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^{The tips and possible advises in this article are designed for Silver League, in which I am in right now.}

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Introduction

Since Phantom of the Abyss is from the Untamed Series, this strategy will only be usable in Wild Format. I think this strategy will still be effective whether you use it as a core or not.

Since it's going to be in Wild Format, you also have more options of using the other cards from the Beta Series to improve this such as using Alric Stormbringer as the summoner.

However, since speed is much more important than damage in this build, I will probably still stick to Kelya Frendul as the main summoner.

I find this battle still entertaining so I decided to post it still. The very fight using this monster is so blood boiling, I thought I were in the middle of a Splinterlands Worlds Qualifier Tournament. Everything came down to the line and each hit or miss counts.

I guess you can have a rough idea on what happened during the battle that made me make this post. If you would like to see the full battle, you can use this link:
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_d750613e5372216d5c35c76cd651b79d

or you can read the entire article and then use the link at the battle portion of this article. In any case, I hope you enjoy this one.

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A few weeks ago, I start to use the Upgraded Water Mages as part of my core strategies for Silver. The result was very amazing and Phantom of the Abyss is no exception.

His stats are really strong and his abilities are perfect for my plans as well. While he still have a few demerits, the advantages of using it overpowers it by a lot.

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^Abilities:

At level 1, Flying ability is unlocked. Increase the chance to evade an opponent's melee and range attack by 25% if the attacker does not have Flying ability.

At level 1, Dodge ability is unlocked. Increase the chance to evade an opponent's melee and range attack by 25%.

At level 2, Demoralize ability is unlocked. Decrease the opponent's melee damage by 1 with a minimum of 1. If the damage is already 1 before this effect is applied, the effect will not affect that monster.

At level 4, Headwinds ability is unlocked. Decrease the opponent's range damage by 1 with a minimum of 1. If the damage is already 1 before this effect is applied, the effect will not affect that monster.

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Pros

Good Against Sneak. Most monsters with Sneak abilities are melee. While there are a few exceptions, you can't really see a lot of magic damage Sneak monsters.

Since they are melee monters, they have the ability to miss. The combination of Phantom Abyss's abilities and speed makes him really strong against Sneak monsters.
High Magic Damage. At level 1, you already have 3 magic damage. The attack never miss and passes through armor. Even if your opponent has Void ability, since he has 3 magic damage, it would still do 2 damage. His high magic damage is really good when fighting against any type of opponent breaking the front line with ease.
Great at Level 1. A lot of legendary monsters are good at level 1 but not great. Djinn Oshannus, for example, is good at level 1. His high health and Void ability are good against magic damage and his speed can be helpful when fighting against melee and range. However, it is not great. While he can reduce the magic damage, once your opponent increase their damage output, the damage would still overpower him. Having the Phase ability at level 2 though, is a different matter. That's what makes him great.

Phantom of the Abyss, on the other hand, is already great at level 1. He would, of course, be bad if you put him in the 1st position for the same reason as Djinn Oshannus, but that's not his proper position. If you put him last, like I said, his ability works perfect and he's really really great.

Cons

High Mana Cost.
This is one clear disadvantage of using Phantom of the Abyss. His 10 mana is a nuisance that you can't possibly use it in every game. This is furthermore supported by his next weakness:
Bad Match Against Mages.
Both of his abilities definitely increases his speed allowing him to be a good match against Melee and Range team. However, Speed, Flying ability and Dodge ability are nonsense against a magic damage type. Magic damage does not miss unless you have a specific ability. Therefore, all his advantages are disabled when fighting against another monster with Magic damage.
Low Health.
Actually, 7 health is pretty decent. But his mana cost at 10 with only 7 health makes it bad. Even Djinn Oshannus at 8 mana cost has 10 health. Nerissa Tridawn at 9 mana also has 10 health. Even Lobstradamus at 6 mana cost is at 9 health on level 1. Compared to those monsters, Phantom of the Abyss is really bad and his abilities and speed also doesn't guarantee a miss from opponents making his health quite problematic on long fights.

