Hi Splinterlanders, I hope this post finds you well! Today I am going to talk about a very effective strategy for the death deck: poison – when your monster attacks with the poison ability, it does 2 damage 50% of the time. When it comes to poison, we automatically think of Waka Spiritblade, and we all know how lethal poison is when doing battle. But Waka is not the only candidate in the death team who can spit that deadly green stuff.
First of all, using a level 5 summoner, like Thaddius Brood, there are two Beta cards with poison: the Haunted Spider (level 4) and the Skeleton Assassin (level 6). As they are both common cards, they are dirt cheap to rent and super effective. When we look at the stats, we can see that poison is not their only weapon. The skeleton Assassin has 6 speed and sneak at level 6, meaning he will strike first and can deliver his toxic load to the enemy monster in the last position right at the beginning of a deathmatch. The Haunted Spider has 2 range and 2 speed at level 4, which is very helpful, but since he is so cheap to rent, I usually take him also at level 6 or higher. Being a big Beta fan, these two dudes are my first picks, as they also have considerably low mana cost.
Next we have the 2 protagonists from the Chaos Legion edition: Venari Bonesmith at level 4 and the Soul Strangler at level 8. Venari Bonesmith comes with both poison and life leech, making him a very uncomfortable customer for his victims and at 4 mana, he is very affordable. Being a reward card, he is also very affordable in real terms when leveling him up. He fits well in the third of fourth position protecting range monsters and growing in health with every dose of magic. The Soul Strangler, on the other hand, is very hard to come by at max level, so I don’t think I will ever get hold of him with poison. I am sure though that the big guns in the Champion League keep him close. What a weapon he is there: 4 range attack, 3 speed and poison! With 4 health, he will need two hits to sink more often than not.
So we have 3 definite starters for a poison sling with a possible 4th, which leaves 2 neutral candidates who need no introduction: Doctor Blight and Uraeus. Doctor Blight, known and feared for his camouflaged affliction attack, becomes even more daunting with poison at level 2. Slow but more than deadly, this guy is impossible to run away from. He will get his prey no matter what. If poison doesn’t stick, affliction likely will. I haven’t seen him fail yet. Being undetectable, he can be anywhere in the midfield or in the back row.
And there is my personal favourite, Uraeus. When I started leveling up summoners, I kept a close eye on building up this little beast. Though a bit slow and not much umpf, his sneak and shield means he will hang around for at least the first round and chip away at the enemy’s backline. Since getting him to level 4 with poison, I use him more than before and he is a must when going the poison cocktail route. He is so important, because a poison strategy involves at least 2 monsters with this ability and our little snake makes sure 2 different enemy monsters receive the load when the Skeleton Assassin is not around (or vice versa).
So here we have a number of choices for a triple poison attack and I have 3 battles to show you what it looks like in practice. All three scenarios feature the Beta duo + Uraeus in the midflied and the success rate of this combination is super high.
The first battle is a 25 mana deathmatch with Equalizer and Enrage. Normally I look for a taunt combo to field a triple poison but the equalizer ruleset reassured me that I could leave my 3 musketeers exposed and calculated that poison would be necessary to eventually wipe out high health opponents. Cursed Windeku with heal at the front and Soul Strangler at the back soaking up sneak left my toxic arsenal well shielded. They delivered 6 poison loads and the rest is history.
The second battle is a 27 mana deathmatch with the Ferocity ruleset. The ruleset itself was useless to the decks I had available, so I went for the poison strategy. Again Cursed Windeku stood firm in first position, the chicken hung around as a quick buffer snack and the Octopider stood at the backdoor for sneak protection and killer spider bites of 4 range/4speed. 5 poison deliveries from our heroes overcame the enemy in no time.
The third battle, keeping the best till last, shows us the additional value this strategy offers: all 6 monsters featured in the post are 4 mana or less, making little league rulesets the perfect setting and the reason why I developed this strategy in the first place. When playing little league, at least it is my experience, it is necessary to get an opposing monster with one hit. That is not that easy. When there is shield to get through or enemy abilities that thwart your attack in other ways, your team can be left with their pants down and you’re toast before you know what happened. When using a triple poison, you have good chances of killing with one hit more than once to reduce the number of enemy heads not rolling in the first round. In this battle the Beetle and The Monk guarded the fort and Uraeus closed the gate at the back. The Bettle stood strong, 3 poisonous gifts were dropped and the fight ended quickly.
The triple poison strategy is fun to watch. It doesn’t always work, as the poison monsters are quite defenseless on their own. A taunt does them well, sometimes an inactive second tank as back-up is also necessary in order to make this strategy work. Arkemis can be that second tank, Arachne Thug is a good second position protector and Silent Sha-vi is a good backliner. It took me a while to work out the best combinations and what you see in these 3 battles is what I came up with. Oh Waka Waka, what you can do I can do equally well!
