he gives all Ranged monsters +1 attack
- 28 Mana Cap
- Medium mana cap means you'll need to be picky and make each monster count
My initial thoughts were to use General Sloan for a few reasons. Attack order is Magic, Ranged, then Melee if all else is equal. This means it's probably better to lean on the Close Range ruleset instead of Super Sneak, especially since Tarsa is not an option.
My only issue with this is that my Ranged Life attackers aren't leveled up enough so they are slow and have low health. Because of this, I decided to play a little bit more defensively and play Kelya Frendul. She gives a +1 armor and +1 speed buff so assuming my opponent would go with General Sloan, my armor should absorb an attacker and my increased speed may cause some misses. At the very least, I'd like to attack first and hope I can take out some of their low health Ranged monsters.
The Lineup
| Kelya Frendul : Water Summoner that gives both +1 armor and +1 speed to all friendly monsters. This is incredibly powerful especially since it is only 4 mana. Speed kills and the water deck is already fairly quick. | |
|---|---|
| Spineback Turtle : A great low mana tank that has 3 armor and 7 health! It's slow and has low attack but it's meant to absorb a lot of hits for only 4 mana. | |
| Cruel Sethropod : This is essentially a secondary tank because of all the armor it has for only 3 mana. Also, it has 2 attack and since we have Super Sneak, it can attack from this position. | |
| Coral Wraith : Since I'm expecting my opponent to go with General Sloan, I'm predicting they're going to either have lots of armor in the back or leave it fairly unprotected. I'm going to hope that my Coral Wraith can get under their backline armor and take out the backline quickly. | |
| Kulu Swimhunter : With the increased speed, high health, and favorable ruleset, Kulu Swimhunter is a no brainer. | |
| Ice Pixie : This is basically a filler card for this line-up. It's only 2 mana but can deal 1 Magic damage so it's very useful. | |
| Axemaster : This card has double strike which means it will attack twice. Although it costs 7 mana, I think it is worth it here since it is basically doing the work of 2 monsters. The fast speed makes it ideal to have in the back where it can hopefully dodge a few sneak attacks. |
Let's Battle!
- My opponent had a very solid lineup. As suspected, they went with General Sloan for that juicy +1 Ranged attack. They had a Level 4 General Sloan with leveled up monsters as well which brought their speed and health up. I definitely would've lost if I decided to go with General Sloan.
- My counter to this lineup worked perfectly. My armor helped absorb one of the attacks and bought me enough time to dish out my own. Having a secondary tank was also crucial in keeping my backline alive.
Did it work?
Yes! I was able to perfectly counter my opponent get walk away with the victory. My tanks both did their jobs while my backline Ranged attackers did work. One weakness that I can see is that a few fast sneak attackers would have taken out my Axemaster who is my strongest attacker.
I probably should have put the Kulu Swimhunter at the very back to help protect my Axemaster but I took the risk thinking that my opponent would go purely Ranged. Luckily it worked out!
Final Thoughts
The Kulu Swimhunter is a great 4 mana card, especially when you start to level it up a bit. It doesn't have any special abilities but it has a healthy amount of hitpoints, good damage, and good speed. I highly recommend picking up a few copies and trying to level it up while it's still cheap!
Thanks for reading!
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