Water splinter's Deeplurker is one of my favourite monsters in the Chaos Legion set. It competes head on with Life's Celestial Harpy for the best monster with Opportunity ability, attacking monsters with the lowest health, beating Death's legendary Lira the Dark and Earth's Venari Scout by far (in my opinion). It is relatively fast for a Meele monster, at level 4 (the one I own) it gets 4 attack points, and thus is able to destroy the opponents line up, usually beginning with the back line. When I read that this week's "share your battle" featured Deeplurker, I decided it was time for me to publish my first post for Splinterland's weekly challenge.
Water splinter is very strong in the Chaos Legion set, especially when combined with the basic Untamed cards and spiced up with some Rewards. The standard strategy will use Kelya Frendul as summoner, granting them with one extra armour and one extra speed point: Serpent of Eld with 4+1 speed (level 1) and Dodge ability as tank, infuriating opponents as it escapes attacks ('miss'); Flying Squid second with its Reach ability; a Demented Shark to increase attack with the Inspire ability; Deeplurker to attack low-health monsters; and ending with Pelacor Bandit, an underrated card with Flying ability that also escapes attacks round after round as it gets faster under Kelya. This strategy is often seen in Bronze and Silver, used by humans and bots alike, with variations depending on the mana cap, and working quite well when mana cap is 30+.
Yet, I want to share my strategy for low mana cap battles. For these, the Deeplurker strategy is often seen is: Kelya as summoner; two single mana monsters up front, like Albatross and Chaos Agent; followed by Deeplurker and maybe Ice Pixie to tease sneak attacks. My strategy however makes use of a card that I really like from the Alpha and Beta set: Medusa, which I rent at level 3 to get it with the Stun ability.
The first battle that I used the Deep-Medusa Combo strategy, which I share here, had a 15 mana cap, and Healed Out + Even Stevens rule set. I started with a 0 mana tank - legendary Torrent Fiend -, followed my dreadful Medusa, and ending with Deeplurker. My bot opponent chose a level 2 General Sloan, with legendary Chain Golem as tank, followed by GF Furious Chicken and ending with Epic Halfling Alchemist. The result was a win where the Deep-Medusa strategy prevailed: Medusa would Stun Chain Golem, while Deeplurker would kill the back line and later the tank itself. See it for yourself!
The second Deep-Medusa battle that I share today had a mana cap of 14, and the Noxious Fumes + Stampede ruleset. I chose the same lineup (in the previous one with Even Stevens I could not include a 1 mana Monster) - it was risky, because zero mana, low health monsters as tank may succumb to a Monster with Trample and trigger the Stampede sequence, yet Kelya gave it an armour, so I tried it again. My opponent - likely a human this time - selected a traditional low mana strategy in lower leagues with Taddius Brood as summoner, Cursed Windeku as tank, and low mana monsters behind (in this case, only Shadow Snitch with its Reach ability was used). Even with the thorns ability of Windeku, my team was able to survive it and the Poison from the ruleset. Check it out!
While the strategy worked in Silver league, I wonder whether it can beat opponents in Gold and above. What do you think?
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