The new Dark Energy Crystal (DEC) tokens were implemented today in Steem Monsters, which incentivizes winning in ranked matches. DEC can be used to purchase Potions, Skins, and Orbs – Orbs give you 5 random cards (one at least Rare or better) from a new Winds of Change set of 12 promo cards.
The 12 promo cards include 2 new monsters for the Fire, Water, Earth, Life, and Death splinters, along with 2 Neutrals. Although there aren’t any new monsters for the Dragon splinter, that makes sense since the SEED Germinator campaign includes 1 new Dragon Summoner and 3 new Dragon monsters. Also, DEC introduces a special mystery reward where you can win a new Legendary Dragon Summoner, Archmage Arius.
This strategy article will look at the new monster abilities and I plan to do a follow-up article looking specifically at the new monsters.
The DEC promos introduce 6 new abilities: Affliction, Cleanse, Demoralize, Repair, Shatter, and Triage. Although the SEED Germinator campaign has Opportunist and Return Fire, since the DEC promos are available first and one of the new monsters has Return Fire, I’ll cover that ability as well.
Available on:
Undead Archer (Death Rare) at Level 1 (Novice)
Goblin Chef (Earth Common) at Level 4 (Silver)
Lord of Fire (Fire Legendary) at Level 3 (Gold)
Monsters with this ability have a 50% chance of causing Affliction, which provides a counter to Heal, Tank Heal, and Triage. This is going to be very useful, considering the prevalence of healing Tanks in the first position (Cerberus, Sea Monster, Flesh Golem, Sacred Unicorn, Haunted Spirit, and Hydra) or using Tank Heal (Crustacean King, Wood Nymph, Divine Healer, and now Corrupted Pegasus) to keep your Tank alive. For example, the Silvershield Paladin + Divine Healer + Air Elemental and the Flesh Golem + Wood Nymph combos are very common at the Bronze and Silver levels. In theory, Affliction can also help counter Triage but considering that all of the current Affliction monsters are Ranged with no Sneak or Snipe, the two won’t interact much except under the Target Practice rule set (all Ranged and Magic attack monsters get Snipe).
The Death splinter has the easiest access to Affliction with the Level 1 Undead Archer. Since Death has a good lineup of cheap Ranged and Magic monsters with high damage output, Affliction can help them crack through the front line. At the Silver level, you will begin to see Earth get access to Affliction with the Level 4 Goblin Chef. Since Cerberus, Silvershield Paladin (supported by Divine Healer), Flesh Golem, and Haunted Spirit are all commonly seen at this level, the Goblin Chef may prove pivotal in such matches. At upper levels, Fire also gains access but since it requires Level 3, that means at least 4 copies of a Legendary.
Available on:
Silvershield Bard (Life Rare) at Level 1 (Novice)
Mermaid Healer (Water Epic) at Level 6 (Diamond)
Cleanse removes negative effects that includes effects inflicted during battle, like Affliction, Poison, and Stun, as well as effects applied at the beginning of battle, like Demoralize, Silence, Slow, and Weaken. According to Yabapmatt, Cleanse is NOT intended to work on Summoner debuffs.
Since Cleanse only works on the first position, it is less effective against the Skeleton Assassin (Poison + Sneak) and the Royal Dragon Archer (Poison + Snipe).
However, it provides a crucial counter to the new Affliction ability that would normally nullify healing.
For functional purposes, only the Life splinter has ready access to Cleanse with the Level 1 Silvershield Bard. The only other monster to get Cleanse is the Mermaid Healer at her highest level. Since many Death and Earth decks may include Affliction to counter the Silvershield Paladin + Divine Healer, Life decks may be forced to include the Silvershield Bard as a counter response.
Available on:
Molten Ogre (Fire Common) at Level 1 (Novice)
Demoralize works similar to the Summoner debuffs of Death's Zintar Mortalis and Crypt Mancer. It is also a counterpart to Silence, which reduces magic attacks.
