This is my entry to the Splinterlands Share Your Battle featuring DEEP LURKER. If you want to join in this challenge, you can check this link. Alright, let's start first with the monster's lore, then deep dive into its compatible summoners, monster's stats & abilities, and the highlighted battle.
DEEP LURKER
Terrifying to behold, Deeplurkers are a poisonous fish that dwell at the bottom of the ocean and prey on the weak. However, they are known to travel to the surface in times of dire need. Many believe that they are sensitive to the balance of elemental water magic and, when that balance is in danger, the Deeplurkers rise to attack or defend it.
DEEP LURKER is one of the newest additions in the Water Splinter from the Chaos Legion release. I considered DEEP LURKER as one of the most high priority card when going with Water Splinter, whether you using KELYA FRENDUL, LIR DEEPSWIMMER, BORTUS or even VERA SALACIA as the Summoner.
STATS and ABILITIES
At its initial level, a 3 melee attack with Opportunity ability is already a good combination. Plus its high HP, it will definitely a great to have in your line-up.
While at its max level, it has 5 melee damage, 4 speed, and 7 HP as its stats. And Opportunity, Poison, and Demoralize at its abilities at max level.
Abilities:
 | Opportunity | Monsters with the Opportunity ability may attack from any position and will target the enemy Monster with the lowest health |
|---|---|---|
 | Poison | Attacks have a chance (50%) to apply poison, which does automatic damage to the target at the beginning of each round after the poison is applied. It deals 2 damage at the end of each turn and will hit the HP directly. The Shield or Void will not reduced the damage taken from Poison. Poison can only be remove using Cleanse ability. |
 | Demoralize | Reduces the Melee attack of all enemy monsters by 1. Demoralize ability can stack but it will not make the damage to go lower than 1. |
SUMMONER COMPATIBILITY
- KELYA FRENDUL increases the Speed and Armor of DEEP LURKER by +1 each. DEEP LURKER has a max speed of 4. With KELYA FRENDUL, it increases the speed of DEEP LURKER which makes it more lethal. A monster with OPPORTUNITY ability with high speed can take down low HP monsters before they even have the chance to attack.
- LIR DEEPSWIMMER increases the Armor by 2, buffs the monsters with RETURN FIRE ability, and debuffs enemy monsters with BLIND effect. This is one of the best counters when facing heavy-range line-up. The +2 Armor and Blind effect increases the defense of DEEP LURKER. BLIND effect and high speed will allow your monsters a higher chance to evade physical attacks from melee and ranged type monsters.
- BORTUS on the other hand decreases the Magic damage of enemy monsters. This does not have great effect on DEEP LURKER aside from lowering the magic damage it received.
- VERA SALACIA provides all your monsters with SNARE ability. It is an offensive ability use to counter monster's with FLYING ability. It is good to use when there is an EARTHQUAKE rule as most players will select monsters with flying ability to negate the effect of EARTHQUAKE rule. In EARTHQUAKE rule, all monsters without flying ability will take 2 Melee damage at the end of each round. SNARE will remove the flying ability from monsters and at the same time, secure a 100% hit rate. Since DEEP LURKER doesn't have flying ability, using VERA SALACIA is somehow a risky move.
- VALNAMOR provides +1 Magic attack, +1 Speed and +1 max HP. The additional speed and HP may help DEEP LURKER but will not maximize the full buff provided by this summoner.
There are other Summoners from Dragon Splinter that is also good to combine with Water's DEEP LURKER like DARIA DRAGONSCALE for added Melee damage, or BYZANTINE KITTY for the +2 Speed, 100% hit rate, and Tank Heal.
