DEMENTED SHARK : BLOODY RAMPAGE

It was said that Demented Shark in the past was born as a Tiger Shark, the toughest shark ruling the Outer Ocean. Its true where other creature would succumb death from the excruciating pain of Coelomomyces's spore, only the toughest creature would survive. But its a great price must be paid. The shark no longer regain its sanity, a berserker in form of animal. It fought relentlessly against all kind of wild creatures. As the time flies, it develop tremendous physical prowess from every battle. Smaller creature who saw it in awe become inspired and rallied to follow Demented Shark in its swim.

Demented Shark will be known as card with great flexibility and consistency. Flexibility for it has balanced status as either Striker or Tanker (or even as Support), giving it many options to fill the 1st, 2nd, or even the last row. Consistency for the card growths are distributed equally between all status. But this balance might also be drawback where the card doesn't have strong point in particular roles. Nevertheless its on your own to judge this card after through with this review.

Pros & Cons

1. With balanced status in all aspect (health, armor, speed, and damage), Demented Shark can easily fill any roles either Striker or Tanker (or even Support with its Inspire ability). Demented Shark can fill the front row as shock trooper, bring opening attack, while boosting other melee cards to do Sneak, Reach, or Opportunity attack. Or fill the 2nd row as secondary Tanker (the most effective in my opinion), where it will sustained less attack while maintaining Inspire ability to active long-enough.	1. No particular strength in certain aspect, which make this card easily outmaneuvered by combination of 2 (two) specialized cards. For comparison, take Deeplurker, a Striker card which cost 6 mana, but have the better 3 damage and Opportunity ability, while only lacking the armor.![image.png]
2. A well distributed growth and substantial progression step grant this card chances to grow stronger on higher level.	2. -
*Reference for Archetype term : Striker --> Superior Damage / Tanker --> Superior Health / Ninja --> Superior Speed / Support --> A Lot Number of Abilities.

Market Price Analysis

There seemed to be a glitch on the chart which explained the gap in the chart for the past 5 days. But still we can see the overall price trend. Regular foil price seemed stable, swinging between $0.15 to $0.22, although there's been some short price jump to $0.35. Gold foil in contrary is in a downtrend price. This downtrend happened similarly with gold foil of other cards I've written in the past posts. Currently the gold foil price stood at $2.76. Compared to other Normal type card, Demented Shark have a rather high price. Placed in order by price, its position is 12 out of 39 cards.

Considering the regular-gold foil price ratio currently at 1:12 to 1:13, and the regular-gold bcx level at 12:1 to 11:1; then we can conclude that it almost cost the same price either to upgrade the regular foil or gold foil card. In my opinion investing on gold foil would be the better choice.

Progression Analysis

Demented Shark is a Normal type card which means it have many progression steps, which looks unusually interesting. The progression start with speed growth at Level 2 and then jumped into damage growth at Level 3. One point to remember is Demented Shark already started with Inspire ability, which means inherently it will always start with 2 melee damage. Thus the first damage growth are less impactful as it only rise the damage from 2 to 3. The next 2 (two) level are followed with single health growth.

Thorn ability looks proper and rewarding for players, since it is gained at Level 6 which marked the halfway toward the progression end. The health drawback are just a small setback because of what will be unfolded in Level 7. Level 7 will surprisingly grant double growth, which is a speed growth and health growth. This is rare occurrence especially for Normal rarity card, where grow happened more slowly.

Level 8 will be the most controversial growth in my opinion. This level will grant a damage growth but accompanied with a health drawback. This growth looked very contrast compared to growth in Level 3 for at least 2 points for this; first the marginal increase at Level 3 are better than Level 8; and second the cost needed to reach Level 3 are less than level 8. With this in mind, its difficult to justify the reason of why Level 8 give less benefit than Level 3.

Level 9 and 10 only provide straight health growth. These level become less important to pursue, since the health growth give less and less marginal increase, and yet the cost to level up will rise exponentially. In conclusion, the optimum status for this card would be between Level 7 to Level 8.

Rulesets To Be Watched

Ruleset	Strategy
	Equal Opportunity, Super Sneak, and Melee Mayhem will allow Demented Shark to attack at back rows, which of course reinforce its roles as back row cards.
	In Up Close & Personal, both sides will only have melee to deploy. Inspire ability will give the greatest leverage against full melee formation. But also be careful on opponent bringing Demoralize ability.

WATCH BATTLE

Here's one of my battle experience with Demented Shark in my formation. Click Here for the battle link. The battle has 18 mana cap, with Standard ruleset. For my formation, I used:

Position	Card Name	Level	Mana	Health	Armor	Speed	Damage Type	Damage
Summoner	Kelya Frendul	2	4	-	-	-	-	-
1st Row	Hardy Stonefish	3	1	2	1	1	Melee	1
2nd Row	Demented Shark	1	6	6	1	2	Melee	1
3rd Row	Horny Toad	1	3	2	-	1	Melee	1
4th Row	Pelacor Bandit	1	3	2	-	3	Melee	1
5th Row	Chaos Agent	1	1	1	-	2	None	-
6th Row	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

My opponent formation:

Position	Card Name	Level	Mana	Health	Armor	Speed	Damage Type	Damage
Summoner	Obsidian	1	4	-	-	-	-	-
1st Row	Failed Summoner	1	2	4	-	2	None	-
2nd Row	Mycelic Morphoid	1	1	2	-	1	Melee	1
3rd Row	Magi of Chaos	1	6	5	-	2	Magic	2
4th Row	Spirit Druid Grog	1	5	1	-	1	Magic	2
5th Row	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6th Row	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Engaging Obsidian using Kelya Frendul could put your formation in difficult situation. Obsidian with the magic buff and magic card formation could get past will bypass all the armor and quickly put demise to your formation. Luckily speed become a winning factor in this battle. With additional speed buff from Kelya Frendul, my formation able to gain preemptive attack and strike down key cards before they could act.

They battle opened by Pelacor Bandit swift attack toward Spirit Druid Grog. Not only putting demise on it, but also eliminating the Resurrect ability. The battle continue with Magi of Chaos casting spell which set Hardy Stonefish ablazed. Demented Shark then follow with a bite on Failed Summoner.

Round 2 turn the tide even more to my formation. With Demented Shark step up, Horny Toad previously on reserve, now stand with its Reach ability as wingman next to Demented Shark. The swift combination of Pelacor Bandit and Demented Shark destroy two front row at once. Now Magi of Chaos stood alone against Demented Shark.

With only 3 health left on Magi of Chaos, the fate is already sealed once Horny Toad and Pelacor Bandit put demise on it.

CONCLUSION

Did your strategy work? What will you try differently next time?

My primary strategy was to put Demented Shark as secondary tanker to gain longer benefit from Inspire ability. The strategy work very well, with the formation gained Inspire benefit for at least 2 Round. To maximize the damage output, I used Keyla Frendul with its speed buff to allow first strike, before Pelacor Bandit or Horny Toad with low health get executed.
Eventhough the battle went well, there's a risk factor that the formation get obliterated by the boosted magic attack.

Do you like DEMENTED SHARK? Why or why not?

High health and Inspire ability are the first reason to use this card. It goes well in low mana cap or high mana cap situation. Inspire is not an unique ability, since there's a lot of card possessing this ability. Take for example Silvershield Knight which cost 6 mana while possessing Inspire ability from Level 1. Silvershield Knight even have better overall status than Demented Shark.