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Rank	Rules of Combat	Description
	^{Armored Up}	Increase all monster's armor by 2.: This is the general best rule of combat for a mage build. Since Magic damage passes through armor, unless your opponent has Void Armor ability, this can only be seen as a plus for you.
	^Earthquake	Non-Flying monsters take 2 damage at the start of each round. : This is like Poison but for non-flying monsters only. Since Phantom of the Abyss has Flying ability, then this would always be a good rule of combat for him.
	^{Super Sneak}	All monsters get Sneak ability: Sneak allows the monsters to prioritize their attacks on the last position monster. Fortunately, this rule of combat only affects melee monsters and Phantom of the Abyss is strongest against melee and range monsters because of his abilities. This gives you a good chance that your opponents would miss their attacks while dealing with yours.

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Rank	Rules of Combat	Description
	^{Aim True}	Monsters cannot miss: Regardless if it's magic damage, melee or range, under this rule of combat, no monsters can miss their attacks. This rule of combat negates the effect of Dodge, Blind and Flying ability. To make it easier to understand, think that every monster on the board has True Strike ability, which is the counter ability against this monster.
	^Counterspell	All monsters on the board gains Magic Reflect ability: Magic Reflect is the bane of all magic damage types. It does half of your damage back to you. The worst part is since your magic damage passes through armor, the damage from Magic Reflect also passes through armor. Phantom of the Abyss's low health has a really bad compatibility for this rule of combat.
	^{Equal Opportunity}	All monsters on the board gain the Opportunity ability: Monsters with Opportunity ability prioritizes their attacks on the monsters with the lowest health. While Phantom of the Abyss's health is pretty decent, I normally combine this with monsters such as Djinn Oshannus (10 health), Lobstradamus (11 health at level 4), Nerissa Trisdawn (9 health). Including those three, Phantom of the Abyss has the lowest health meaning all of your opponent's monsters (including magic damage) will focus on this monster. This can be both good or bad depending on what your opponent's build is on that battle.

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Rank	Rules of Combat	Description
	^{Byzantine Kitty}	Best summoner for her +2 speed. Increasing the speed also increases the chance your opponent will miss each time. The high speed she gives and the extra Tank Heal for the monster in the first position is a good addition to any build provided that you have the funds to buy/rent a level 2 Byzantine Kitty.
	^Sthispa	An Epic Dragon summoner from the Chaos Legion. He gives Phase ability to all of your monsters allowing you to evade Magic damage. The calculation is the same as range/melee attacks. Adding Sthispa allows Phantom of the Abyss to be able to stand as a front line.
	^{Kelya Frendul}	Gives extra speed and armor to your monsters. This is exchangeable with Lir Deepswimmer. I didn't add Lir because of the expense. Kelya is good enough, in my opinion, as a partner but if you want an improved Kelya Frendul, Lir Deepswimmer does the same job, if not, more.

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Normally, on my Summoner's Week posts, in this part, I would give you an example of a good team to utilize this card. However, I think it's more fitting to talk about these three abilities since if you were following my articles, you already know a good team with Phantom of the Abyss, and that's my Upgraded Water Mages Build.

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Abilities and Their Descriptions:

Flying: Has 25% increased chance of evading Melee or Ranged attacks from Monsters who do not have the Flying ability

Dodge: Has a 25% increased chance of evading Melee or Ranged attacks.

Blind: All enemy Melee & Ranged attacks have a 15% increased chance of missing their target.

Both Flying and Dodge abilities are available with Phantom of the Abyss starting at level 1. For the Blind, the easiest would be using a Giant Squid level 4 (Must be at least Silver League) or using Lir Deepswimmer as your summoner.

The problem with the second option is that Lir Deepswimmer, at level 2, costs 35.66 DEC per day to rent. Otherwise, he's a good option.

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Speed vs Abilities:

All three abilities does one thing, it reduces the opponent's ability to hit you. However, there's a major difference between using the abilities and Speed, which I only discovered after emailing the Splinterlands support. (Whoever is that support that answered my question, I thank you very much.)

