How are you enjoying Splinterlands with new riftwatcher cards?
I've been using many riftwatcher cards but I just didn't know how to use Suidae Shaman until very recently.
In which rulesets does this card shine?
First, let's look at the stats of this card.
Stats
[Break points]
- Recharge from level 1 with 2 base magic damage
- Giant killer at level 4 (silver)
- 3 base magic damage at level 6 (gold)
- Rust at level 8 (diamond/champ)
[Key point]
It has recharge (x3 damage every other turn), so it can do 9 magic damage in even turns. What happens it hits magic reflect? Do I get 5 magic damage back? NO! You only get 2 damage back from the magic reflect. That's one good thing about recharge. You get less reflection damage for bigger damage.
Let's look at how top champion players are using this card with example battles.
Armor up
42 mana, armor up
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_22dfaab26c85d2aba6710eced993c490
In armor up ruleset, magic is effective because magic ignores the armor. Everyone knows that so everyone prepares for magic. Justenjoy has Almo Cambio and Cornealus both has magic reflect, Taiga26 has Mimosa adds void to every monster, also using Dark ha'on that has void and magic reflect.
If you use magic with low hitpoints, it most likely die from magic reflect in this ruleset. That's why Suidae shaman is good because of how magic reflection works for recharge attack.
In high mana armor up matches, you're likely to see monsters like Cornealus, Dark Ha'on, Robo Dragon knight, possibly Agor longtail. Suidae shaman can do double damage to those monsters because of giant killer.
Last but not least, Suidae shaman has rust in highest level, which removes armors that the ruleset gives to everyone. Often times, people like to add more armor on top of that, so more rust can be helpful sometimes.
58 mana Explosive weaponary, Armor up
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_f8e1d5110a724343e4b0455d13cd1b30
In this match, Suidae Shaman's rust comes very useful since the opponent added 4 armors on top of the 2 armors from the ruleset.
It also does 9 damage to Almo cambio, 6 blast damage to Sand worm!
I wrote an article about Runic Skyclaw but it is doing an amazing job here!
Explosive weaponary (Blast)
We already saw one explosive weaponary match but thare are two more matches to share :)
52 mana, Blast, Earthquake
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_41ea01eeaba924c0a1978ceeaef8ae4e
Suidae shaman's rust works very nicely in earthquake matches. It's not easy to kill the Lord of darkness with void and heal. It's best to do a big damage in one turn to kill it. You know that's what recharge is good at.
46 mana, blast, stampede
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sm_2uDwcuXUdFNeCH6X670l
When my almo cambio and cornealus died at the same time, I thought "it's game over!", almost skipped it.
After that, Suidae sharman does 5 damage to Unicorn mustang and 12 damage to cornealus!! It killed 2 tanks at the same time!
This game looked very close but I had 98% chance according to splintertools.io.
Broken Arrows with Mylor
48 mana, broken arrows
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_6f2c535e10840d3b62a2a7a8d6433848
One more good thing about Suidae shaman is its high health. It has 9 hp at the highest level, which is pretty good.
In broken arrows ruleset, you should expect magic in front, sneak in back + opportunity.
Mylor is good to counter sneaks but it does need decent hp to kill off the sneak monsters. Also, they might add armors to protect sneak monsters. That's why Suidae shaman good because it has good hp pool and rust, removing their armors.
42 mana broken arrows
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_40b212133c2a3f01e11e25a08df67dac
This match is very similar match to the first one. It seems that this line up is a great counter against Life sneak team.
Closing thoughts
Most people don't like Recharge ability but Suidae Shaman has giant killer, and rust ability along with that. This ability combination can be powerful if it is in the right ruleset, or against giant monsters. Especially, it can do well in armor up, blast, broken arrows ruleset.
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Thank you for reading!!