FEATURED BATTLE
| Battle Condition | Description |
|---|---|
| Rule #1 | HOLY PROTECTION - All Monsters have the Divine Shield ability. With Divine Shield, the first time the Monster takes damage from a monster will be ignored. Earthquake will trigger Divine Shield but Poison do not. |
| Mana Cap | 44 |
| Allowed Splinter | Fire, Earth, Water, and Dragon |
MY LINE-UP
| CARDS | Description |
|---|---|
 | KELYA FRENDUL provides plus 1 Speed and 1 Armor to all your monsters. The +1 Speed greatly help our team since it increases the chance to evade attacks by having higher speed. The Armor also helped us to absorb some physical damage from melee and ranged attack |
 | DEMON SHARK has a high HP, high Armor and high Speed which is great to place in the first position. It also has Trample ability which can provide an additional attack when killing the target monster. |
 | FLYING SQUID has a medium melee damage with REACH ability. It is good to place at the 2nd position since it can still attack and also a high HP good for pseudo tank in case your initial Tank gets killed |
 | DEEP LURKER, our featured monster in this week's challenge. It has good combination of damage, speed and HP for a 6 mana monster. With the OPPORTUNITY ability and the Speed buff from Kelya, it can take down enemy monster even before they can have their turn. It is always considered a prioritty card when building Water line-up |
 | DJINN OSHANNUS has a Magic attack with high Speed and high HP. It also has a VOID and PHASE ability which are the greatest counters when facing magic attack monster. I chose this one so I can have a variety of attack type. The speed buff from Kelya also helps to increase the chance to evade both physical and magic attack with the help of PHASE ability. |
 | SUPPLY RUNNER is a Nuetral ranged monster with SWIFT ability. SWIFT ability supports the team by providing additional Speed to all friendly monster. This add-up to the buff provided by KELYA FRENDUL. |
 | SNIPING NARWHAL is a Ranged monster with SNIPE ability. I chose this one since I had the SNIPE quest as well. Also, I want to diversify my attacks from melee, ranged and magic. |
ROUND 1
At the end of round 1, we were able to deal as much damage to Magnor. Magnor has the TAUNT ability so we were not able to utilized the OPPORTUNITY and SNIPE ability to kill backline monsters. The armor of DEMON SHARK greatly helps to absorb as much damage from opponents attack.
ROUND 2
At the end of round 2, both of our tanks were taken down. DEMON SHARK took a great deal of magic damage from IFRIT RISING with Recharge ability. We were able to deal minimal damage to FINEAS RAGE at the end of round 2.
ROUND 3
In round 3, we were able to take down 2 monster from enemy with the help of OPPORTUNITY and SNIPE while sacrificing only 1 monster. After taking down all enemy melee monster, the opponent was left with Magic and Ranged monsters. With DJINN OSHANNUS still on our side, we had a higher chance of winning since Oshannus can counter the Magic damage well with both VOID and PHASE ability plus the high speed buff from KELYA FRENDUL and SUPPLY RUNNER.
ROUND 4
At the end of round 4, both managed to kill 1 monster on each side. IFRIT RISING's Recharge ability deals high burst magic damage which killed DEEP LURKER instantly.
ROUND 5
We were able to deal damage to IFRIT RISING but not enough to kill it. In this match, IFRIT RISING is still charging preparing for the next round.
ROUND 6
We took down IFRIT RISING early on this round leaving the enemy team with a ranged monster. This is already a sure win since his ranged monster will not be able to attack in the first position.
ROUND 7
End of the match. There's no way we will lose since the only card in opponent side will not attack.
Check this link to watch the full battle replay:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_75ff3fce501a216742174cc0015e9631&ref=jpleron
SUMMARY
Did your strategy work?
- My strategy is to go with high speed monsters combined with Speed buffs from my Summoner KELYA FRENDUL and SUPPLY RUNNER. And also to have a diversified attack damage from melee, ranged and magic type monster. With the buff from DIVINE PROTECTION, I went with an all out attack and did not care enough for healing abilities to sustain my monster. This strategy definitely work.
What will you try differently next time?
- Maybe I will change some monster specifically the last position monster, SNIPING NARWHAL, with VENARI WAVESMITH to add more armors, or I may go with ELVEN MYSTIC with SILENCE ability to reduce the magic damage from opponent monsters.
VERDICT | Is DEEP LURKER a good card?
- As I mentioned earlier, DEEP LURKER is one of my high priority pick for Water Splinter. To be honest, DEEP LURKER is one of the reason why I play Water Splinter a lot in ranked matches as well as guild brawl. It is really a good melee attacking monsters you can have and can easily combine with any different line-up.
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