So you wanna poison like Waka already? // Arch build for Earth / Theorycraft (Diamond Plus)

Hi,

So this is my first ever article in Splintertalk and what would be a better way to start than trying to model a poison build for "pre-Waka" times! This new summoner should be strong enough to have some impact on meta in general but unfortunately it will not be available for too many players so I feel there is room for thought and imagination to dive a bit deeper on the more poisonous strategies available without him too.

So let's get going! From Splintercards ( https://www.splintercards.com/abilities.php?ab=64 ) we can see the that the optimal splinters for poison build would be Fire or Earth.

Indeed Death is a strong splinter with poison ability cards but the issue here is that those cards coupled with Neutral and / or Dragon cards are still having **only two entry points **for injecting the good old poison stuff. Those would be enemy's Tank position and Sneak position. With Fire splinter (coupled with neutral / dragon) it is possible to use poison strategies with **4 entry points. ** Those being enemy's Tank position, Snipe position, Sneak position and poison based on Opportunity ability. However, here I am going to craft a build with Earth splinter showcasing scattershot ability with obvious and strong synergies. Build will use two entry points (opponent's Tank and Sneak positions) coupled with randomizing scattershot ability. So theoretically we will have all possible entries when trying to poison the opposing team.

Example build (explanations below): 23 mana. To somewhat normal rulesets - would possible work exceptionally well with "even health"-rule set and is within the limits of "little leagues"-rule set:

Explanations and points to consider:

• Mylor is used as a summoner in order to create the synergies with Mycelia
  • This will allow us to play a build that does not have to be particularly fast as opponent melee attack monsters are more or less damaging themselves (Mylor giving thorns and Mycelia removing armour from opponents as well as providing some for our team and amplifying the damage). Mycelia also provides us with some Triage, which might be needed with our Sneak position card (Acid Shooter) in front of Doctor Blight (with camoflauge)
• Tank can be something else but for this model I feel like Xenith Monk has a lot of synergies with Mycelia (Heal opportunity, Void and Magic reflect are all there for good use)
• Second position Horny Toad which gets some protection from Mycelia and will inflict poison to opponent' Tank position
• Uraeus would be our third position monster with the poisonous target of hitting opponent's sneak position. It is important to notice that this is probably the best place for it as
  • if the first rows (tank and 2nd line of defence) collapses Uraeus with some extra armour will provide us some more time to do damage with the remaining monsters. Also Mycelia is just too important here to be on this spot. Notice that in these scenarios the time spent by our opponent is crucial as our Blight is getting stronger and hitting some more damage whenever we manage to postpone what our opponent is trying to do
• Mycelia's position is clearly next as Doctor Blight cannot be attacked (cause of camoflauge) and we need a monster to our Sneak position for our opponents sneak monsters to damage themselves
• In our sneak position we place Acid Shooter which is delivering the poisonous message with scattershot. This means potentially we just might me able to inflict some on pretty much all opposing monsters. Also notice how important it is to have some more health in sneak position and Acid Shooter with the highest health sits best here. Mycelia will provide some armour and Triage in case of opponent's sneak mania (trying to hurt themselves)
• Last but not least we have Doctor Blight in last position providing us the second bullet for poisoning opponents Tank position and providing Weaken-effect on opponents team which provides really good synergies. Often Doctor Blight will get the job done if the board has been cleared from both player's monsters. Also Blight's affliction ability provides some nice heal blocks

Overall the build described here is one of grinding nature with a lot of characteristics of "stop hitting yourself"-type of builds. Like said above, this is a model for low level / even health-type of matches and improvements / variations can be done. With a lot more mana available the build loses gradually a lot of it's strentghs but here it seems pretty strong and do not have many weak points.

Hopefully you have enjoyed this article. This is of course as described strategy to be used in Diamond / Champion levels with this exact build but I would love to see some comments how these poison strategies could be used in Bronze / Silver / Gold too. So if you have some ideas leave a comment :)

• ARRRCHMAGE -