The ancient behemoth rises from the depths of the abyss. It's massive shadow sounds the death knell of the doomed ship 🦑⛈️🌊

(Instead of the Supply Runner, I've decided to write about the Kraken. I'd just managed to get a decent rental price on this amazing card this week and have been using it with great results!)

We've all heard stories about the legendary Kraken, a massive beast that's an unstoppable force of nature. I would not want to be a sailor or passenger aboard the unfortunate ship that crosses paths with such a creature of legend. Even people living on land, near the seacoast, will probably be crushed by the tidal waves of such a beast emerging from the depths of the ocean.😰

The theme of this week's Share Your Battle Challenge - I give you the KRAKEN! 🦑⛈️🌊

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They say that in the recent shifting of the Planet that has come with the Untamed, great schisms were opened on the floors of the seas. Through these new openings emerged new monsters from the core beyond, larger than anything even the most traveled Azmaré pirate has ever seen. The Kraken is one such beast, and one that occasionally swims as high as the water’s surface. Sailors who have seen it say that it approaches from beneath like a great storm cloud, somehow darkening everything around it with its massive shadow. With the swipe of a single tentacle, the Kraken can capsize the mightiest ships as if they were a child’s bath toy. The Kraken is so huge that special Gloridax sorcery was used to ensure that its projected essence in tournament battle was only a small portion of its actual size. If this precaution had not been taken, summoning the Kraken would have crushed every spectator in the arena.

🦑⛈️🌊From Splinterlands Lore on THE KRAKEN🦑⛈️🌊

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The Kraken is a Legendary card released way back in 2020 before I even started playing. It has definitely found it's place in many Water decks given its sheer power. At LEVEL 1, it has 4 ⚔️ATTACK⚔️ and 4 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 3 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 14 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the TAUNT ability. It's summoning cost is also a massive 12 🧪MANA🧪.

These stats alone make the Kraken one of the strongest units in the game. It's main purpose is to tank anything which can be thrown it's way. It's high attack and high speed also ensures it'll dish out massive damage to anything in it's path.

The Kraken's true strength lies in it's sheer power and it's TAUNT ability. All attacks are drawn to it, and until it's massive health pool is depleted, all other units remain safe under it's protection. This could make all the difference if the battle comes down to the wire where the slightest advantage is the fine line between victory or defeat! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

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The release of Chaos Legion has given the Water splinter another card with TAUNT at level 1 in the form of the Wave Brood. I would however consider it as vastly inferior to The Kraken. It has less of every stat across the board, and does not have the sheer power and speed The Kraken has. This ensures that the Kraken is in a league of it's own and will definitely have it's own place here in all Water decks. This is definitely what I'd consider game changing! 😱😱😱

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📊Card Stats by Level📊

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As we can see here, the main purpose of the Kraken is to be what I would call "Massively Overpowered Main Tank" 🤣. However, every level does NOT improve any stats at all BUT it gets new abilities that make it an even more fearsome tank. At max level, it becomes as much of an offensive monster as it is a tank itself 😱🛡️⚔️.

Price wise however, this card is definitely out of most players' price range. A level normal version of this card will cost about USD50 while the Gold Foil version will set you back anywhere from 1k to 3k USD! 💰🤑💸

Overall, the Kraken's amazing stats and it's TAUNT ability make it an almost "must use" card all the time in your deck if you have the good fortune to own one.

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📝Important Rulesets Rundown📝

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Here, I detail the list of combat rulesets that may affect the Kraken.

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	🤔💭✅❌🤔💭❓❓❓
	👍🏻 It's attack will never miss
	👍🏻 Gives itself more protection. Always good, especially for a unit whose purpose is to take hits.
	👍🏻 Loses all it's abilities. But that doesn't really affect it's massive stats though.
	👍🏻 Ranged units can't be used.
	N.A. Ranged units can attack from the front.
	👎🏻 will be able to last longer than almost anyone with it's health/armor though.
	👎🏻 With its really high HP, it will end up benefitting all other units instead.
	👍🏻 Able to lend it's attack from any slot.
	👍🏻 Even summoning cost
	👍🏻 Deals lots of damage with blast and it's high speed gives it a good chance of dodging the attacks in the first place.
	N.A
	N.A
	Situational. Could add more damage if the opponent's front unit is stunned
	👍🏻 Improve it's own survivability
	👎🏻 Melee units are affected.
	👎🏻 Only units which cost 4 or less mana can be used.
	👎🏻 Only common cards can be used.
	👍🏻 Magic units cannot be used
	👍🏻 Gives melee the positional attack advantage enjoyed by ranged/magic
	👎🏻 Will die to poison. But at least it is likely to outlast everyone else.
	👎🏻 Only odd summoning cost units can be used.
	👎🏻 It's fast speed makes it slow
	👎🏻 Only common/rare cards can be used.
	👍🏻 Doesn't really depend on Summoner abilities
	👍🏻 Enrage works out well for units who can take a few hits
	N.A
	👍🏻 All units abilities stay intact
	👍🏻 Allows melee to attack even if it's not in the first slot.
	👍🏻 It is NOT a Neutral unit.
	N.A. All ranged/magic units have the Snipe ability.
	👎🏻 Loses all it's armor.
	👍🏻 Only Melee units can be used
	N.A.

