The battle challenge monster this week is the Dhampir Stalker. Released as part of the Chaos Legion edition of cards, it added a high mana ranged monster with the ‘True Strike’ ability at all levels to the Death Splinter.
‘True Strike’ can be a useful ability if you are guessing that an opponent will use a tank with a high speed that is difficult to hit. It is not an ability I make use of very often. If I have a strong feeling that an opponent is going to use a tank with a lot of speed, I will simply attack somewhere else by using sneak, snipe, etc. Of course if my opponent plays a monster with ‘Taunt’ it ruins my strategy.
At Level 5, the card adds the ‘Deathblow’ ability which doubles the attack when there is only one monster left on the opponent’s team. To make use of this ability, it would probably be best to place the Dhampir Stalker in the last position and hope your opponent does not have a strong Sneak attack.
The battle I chose to share is a 52 mana Wild format match with the ‘Reverse Speed’ and ‘No Magic’ rulesets.
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_40690c018f6c1c3db2b45d3592d2fd7b&ref=ninjamike
This battle seemed like the perfect opportunity to play the Dhampir Stalker. The Dhampir Stalker is a high mana ranged monster with a fairly slow speed at the low levels.
In this battle, there can only be Melee and Ranged attacks. I chose the Death splinter and picked a summoner that nerfs ranged attacks by 1. I played a Tank with the 'Shield' ability since Magic attacks are not allowed. All in all, I worked in a total of three monsters that will nerf Melee attacks into my lineup.
I placed the Dhampir Stalker second to last and put a tank last to protect it from Sneak attacks.
My opponent played a Water Splinter team with a lot of speed for a reverse speed match. This is an advantage for me. Sometimes having better cards rather than playing for speed works but most of the time in my experience it does not.
Not much to report after the first round.
In the second round, I defeated my opponent’s tank.
In the third round, I defeated another one of my opponents Melee monster but lost one of my Ranged monsters. Note that my tank has immunity so it cannot be poisoned.
The match is pretty much over at this point.
At the beginning of the sixth round I was able to declare victory.
There were two main things that stuck out that helped me in succeeding to win. First, I nerfed my opponents Melee attacks by 3 and Ranged attacks by 1. Second, their team was very fast for a reverse speed match. So the Dhampir Stalker did not play a critical role in my victory even though it was a logical fit for this ruleset and battle.
I do not own the Dhampir Stalker and have no plans on purchasing one. It comes down to the fact that each battle has only six slots. There can only be so many monsters that become your favorite go-to monsters that you make use of consistently and trust to win you battles. There are simply other Ranged and Magic attack monsters in the Death splinter that I already own and would rather play than the Dhampir Stalker.
