The water splinter has a diverse collection of sea behemoths. These high mana cost cards are a game changer when used individually. But what happens when they are mashed together in a single game lineup?
I was presented with this opportunity while playing in the silver modern league. It's a 99-mana game with Holy Protection and Equalizer rule set. Luckily, the opponent chose the earth splinter so the match was bound to be interesting and not just a typical mirror matchup.
Djinn Oshannus is one of the best legendary reward cards currently circulating in the game. This creature is a strong tank with high health and evasion rate. Aside from having void, it can also gain phase starting on level two which allows it to dodge even magic attacks. Although it can't be technically categorized as a giant of the game, Oshannus sure do feel like one due to its overwhelming capabilities.
Baakjira is a true underwater behemoth with massive health points and self-regeneration. It can also buff the health of allies as well as slow down the enemy monsters. While Baakjira is an ideal frontliner, I sometimes move it to the secondary position as a backup meatshield.
Another enormous entity, Wave Brood is a good backline tank with taunt perfect for alleviating some of the focused firepower directed at the frontline monster. Although it can't be relied on for its attack and speed, when combined with triage, it can help prevent early monster loss by diverting the enemy's ranged attacks to it.
Finally, we have Runemancer Kye, one of the legendary powerhouses that emerged from the Riftwatcher set. Her life leech ability combined with magic attack often results in ridiculous amounts of life points being acccumulated each match. She also has the new fury ability which makes short work of strong tanks with taunt.
For this match, the opponent uses a popular Obsidian all magic strategy. It has Mycelic Infantry as the frontliner while having a Mycelic Slipspawn as a backdoor tank. The opponent also has Queen Mycelia for armor buff and a Goblin Psychic for heal support.
I placed Djinn Oshannus as my main tank. It relies on a high evasion strategy supported by Kelya and Supply Runner's speed buff and Baakjira's slow debuff against the enemy monsters. There is also a Medaali Guardian for tank heal and Wave Brood's taunt for diverting and absorbing some magic attacks on Oshannus. Finally, there's Runemancer Kye on the backend that will try to stack up as much life as possible for an endgame battle if it comes to that.
Wave Brood falls at round two after sustaining massive magic attacks. But this sacrifice kept all of my other monsters' health untouched.
The succeeding eight rounds were a series of attack and heal cycles between Mycelic Infantry and Djinn Oshannus. This was mostly due to the effect of the equalizer rule set giving high health to Mycelic Infantry. Oshannus wins this war of attrition and Infantry finally falls at round ten. Meanwhile, Runemancer Kye is now sitting at 31 health.
Four more rounds later and Centauri Mage drops dead. Oshannus is still hanging on while Kye still keeps on stacking health.
Mycelia falls and the match is over at this point. Fatigue will soon kick in as the battle gets drawn out. Djinn Oshannus' evasion strategy worked really well on this game while Runemancer Kye racked up a huge amount of health.
You can watch the full match here.
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