This week's Share Your Battle challenge features Dhampir Stalker! And while I normally am not thrilled to see the Death splinter Share Your Battle challenge, I don't mind this week's one at all. I don't use the Death splinter very often. But when I do, Dhampir Stalker is one of my favorite cards. Every lineup can use a hard hitter, and Dhampir Stalker fits the bill very nicely for Death. This means that there are plenty of battles where is shines, because all it needs is a bit of protection in order to buy some time to dish out its damage.
As I just mentioned, Dhampir Stalker is a great attacker. At level 1, for the price of 7 mana you get a respectable 2 speed and 5 health, paired with a whooping 3 ranged damage. Ranged damage tends to cost a bit more than melee, and 3 of it for 7 mana is not bad at all. On top of that Dhampir Stalker had the True Strike ability, meaning that it is guaranteed to hit! This means that Dhampir Stalker will be outputting a very reliable stream of ranged damage as long as you can keep it alive and out of that dreaded first position.
If you wanted to jump right to the action, the Battle Link is right here. Want to hear some more about the lineup? Read on further!
With no magic attackers allowed in this battle, that meant that both me and my opponent would be using melee and ranged monsters. I wanted to be able to counter both of those attacking options, and Quix the Devious was my team's anti-ranged element. Quix's ranged attack debuff is amazing for reducing the opposing team's ranged damage output, and that speed debuff is extremely helpful too!
With a high mana cap in this battle I had enough space to splurge on tanks, and that is exactly what I did - Djinn Chwala and Carnage Titan are both amazing melee monsters, albeit with a high price to match. Djinn Chwala hits hard, has plenty of durability with that 5 armor, and does Thorns counter-damage to boot. Carnage Titan is similarly beefy, and can hit twice per turn even out of the second position.
For the middle of my lineup I went with a support monster/tertiary tank in Disintegrator and our guest star of the week, Dhampir Stalker. Disintegrator was the anti-melee part of my lineup, in combination with the two Thorns monsters bookending my team. Demoralize lowers the opposing monster's attack and Thorns will deal counter damage back whenever they hit, which is a great combination. Dhampir Stalker would hit for a dependable 3 ranged damage per turn with True Strike. With Dhampir Stalker pitching in some ranged attacks to go with the combined 3 melee attacks per turn from my frontline tanks, I was looking to put heavy pressure on the front of my opponent's lineup.
I rounded out our team with Raa and Cursed Windeku. Raa is one of my favorite high mana monsters from Riftwatchers - dealing out TWO attacks per turn for 3 ranged damage apiece is an outstanding damage output. Unfortunately, it isn't particularly focused damage due to Scattershot, but it is still an impressive amount of damage. Cursed Windeku finished out my team as an anti-melee shield at the back. I was concerned about the possibility of Sneak attackers, and Cursed Windeku, helped out by Disintegrator, would be able to deal with any sneaky monsters that my opponent may choose to bring to the fight.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I see the selected teams I am hopeful - my opponent has also brought some Death cards into battle, but there are a few key factors in my favor. Quix's ranged debuff is looking like a great choice, as there are 3 ranged monsters (and 4 attacks per turn) on the other team. And there is indeed a Sneak attacker on the other side of the field, which my Cursed Windeku is perfectly positioned to counteract.
It takes a little while for any significant developments in the battle - thanks to Equalizer everything has a whole lot of health! But after the first 2 rounds both of our primary tanks have gone down. And not only that, but my monsters have also already been able to put in some work on the opposing secondary tank, as well as take out the enemy Silent Sha-vi.
One more round and the scales are tipping in my favor. My team is able to mow through all of my opponent's melee monsters and start to seriously cut into their damage output as their ranged attackers are forced to the front.
By the start of round 5 the battle is decided - my opponent has run out of melee monsters and all that remains on their side of the field is Lira the Dark, who is unable to attack. Slightly surprisingly to me, I was able to do it while only losing a single monster! And again, if you wanted to see the whole battle for yourself, you can see it right here.
My strategy for this battle worked out perfectly. My twin debuffs to my opponent's melee and ranged mosnters were able to reduce their damage output enough that my monsters were able to work their way through the opposing team in relatively quick order. Dhampir Stalker played a key role in the fight as a solid part of my ranged attacks. I am a big fan of Dhampir Stalker, and whenever I am playing a Death splinter lineup I will be using it whenever I can fit it in!
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:
Splinterlands Economics: Nash Equilibrium - A introduction to the concept of a Nash Equilibrium, and the insights it can give us into Splinterlands.
Looking Back, Looking Forward: 1 Year in Splinterlands - A look back at my first year playing Splinterlands.
A Stitch in Time - Using Temporal Master in Battle! - Last week's battle challenge, featuring Temporal Master!
Thinking about giving Splinterlands a try but haven't signed up yet? Feel free to use my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=bteim, and be sure to reach out to me if you have any questions!
All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.