Double Strike is a powerful ability that lets your unit attack twice each turn. Poison is also a powerful ability that bypasses an opponent's armor and deals two damage directly to the opposing unit's health for the rest of the match. By themselves, each of these abilities is pretty strong. But when they are paired together, they make a truly winning combo that I want to talk about in today's post!
Poison is Great.....
One of the great things about the Splinterlands community is that we are always sharing ideas and strategies and learning from each other. I have to give credit where it's due and say that I didn't actually come up with the idea of using Double Strike and Poison together. I actually saw it as a comment on a YouTube video. That being said, I think it's an incredible strategy because both of these abilities work so well together.
Units with the Poison ability have a 50% chance to poison the unit that they attack successfully. Once an opposing unit is poisoned, it loses two health at the beginning of each round. This is obviously a pretty powerful ability because it adds up over time. The longer the match goes, the more health the opponent's unit loses due to being Poisoned.
...But It Has It's Limitations
However, there are two limitations of Poison. The first is that there is only a 50% chance that a successful attack inflicts Poison. The second limitation is that once a unit is already poisoned once, it can't be poisoned again.
The good news is that there are other Splinterlands abilities like Double Strike and Scattershot that can offset both of these limitations. Double Strike gives each unit the ability to attack twice per turn, which doubles the chances of Poisoning the Opposing Unit.
Scattershot targets a random opposing unit, which makes it less likely that your unit will waist its attack poisoning a unit that has already been poisoned.
An Example
To highlight how powerful this combination can be, I want to show an example from a recent Splinterlands match that I played. This was a 54 mana match with no changes to the standard gameplay, and both the Water and Death Splinters were available. To make the maximum use of this strategy, I used A'lan Musketeer and Avarisdeus and gave them both Poisoning by using Cryptic as my archon.
In the opening round, A'lan Musketeer successfully poisoned my opponent's Ulundin Overseer.
Unfortunately, Avarisdeus got taken out of the fight in the first round, so I didn't get to make maximum effect of the Scattershot ability. However, A'lan Musketeer picked up the slack and poisioned my opponent's Grimbardun Fighter in Round 2.
In the third round, A'lan Musketeer poisoned the opponent's Conclave Tracker.
Analysis
Although my Avarisdeus got knocked out of the first round and I wasn't able to get the maximum use of the Scattershot ability. I still think A'lan Musketeer does a great job showing how powerful it can be to combine Poison with Double Strike. In one match, this single unit poisoned half of the opponent's lineup. At the end of the day, my team was able to secure the win and earn the Glint as well as SPS.
Join Me In Splinterlands
One of the things I like about Splinterlands is that there are so many different strategies, and I feel like I'm always learning something new. Obviously, it's also nice to earn a little bit of Glint and SPS. If you like action-packed trading card games that require strategy and you're interested in the possibility of earning cryptocurrency and NFT rewards for winning matches, then I'd invite you to join me in Splinterlands using my referral link.
Disclaimer
As a US resident, I am required to disclose that I might receive a benefit, such as reward or incentive, if you join using my affiliate link. All image credits belong to Splinterlands. Nothing is financial advice.
