Summoner's Week: Cryptic

^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

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

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^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

Cryptic is undoubtedly a strong summoner in Splinterlands, in my opinion. While I cannot utilize him to his full potential to this battle, my strategy is enough to deal with the difference in the summoner levels.

Cryptic's abilities synergize well and can be a significant threat if used correctly. He both has abilities that affect the whole team and single monsters like a combination of Chaos Legion and Rebellion summoners. This is a great advantage since the global abilities are the reason why Chaos Legion is sometimes much preferred than Rebellion Summoners.

In this battle, I will show you how to handle this amazing summoner, ins and outs of my mindset that gave me a very sweet win.

^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

Cryptic is quite good. His abilities complement each other and can be a menace on the battle if you ever encounter one.

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-1 Speed: [Stat Modifier] [Negative Status] All opponent monsters has their Speed reduced by 1, with a minimum of 1. Monsters with 1 Speed before the effect applies are unaffected.

Blind: [Stat Modifier] [Negative Status] As long as this monster is alive, all opponent monsters get Blinded status. Blinded monsters have reduced max hit chance of 15%.

Cryptic's Tactics: [Summoner Tactics] During the battle, you can choose one set of abilities to be applied to a number of monsters you control.

Pros

1. Anti-Melee Abilities. Cryptic excels against melee monster teams. This is because Retaliate and Enfeeble only affects melee monsters. This doesn't mean he's weak against other lineups but he's definitely strongest against full melee builds.
2. Chaos Legion and Rebellion Combined. Cryptic fixes Rebellion summoner's problem which is that you can only buff some of your monsters and not all. This is why, sometimes, Chaos Legion summoners still go on top because in the battle of numbers, their simple abilities can win when you put the numbers of monsters affected.
3. Dual Elements. He's a combination of Water and Death elements which, if you've seen my post when I used Zeddica, means you can abuse the very flexible Magic-Range Weapons Training from both elements. The combination of these elements are very good due to their amazing passive monsters like Baakjira, Riftwing, and Will-O-Wisp, which you can use with Weapons Training masters, Daarg Deadblast and Zyriel.

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Cons

1. High Mana Cost.
   With a mana cost of 7, Cryptic's one of the highest mana cost summoners to date. This also means you will be sacrificing some power from your monsters whenever you pick him. If your opponent choose a 3 mana cost summoner, that means they can use 4 mana cost more than you for their monsters. This either means another monster or you using Xenith Monk as your tank while your opponent uses someone like Diemonshark for theirs giving you the disadvantage.
2. Not allowed in a lot of rules of combat.
   Legendary summoners are the strongest summoners which means they can be the most limited ones. If Cryptic is the only summoner you have, you may need to surrender when he's unusable such as Little League rules of combat.
3. Very Expensive to buy or rent.
   Since Cryptice can only be earned though airdrop and not packs, that also means he is quite expensive to be earned. The limited supply coupled with his usefulness makes up for this reason and is not ideal to be rented for high level, for long time or both.

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^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

Rank	Rules of Combat	Description
	Up Close & Personal	During this battle, only monsters with melee damage type are allowed: Three of his abilities apply to melee monsters like Retaliate, Enfeeble and Blind. The combination of these abilities makes it very hard for your opponent to have the advantage when all they can use is melee monsters.
	Melee Mayhem	All melee monsters on the board can attack from any position targetting the opponent's monster on the 1st position: If your opponents try to abuse melee in this rule of combat, then you can expect what will happen. If not, you can abuse it for yourself with the extra damage from Poison ability and the ability to remove any potential Shield or Void abilities from your opponent's tanks.
	Super Sneak	All monsters on the board gains the Snipe ability that changes the targetting mechanics of monsters with Melee damage to "Opponent's monster that is on the last position.": This rule of combat is basically the same with Melee Mayhem rule of combat but you can attack the back portion instead. Place a really good tank at the back and add Retaliate ability for them to have the chance to attack back or just focus on one area, either front or back of your opponent, then use Expose ability to remove potential Shield and Void abilities.

^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

Rank	Rules of Combat	Description
	Keep Your Distance	Monsters with Melee damage type cannot be used during this battle.: Since Cryptic counters melee the most, then having that option removed from your strategy is a big downside. This doesn't make Cryptic useless but it can certainly reduce your win rate when using him as the summoner.
	Noxious Fumes	All monsters on the board are given the poisoned status at the start of the battle. Poisoned monsters take 2 damage at the start of every round.: Since everyone will have Poisoned status, then adding Poison ability to your two monsters will be useless reducing the potential of this summoner.
	Wands Out	During this battle, only monsters with magic damage type are allowed: Three of his abilities apply to melee monsters like Retaliate, Enfeeble and Blind. The combination of these abilities makes it very hard for your opponent to have the advantage when all they can use is melee monsters.

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^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

Rank	Monsters	Description
	Coastal Sentry	Coastal Sentry has the Double Strike abilities allowing her to attack twice per round. This means, double the chance also for applying abilities like Poison and Enfeeble.
	Diemonshark	Diemonshar is a good monster for the Retaliate ability. In fact, this ability is included in his repertoir. However, not everytime, we can use a max level monsters or summoners so you can make this like a backup option for him during those times.
	Coeurl Lurker	Taunt means more melee monsters may attack him

^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

I wanted to get to Quora Towershead as fast as possible so for this battle, I decided to use the Poison and Expose ability combo to Diemonshark and Coastal Sentry. The Melee Mayhem rules of combat allowed my Coastal Sentry to attack as well from 2nd position dealing huge damage to their front as I remove that pesky Shield ability from Mycelic Infantry.

Lineup

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^Cryptic

Rebellion Conflict Summoners are really good since not only they can boost your team's potential like Chaos Legion but also the Rebellion summoner's Summoner Tactics. This can give you leeway to adjust your strategy during battle as you see fit.

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^Diemonshark

A strong tank with high damage. His high armor is good against melee and range monsters.

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^{Coastal Sentry}

With the Double Strike ability, she can deal a lot of high damage complemented with Cryptic's abilities.

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^{Swamp Spitter}

Since my team has a lot of monsters with armor, I used someone with Repair ability to help.

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^{Spirit Hoarder}

I have my favorite Wave Brood at the back so he needed a little assistance from my Triage monster.

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^{Wily Coyotian}

I have extra 2 mana so I added a melee monster with armor instead of just Xenith Archer. He also is a Gold Foil monster so that would increase my rewards if I won at the end.

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^{Wave Brood}

Very durable monster with high health and Taunt ability. This keeps my tanks and damage dealers safe for a few rounds.

^{Edited in Canva Pro.}

I used Expose ability to remove Mycelic Infantry's Shield ability then use Poison to reduce the possible Heal and Tank Heal amounts from their secondary tanks.

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

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Cryptic is a really strong summoner in my opinion. Unfortunately, I cannot use him to his full potential since the rental cost is still astronomical and the most I can rent is a level 1. I can rent the level 4 for a few days but I'd rather save my DEC for other uses or use other cheaper summoners since I can only fight a limited number of battles per day due to the Energy restriction.

• This post is an entry for Splinterlands Social Media Contest.
• Animated Banners and Dividers are edited in Canva Pro.
• Other sources that I do not own are cited under their respective photos.
• Some of the fonts used are from instafonts.io

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