Right now, only the Fire splinter has access to Demoralize and only on an expensive 9 mana monster. However, Demoralize may be particularly useful against mirror matches against Fire's Malric Inferno, Plado Emberstorm, and Dragon's Daria Dragonscale. And it can be invaluable under certain rule sets like Melee Mayhem (melee monsters can attack from any position) and Super Sneak (all melee monsters have sneak). Since the Molten Ogre also has a lot of health, just put it in the front or the back during such matches. Not only does it reduce the melee damage of each attacking monster but the Molten Ogre has the health to withstand a lot of attacks!
Available on:
Armorsmith (Life Common) at Level 1 (Novice)
Repair will restore up to 2 armor to a monster, but this cannot exceed the amount of armor it started combat with. So it cannot provide armor to a monster without any armor and if the monster only has 1 armor (like a monster with no inherent armor who gets 1 armor from Life's Tyrus Paladium) then Repair will only restore the 1 armor. According to Yabapmatt, in the case of a tie, Repair prioritizes positions closer to the front (i.e. priority from front to back).
Repair has increased importance now that Shatter (which destroys armor upon an attack) has also been introduced. It lets you begin to recover from the loss of your armor.
Only the Life splinter has access to Repair and it is available at every League level including Novice. Repair is particularly useful for Tyrus Paladium (+1 armor to all monsters), the Peakrider (+3 armor to all monsters), and when using a Level 3+ Defender of Truth with Protect (+2 armor to all monsters).
Available on:
Minotaur Warlord (Earth Legendary) at Level 2 (Silver)
Also on the Seed Germinator promo Red Dragon (Dragon Legendary).
Return Fire is a counter to Ranged attacks in much the same way as Thorns and Magic Reflect are to melee and magic.
Both of the monsters with Return Fire are tanks with melee attacks and a lot of health. At the upper League levels, Ranged attacks using Dragon's Selenia Sky and Earth's Prince Rennyn are common so Return Fire offers a counterattack against those deck types.
Available on:
Undead Archer (Death Rare) at Level 5 (Gold)
Lord of Fire (Fire Legendary) at Level 4 (Diamond)
Armor is usually an impediment to melee and ranged attacks. Magic bypasses armor (except under the Weak Magic rule set) and melee/ranged already have a partial solution with Piercing. With Piercing, you still have to work your way through armor, but at least you don’t waste any damage overage. But now with Shatter, melee and ranged get a new counter to armor.
Note that Shatter is currently only available at Gold and Diamond levels. That seems to indicate that this was mainly intended as a counter for the Fire and Death splinters to deal with Life’s excessive armor (The Peakrider + Defender of Truth) or the added armor generated through Protect by Water's Crustacean King and Earth's Spirit of the Forest.
Available on:
Mermaid Healer (Water Epic) at Level 1 (Novice)
While Heal only heals the monster with that ability and Tank Heal heals the monster in the front, we now have Triage which heals a monster in the back-line. The back-line is apparently any position except the front tank position. In the case of a tie for the monster who has taken the most damage, as with Repair, Triage prioritizes the front-most monster.
So Triage helps not only against Sneak (against the last rank) but also against splash damage from Blast (typically done to the second position) and also Snipe (which targets the first eligible target in the back-line).
helps not only against Sneak (against the last rank) but also against splash daline).
Fire and Life tend to have the strongest Sneak decks since they can increase melee damage and double Sneak using Kobold Miner (or Feral Spirit) plus the Elven Cutthroat. However, the Earth and Dragon splinters can also make annoying sneak decks using Goblin Sorcerer and Shin-Lo.
Water tends to have the most destructive Blast damage, but Fire and Death can also do it well.
And Death and Fire tend to have the best Snipe decks, though Earth can make a competitive one if you have the Legendary Spirit of the Forest.
Triage is probably least helpful against Opportunist since that targets the monster with the least hit points, which means it could be dead before the Mermaid Healer has the opportunity to Triage it.
Right now, only the Water splinter has access to Triage, but I expect that the Life and Earth splinters will also get Triage monsters in the future.
So that is an initial overview of the 6 new Monster abilities from the DEC promos along with Return Fire (available from the DEC and the Seed Germinator promos). I hope you have found this useful as you incorporate these new strategies into your teams.