Edited in Canva Pro.
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I was thinking looking for possible ways to improve my lineup and I remember sometime before when they hyped about Lux Vega. I wasn't able to try her before because the rental costs like 300 to 400 DEC per day. Today, I rented her for like 80 DEC per day which is still high but more affordable for a 2 day trial and the experience was very...
Disappointing.
I've tried her with various combos, Splinters, and no, she's not as overpowered as she was hyped except for 1 monster, The Kraken.
Yes, my All Time Favorite card from the Alpha-Beta series was so overpowered that I haven't lost a game as long as I have at least 20 mana cap to work with. Let me walk you through it.
Who is Lux Vega?
Lux Vega is a promotional card in order to commemorate the very first face to face town hall meeting in HyperX ESports Arena, Las Vegas. Every participant on that event had the chance of getting a limited Lux Vega as part of the promotion. Lux Vega has a limited maximum copy of 1000 in addition to it being a promotional card.
Lux Vega is the first neutral summoner in Splinterlands. Neutral summoner works like Dragon summoners in which they can be used with any available elements in that battle except they aren't allowed to use dragon cards.
To make it more easier to understand, if fire splinter is available, you can use Lux Vega. If ANY or ALL splinters are available, you can use Lux Vega.
Photo from my Splinterlands account.
Defensive Stats Increase. All monsters you control has +1 increased max health, speed and armor.
Who is The Kraken?
High Max Health, Decent Armor, High Damage, High Speed and abilities that highlights these scary stats. The Kraken is, with no exaggeration, The Strongest Card in Splinterlands Universe.
Photo from my Splinterlands account.
Taunt: Monsters with Taunt forces an opponent to make this card as a target for attack. Snipe, Opportunity, Sneak and other target changing abilities will prioritize this card as an attack target despite their own effects. The only one unaffected is Scattershot and remains random.
With a big stature, opponent's attacks will not go past this monstrosity.
Photo from my Splinterlands account.
Demoralize: Decreases all opponent's melee attack by 1 with a minimum of 1. A monster with 1 melee attack before this effect applies is unaffected.
A menacing presence will put all opponents in low morale as they fight the Kraken lowering their ability to perform.
Photo from my Splinterlands account.
Enrage: Increases speed and damage by 50% while this monster is on damage state (red health). Restoring this monster to max health removes this effect.
Once damaged, The Kraken goes in feral mode becoming more faster and dangerous. Do not engage when this happens.
Photo from my Splinterlands account.
Retaliate: Has a chance of attacking back when struck by a melee attack. The damage is equal to The Kraken's damage. Shield decreases this damage by half.
With his long arms, expect this monster will not idly stand by. If you provoke The Kraken, expect a retaliation at the end.
Why is The Kraken became OVERPOWERED with Lux Vega?
The main problem with The Kraken is that his health is on an awkwards spot. Tank Heal's power increases every third of the monster's health. Since The Kraken's Health is 14, the Tank Heal's effect goes to 4 (14/3=4.6, rounded down is 4). With an extra health, Tank Heal increases to 5 per round.
And there lies the problem.
Increasing Max Health
There are two ways to increase a monster's max health. One of them is via abilities. Scavenger, Life Leech and such increases the monster's own max health. The Kraken doesn't have these abilities. Another is to increase another monster's Max Health with Strengthen ability. Among the Water, Dragon and Neutral monsters, the ones with Strenghten are:
Screenshot from Splintercards.com by @tehox
Except for Baakjira and Scale Doctor, you must be at least Gold league to use some of them and Diamond or higher to use all listed above.
This is a big problem when you're below Gold. Not to mention, if you use a Dragon monster, you MUST use a dragon summoner as well. This basically eats up a lot of the mana cap you have for that game.
While Kraken is strong enough on his own, increasing the Max Health at the cost of not having a tank healer is kind of defeating the purpose of why we increased the max health in the first place. Here's where Lux Vega comes in.
Lux Vega and The Kraken Synergy
Edited in Canva Pro
The second way to increase max health is through summoner. Mother Khala is a good example. Recently, they released soul bound and Pembrook Nymph can also increase the Max Health of your monsters. Last one is Possibilus the Wise. However, high mana cost of 7 is required just to use this summoner.
Lux Vega, on the other hand, not only increases max health, but also Armor and Speed. The Kraken has high damage so increasing this more is not really necessary. With The Kraken's 12 mana cost and Lux Vega's 5 mana cost, you can add Merdaali Guardian to get the 20 minimum mana cost.
This gives you a Kraken with 15 health and Merdaali Guardian's Tank Heal that heals for 5 every round. You can make this build more overpowered which I will tell you in a bit.