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Proof:

Below is the screenshot of my questions:
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Below is the screenshot of the Splinterlands support answers:
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It is very subtle but on the second question, he did an example of a monster with Blind. Now, if the 5 speed monster has Blind (I think he meant has blinded status and not the ability) and a 2 speed monster with Flying, the 5 speed monster's chance to hit the 2 speed monster is only at 60% (25% reduction from Flying + 15% reduction from being blinded.)

This meant even though the attacker has CLEAR 3 speed advantage, he only has a 60% chance of hitting the 2 speed defending monster. This is a great proof of how strong these abilities are.

Now, to add insult to injury, imagine you have an Enraged Diemonshark with 12 speed, Blinded status (Because of my Giant Squid) and Sneak (Super Sneak rule of combat) vs my Phantom of the Abyss with 6 Speed, Dodge and Flying abilities. Under normal circumstances, your monster should 100% hit, right? However, with all those abilities attached, even with 6 speed difference, since the abilities cut the maximum hit chance, your Diemonshark DOES have 100% chance to hit BUT it has a 100% chance to hit the 35% hit cap (25% from Flying, 25% from Dodge, 15% from Blinded status = 65% cap reduction)

Another example, Say, you are attacking with Uraeus with 2 Speed and Sneak. With the Same conditions, the hit cap will be at 35% against my Phantom of the Abyss. However, Since my Phantom of the Abyss has 6 Speed (6 if I have Kelya Frendul Summoner), Then that 35% will be reduced by 10% for every 1 speed difference. Since your Uraeus have 2 Speed vs Phantom of the Abyss with 6 Speed, the difference is 4 or 40%. Subtract that from 35% and your

Uraeus have 0% chance to hit Phantom of the Abyss.

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This battle was a very close one. Exploding Rat's high speed and damage did a lot of damage on my team almost eliminating me as early as round 2. I was down 4 monsters to 1 by round 3.

Kobold Bruiser also did a lot of lucky hits that made me scared at one point. Phantom of the Abyss really saved me on this one by evading a total of 15 consecutive attacks from the round 3 to round 11.

^{> > Click here to view the full battle < <}

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I never thought that the abilities were strong at the start. I thought Flying and Dodge abilities were simply a hidden +2.5 speed (since they give 25% chance to evade).

But talking to the support gave me a clear understanding of how busted these abilities were. With only those two abilities up, regardless of your opponent's speed, they are always put in a big disadvantage of only hitting 50% every time (or 75% if they have Flying ability.)

I really undermined the Speed mechanics especially because I experienced something ridiculous in this past post of mine:
@konaqua/share-your-battle-conqueror-jacek

But in the end, it was still a strong reliable strategy as long as you know how to use them properly.

As a TLDR: You can calculate the hit/miss chance like this:

100% (Base hit chance) - 25% (if opponent have Dodge ability) - 25% (if defender has Flying ability or you have Flying ability) - 15% (if attacking monster is blinded) = Max Hit Cap

Hit Cap - (Speed difference x 10%) = Final hit chance for that attack.

As a quick example, if an opponent's monster with Blinded status and 5 speed attacked my monster has 1 speed, Dodge and Flying abilities, it will be like this:

Calculating Opponent's max hit chance:
100% - 25% - 25% - 15% = 35%

Calculating Speed Difference
Opponent's Speed 5 - My speed 1 = Speed Difference 4 (Anything above 1 means 100% chance to hit.)

Calculating Final Hit Chance

35% (max cap) - 0% (No reduction. Opponent has 100% chance to hit) = 35% (Opponent has 100% chance to hit the max hit chance)

This does not apply when your opponent has magic damage, Aim True rule of combat or True Strike ability. All of these conditions allow the attacking monster to ALWAYS HIT. This technically disables other modifiers related to speed, same as why you still hit an opponent's monster on 1st position with Taunt ability despite having Sneak.

Since I am using a full Sneak comp in some of my builds, I do hope not a lot will use this but if ever you decided to hype this, just be warned that Byzantine Kitty can always negate this whole strategy by giving True Strike to all of my monsters. :D

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