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⚔️🛡My Battle Showcase🛡⚔️

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Let me present a battle I fought recently in which I used the Kraken. My opponent used the FIRE splinter while I went for the DRAGON splinter (with Water as my choice). 🔥🐉💧

At first glance, it would seem like my opponent had quite an advantage over me.

• Firstly, he had a level 4 summoner 🤯😱😵

• He had a level 2 Grum for his tank, the only card in the game thus far outside of Gladius that has BLOODLUST.

• A level 5 Radiated Brute in his off tank position.

• A level 3 Lava Launcher and Sandworm.

• A level 4 Gargoya Devil and Tenyii Striker.

Clearly, in terms of levels I was completely out levelled 😜🤣. Would I be able to turn the tide of battle against such an opponent then? Victory or defeat would lie in the small details.

I would say that the Kraken was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. It did what it was supposed to do by tanking and holding it's ground right at the forefront of the battlefield! All the while chipping off at the opponent with it's huge amounts of damage. This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆

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LINK TO FIGHT WITH MY KRAKEN

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👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

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1st CARD SLOT

The Kraken takes the role of the Main Tank in the first slot here. It will be the most important role since the backline will fall if the Main Tank goes.

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2nd CARD SLOT

Carnage Titan fills this slot. It's role is to deal massive damage from this position with it's DOUBLE STRIKE and REACH. Should the main tank fall, it will pick up the task of tanking.

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3rd CARD SLOT

Dragon Jumper occupies the 3rd slot. It is a fast damage dealer with OPPORTUNITY and FLYING. This allows it to reliably target and take out the weakest unit on the opponent's team.

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4th CARD SLOT

Deeplurker fills the 4th slot. Like the Dragon Jumper before it, this is also another hard hitting unit with OPPORTUNITY whose purpose is to target the weakest units on the opponent's team.

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5th CARD SLOT

Creeping Ooze occupies the 5th slot. It's purpose is to further slow the opponent's units. It's main drawback is it's low HP, and therefore, it sits behind here for protection.

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6th CARD SLOT

The Vigilator occupies the last slot. This is another really strong unit. It has DOUBLE STRIKE with both ranged and melee attack damage. This allows it to attack from any position basically. It's high HP and speed also allows it to safely sit at the back to protect against SNEAK attacks.

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⚔️🛡Battle Action Report🛡⚔️

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As you can see, both of us fielded very different decks from different splinters.

🔥 FIRE 🔥 VS 🐉💧 DRAGON/WATER 🐉💧

My opponent used Grum Flameblade as his main tank in the first slot and Radiated Brute stood behind as the Reach DPS/secondary tank. Both of which were VERY good choices, given how suitable they are as tanks. His Lava Launcher and Sandworm were lined up in the 3rd and 4th slots, and the Gargoya Devil and Tenyii rounded off the rest of his team.

My choice of the Main Tank was The Kraken in the first slot, followed by the Carnage Titan in the second. The Carnage Titan would be my backup tank and Reach DPS. The 3rd, 4th slots were occupied by my "opportunity assassins" in the form of the Dragon Jumper and Deeplurker, while the Creeping Ooze sat protected in the 5th slot to debuff the opponent and The Vigilator took the last slot as another DPS/Sneak Tank.

The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. With such a high mana ruleset, one could reasonably expect a lot of casualties just in the initial opening salvo from both sides.

• The first wave surprisingly ended up with just the opponent's Gargoya Devil getting taken out by my double Opportunity strike force of the Dragon Jumper and Deeplurker.

• This is where my team started to get a huge advantage. My Kraken drew in all the attacks with it's TAUNT and proceeded to dodge them all! 😱 It's high speed (and the double speed debuff from my Summoner, Quix the Devious, and the Creeping Ooze) turned it into an agile dodge monster! 🤣

• The second round ended up with the opponent's Grum and Radiated Brute going down quickly, with my Kraken yet again dodging almost everything.

• By the end of the third round, only the opponent's Tenyii Striker was left on the field and my Kraken still had 1 HP left despite the multitude of attacks that had been thrown it's way.

• It was all over in the fourth and final round as The Kraken deservedly dealt the coup de grâce to the lone unit left.

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for it to absorb the main bulk of damage from all those high damaging units before dying. Yet it did more than that and lasted through the entire battle by dodging almost every single attack. It even dealt out large amounts of damage on it's own. Surely that made it the Man of the Match for this battle, punching way above it's weight!

Well as you can see here in this GIF of my battle, the results were pretty good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

This was truly an eye opener! 😁🏆

Slowly, but surely, I wore down the opponent's team and the match was won handily with ALL of my units still left standing. It was a PERFECT VICTORY! My team selection proved to be the edge I needed to eventually overpower my opponent. 💪🏻

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🔮🔮🔮Hindsight is 20/20🔮🔮🔮

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Would I have done anything differently? 🤔 This might have seemed like a match that would prove to be a challenge at the start because of the opponent's superior levels. However, with my PERFECT VICTORY with ZERO casualties, IF I had to use the same cards again, there would be no better lineup than what I had already used for the match. Any other combination MIGHT have resulted in a loss for me. I'm really satisfied with the results against such a worthy opponent. 🏆🥇

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💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

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I definitely can appreciate The Kraken and it's strengths. This is one of those cards which are very strong if surrounded with the proper team. The role it brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

For any players looking to try out The Kraken, I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

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To any new players who wish to explore the world of Splinterlands, do feel free to sign up with my REFERRAL LINK 😊.

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