Lux Vega over Pembrook Nymph.
Edited in Canva Pro
The issue with Pembrook Nymph is it's a Soul Bound reward card. That means you need to find her in chests to level up. You cannot trade or buy or rent a Pembrook Nymph to get higher level. Lux Vega, on the other hand, can be bought, traded, or rented as long as you have the funds to support.
Not to mention that since Lux Vega is a promotional card, it's already at a max level like Waka Spiritblade. So, you don't need to buy multiple copies of Lux Vega. Just one is enough for everything.
How overpowered is The Kraken?
With the release of Riftwatchers, I realized how scary he is after experiencing the full build.
The full build would be:
Photo from my Peakmonsters account.
Summoner: Lux Vega: 5 mana cost
- The Kraken: 12 mana cost
- Merdaali Guardian: 3 mana cost. Has Tank Heal.
- King Crustacean: 3 mana cost. Has Tank Heal at level 1 and range damage starting level 2.
- Scavo Hireling: 3 mana cost. Has Repair.
- Swamp Spitter: 3 mana cost. Has Repair and 2 range damage.
- Extra Slot: You can use any monster in here. I'm currently at Bronze so I'm using Naga Windmaster for his Headwinds ability to decrease opponent's Range damage but you can use any monster since The Kraken has Taunt ability and all monsters will be protected from being targetted as attack.
With this lineup, The Kraken has 4 melee damage, 5 armor, 15 Health and 5 speed at level 1. You have 2 Tank Heals (Merdaali Guardian and King Crustacean) so your The Kraken restores 10 Health per round. You have 2 Repair (Scavo Hireling and Swamp Spitter) which restores The Kraken's armor by 4 every round. Your back row also deals 3 range damage (2 from Swamp Spitter, 1 from Crustacean King) not including what you decide to add on the extra slot. The range damage is good so that you have a chance of breaking an opponent's armor before The Kraken attacks.
Even with only The Kraken and Merdaali Guardian, a 5 health restoration per round is really strong. That means your opponent requires at least 6 damage to scratch your The Kraken by 1 damage per round. That means they need around 8 Rounds to kill your the Kraken considering for all 8 rounds, none of the damage dealers would die... and your Kraken deals 4 per round, if he won't miss.
What's next?
Photo from my Splinterlands account.
The time I wrote this, I'm Bronze league 485 rating. I have 2 days more to continue until Lux Vega rental expires. I want to see how much I can push this more and what league on Wild Format I can be at by the end of the rental period.
I actually want to push this as far as possible but Lux Vega being 80 DEC per day is quite impossible for me to continue for a week. Spending 560 DEC for a week renting Lux Vega is a bit too much especially when I am trying to build my Modern Format deck. That 560 can already be used for a 2-3 level 3 commons or a level 5 common for Silver that I would own. Spending that much on rent is inefficient when I can spend that for something I would already own.
Also, that's only for Lux Vega. It doesn't include the other summoners and monsters I am currently renting.
However, let's see. If I enjoy this too much, I'll probably try how much more I can push this within my budget.
So, today is the final day and Lux Vega and The Kraken rentals just expired.
Photo from my Splinterlands account.
The final League rating I got is Bronze League with 892 rating.
I would say that this did not do as well as I expected. The main issue I got is I have a lot of low mana fights that are below 20 mana cap, in which Kraken cannot be used. Kraken is strong for sure but he's useless when you can't use him in battle.
However, once I get past Bronze, I can actually see myself getting to at least Diamond. The higher the league, the higher the chance of getting higher mana cap and lower minimum mana cap. I can play Kraken more often from Silver and above. However, after Diamond 1, my opponents probably have higher leveled cards and my rental won't be as effective unless I pour in more money than I can get. I won't do that.
Also, this is Wild Format. More bots, less rewards. I may also be branded as using a bot account by a random person if I continue grinding in Wild Format. I don't like being called out especially when I'm trying my best to balance everything.
So, for now, this would be the end of my experiment but who knows. I may visit my lovely The Kraken sometime in the future. I hope Splinterlands would do reprints of Beta cards. I would love to have The Kraken in Modern Format even if the reprint would be a bit weaker.
- This post is an entry for Splinterlands Social Media Contest.
- Other sources that I do not own are cited under their respective photos. Photos and drawings without cited sources are mine and made for this post.
- I do not own the video nor the photos above the timestamps. All of those are credited to the creator who is mentioned throughout this article.
- Animated Banners and Dividers are edited in Canva Pro.
- Some of the fonts used are from instafonts.io
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