This week's Share Your Battle challenge features Soul Strangler! Usually when I see a Death splinter card then I wince a little, because Death is far from my favorite splinter to play. However, in this case I make an exception for Soul Strangler - Soul Strangler is one of my favorite Death splinter cards. In fact, I usually operate with a fairly small Death splinter deck, and Soul Strangler is one of the first cards that I picked up for it.
Death works particularly well in low mana cap battles, and Soul Strangler is an excellent low mana cost card. At level one, for just 3 mana you get a very respectable 2 ranged damage paired with two speed. Sure, you only get 2 health to go along with it, but if you can set your team up properly then a ranged attacker doesn't need to be very tanky. For today's battle I will be showcasing how you can use Soul Strangler in a lineup which, under the right conditions, can go toe to toe with even much higher levelled cards!
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!
This was the ruleset for our battle. The first thing that I noticed was that there was a low mana cap of just 15, and that the Death splinter would be allowed. Check and check.
The battle modifiers did make some serious changes to how I wanted to order my team for this one. The Super Sneak ruleset means that we need to be slightly sneakier (hah!) about how we position our monsters in order to protect the squishier ones (i.e., Soul Strangler), especially since we won't be able to bring Corpse Fiend into battle thanks to Lost Legendaries.
Contessa L'ament was my summoner of choice for this battle - she costs 1 less mana than Thaddius, and in low mana cap battles, every last point of mana can make a huge difference! Her ranged attack debuff was a large part of my gameplan for this battle, for reasons which you will see once we get into my monster lineup.
First up was my tank. Crypt Beetle is not a monster you will see up in the front slot very often, but it made sense in this ruleset - thanks to Super Sneak, my front monster would most likely be taking limited amounts of damage. Contessa's ranged attack debuff coupled with Crypt Beetle's shield made it likely that it could last a while and buy the rest of my monsters some time, and it came in at the low, low price of just 3 mana!
Next came our guest star of the week - Soul Strangler! Soul Strangler is just as cheap as Crypt Beetle, and hits twice as hard. As I mentioned earlier, placing Soul Strangler properly was very important since it only has two health, and this was my guess as to where would be the safest spot - in the second position behind my Crypt Beetle, and in front of my final monster which would hopefully shield it from any potential Super Sneak attacks.
At the back was the final piece of my strategy for the battle - Cursed Windeku at the rear. My plan was for its Thorns ability to deal heavy damage to my opponent's melee attackers, which would be forced to attack it thanks to the Super Sneak ruleset. That same ruleset also meant that it would be able to pitch in some melee attacks of its own from the back.
With the lineup set, it's off into battle! When I saw the selected teams I was feeling pretty good about my chances - my opponent choose General Sloan, whose summoner ability is perfectly countered by Contessa. Upon close examination, I also noticed that both my Crypt Beetle and Soul Strangler appeared to be safe - Cursed Windeku would shield them from my opponent's Sneak damage, and all of the rest of the damage from my opponent's lineup was just a single point, which would get negated by Crypt Beetle's Shield.
In the first round of battle think go just as expected - my cursed Windeku is taking heavy damage from my opponent's melee monsters, but its Thorns counterattacks are keeping up. Meanwhile at the front, Crypt Beetle and Soul Strangler are chipping away at my opponent's tank.
One more round and the battle is nearly won - after another round of attacks, both of my opponent's Super Sneak'd monsters have managed to kill themselves by running into Thorns, and their two remaining monsters are unable to deal any damage through Shield.
It ended up taking two more turns to finish off the win, but it was just a matter of time until my monsters cleaned up the opposing team. 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 - Cursed Windeku knocked out my opponent's main damage sources and Crypt Beetle and Soul Strangler were able to finish off the rest of my opponent's monsters. This battle was particularly sweet for me, because my opponent brought significantly higher leveled cards into battle, but my team was still able to prevail - those victories allways feel particularly good.
As I mentioned before, I was already a fan of Soul Strangler, and will continue to be one in the future - it fits in well with Death's strategies (at least the way I use it) and it is a solid value pick for low mana cost battles. I don't always play Death, but when I do, I (often) will bring along Soul Strangler!
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: Business Cycles - An introduction to buisiness cycles, and how understanding them can help us out in Splinterlands.
Spinning Me Round (like a Record) - Using Portal Spinner in Battle! - Last week's battle challenge, featuring Portal Spinner!
Setting Your Goals for Fun and Profit - A few simple steps to help you set and achieve your goals.
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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.