Too many Water mages in Bronze?
No matter how you change and alter your deck, you just cant win most of them?
Find yourself grimacing whenever you match against that old man on the left ?
Well, read on to find out more about how to counter them and get those sweet sweet wins
I got the idea to make this post as I faced around 15 magic decks back to back and its annoying and repetitive to fight them. So i thought maybe if more people learn to counter it there wont be as many magic decks, and there'll be more exciting decks to play against :)
In this post, I try to use cards that are free to use in the base set / cost very little to rent.
Firstly let's talk about common cards that appear in water mage decks:
Medusa, Ice Pixie, Enchanted Pixie, Elven Mystic and Venari Wavesmith
The first 4 cards come with the base set and so are very popular choices in Water mage decks, while Venari Wavesmith provides the frail cards with valuable armor using its ability: Protect.
Their tank of choice is usually a monster with low mana and high health, such as Kelp Initiate or Spineback Turtle.
The aim of these decks is for their tank to stall your attacks while they deal devastating damage to you. With Alric Stormbringer (summoner with +1 magic attack), each magic monster essentially deals double the damage to you.
The first deck I recommend is from the earth splinter, and is the cheapest deck utilising all cards from the base set.
The reason for using this Summoner is to negate the armor from Venari Wavesmith, allowing you to kill off their monsters easily.
These are the cards that you can use, use a tank with void and use the rest of your mana on monsters with snipe and sneak. The idea is to avoid their tank and kill their weak mages first.
Pros:
-Deck is cheap and requires few or no cards to be rented.
Cons:
-Some decks have tanky magic cards which are hard to deal with, eg. Djinn Oshannus, Captain's Ghost. This deck doesn't have enough damage to deal with these cards effectively.
If you have DEC and dont mind renting, you can try the following cards to deal with the cons:
-Wood Nymph: Healing for your tank to stay on the field longer (0.49 DEC/day)
-Mushroom Seer: Further reduce their magic attack via Silence (9.45 DEC/day)
-Mitica Headhunter: Adds alot of damage, they cant kill you if you kill them first xD (7.4 DEC/day)
Second deck, Water Bortus Anti-Magic deck
Even if some of their attacks get through (2 magic attack captain's ghost etc), it will be severely weakened, giving you the upper hand. You can also throw in a tank heal monster (eg. Crustacean King) to make your tank even tanker 😎
Choice of Tank:
Unfortunately for this strategy to work effectively you need a tank with void in front, and both choices are not available with the base set😢
At the time of writing, Torhilo costs 3.65 DEC to rent, while Djinn Oshannus costs 17.44 DEC to rent.
Suggestions for the team
Here are some of the cards that you can use, it really depends on what you have available, but the idea is to get either a ton of damage and outdamage the opponent, or to use minions with snipe, sneak etc to kill their damage dealers first. Keep in mind that they will probably have Venari Wavesmith so all their monsters will have 2 armor.
I personally like to add in a Crustacean King if possible as our tank can dish out a decent amount of damage so its best for it to stay on the battlefield longer. The monsters I selected here are either in the base set or cost less than 5 DEC to rent (at the time of writing), they aint the best but they cheap and gets the work done.
I also really like Axemaster as they can attack twice. They essentially deal 4 damage, but i prefer them as they can take out shields AND deal the remaining damage on the monster.
Pros:
-Hard counter to Water Magic decks
-Bortus + Void shuts down most magic decks hard enough for you to win
Cons:
-Requires rental for deck to work
-Niche, not very effective against non-magic decks
-Pretty high mana cost
And finally, the Clay Golem,Tank Heal Spam deck
I wouldnt recommend this deck unless all other splinters except Water and Light are banned, and you are unable to use the Bortus deck. There is very little damage as most slots are taken up by healers and other monsters that can't attack. I included it here just to show that there are many different ways and different splinters to counter magic decks, maybe you can come up with your own one! 😄
Here are the main cards:
Summoner: Mother Khala:
The other free summoner gives armor which isn't useful considering your opponent uses magic and bypasses armor.
Clay Golem: Your tank, its ability void negates some damage, while it can also dish out some damage with its 3 melee attack.
Venari Crystalsmith and Divine Healer:
Both are here to heal your tank, water magic decks usually dont have any snipe or sneak, so your healers are safe to do immense healing on your tank👍 Their different speeds also help to space out their healing and not over heal.
Crystal Werewolf: Its ability reduces magic attack, similar to the water summoner Bortus. Its only here for its ability (and maybe its 5 health, just in case the opponents have a sneak monster)
Pro:
-Can completely shut down pure magic only decks
-Relatively cheap in mana
Con:
-Little damage
-Vulnerable to sneak and snipe
-Sort of a budget Bortus deck with lesser damage
That's it, the end of the post, congrats on making it all the way here, a cookie for you~ 🍪
I hope this post is able to help someone win more often against Water Magic decks ^_^
Please do forgive me if I made any mistakes in my post, I'm still learning and am just sharing my own experiences, the new season has started and I'm not sure if there are any changes to the meta
If you have not yet started your Splinterlands Journey, feel free to join us! You can use this link to start, looking forward to seeing you in battle :D
Thanks for reading
I've been trashing water magic teams with life and sneak cards. Lorna Shine upfront gives my team one free round of damage and the rest can put down the magic team. Even if they play wavesmith I still have enough damage and healing to beat their team if it's a 20+ mana fight. The new venari healer card helps a ton. Adding silverhand assassin makes the fight even easier.
https://ecency.com/splinterlands/@mantis-tobaggon/my-new-favorite-life-splinter
Lorna with sneak sounds like a beautiful strategy. They're pretty cheap to rent now, will definitely give it a try!
That is incredibly insightful and had to be a lot o work to compile and write.
I hope it gets rewarded.
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Thanks for sharing! - @alokkumar121
Thank you so much!!