Building My Water Deck

Another eventful week in Splinterlands!

Just the other day I was commenting on a friend's posts and discussing how hard it was to find a guild. Not long after that, we both ended up in the same guild. Lesson learned? It sure pays off to be active on Hive!

Now to the actual topic. I just recently advanced to the Silver League and noticed I was getting reduced rewards for using low-level cards. The only Splinter I currently have enough level 2 monsters(and summoner) is Life so to have more options I started the building & upgrading process with my favorite splinter - Water.

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Upgrades Done So Far

Having a pretty tight budget I started with the cheaper ones. The first one was Sea Genie which is currently the cheapest Beta era water card on the market. I can understand its unpopularity because there are now monsters with similar stats but with perhaps more useful abilities than Genie has. However, with Flying ability he is kind of a specialist in Earthquake battles and pretty dangerous with Alric Stormbringer in general.

At the moment Sea Genie costs $0.25 on the market and compared to Chaos Legion cards for example, upgrading it to level 2 you will only need 3 cards since it's from an older set.

In addition to that I also upgraded Venari Wavesmith, River Nymph, and Pelacor Bandit.
from Chaos Legion and reward cards.

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Crustacean King or Merdaali Guardian as a Tank Healer?

The next one was a difficult choice and I did a lot of thinking and comparing between Merdaali Guardian and Crustacean King. I've lost so many battles when going against another water team without a tank healer so nowadays I consider it a must in most cases.

Both of these healers cost 3 mana and while Crustacean King has armor, Merdaali Guardian is faster and has more health. The interesting bonus thing happens on level 3 when Crustacean King receives a ranged attack. It ain't much but every bit helps!

Also, if I think further ahead, the Protect ability gained on level 6 would make an interesting option. I'm now using Venari Wavesmith and Merdaali Guardian to provide armor and healing but with Crustacean King I could save some space in the future since both abilities would be in the same 3-mana package.

Then again, Merdaali Guardians' Repair gained on level 5 is definitely not the ability to be neglected. She even has the Strengthen on level 8.

The one thing that tipped the scale was the number of cards needed. To reach level 3 I would have needed 14 copies of Merdaali Guardian while only 5 Crustacean King cards were needed to the same level.

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The Question Of Summoners

I am a big fan of Alric Stormbringer and most of my strategies are based on maximizing the magic damage.

The thing with Alric is that he is rather expensive costing $12.34 at the moment so I'm currently renting it for about 10 DEC/day. The good thing about this is that I can decide the time period and the level of the summoner. This will be relevant when I start to upgrade my legendary monsters for example.

One other option would of course be purchasing a much cheaper summoner, Kelya Frendul, but I prefer the magic buff over speed and armor.

What cannot be bought is this - Pembrook Nymph. I got lucky and pulled a gold foil from a daily chest meaning that she is already on level 2.

Pembrook Nymph is a great alternative for Alric in those high mana battles. She is able to bring on a gladiator monster to battle because of her Conscript buff. The only water gladiator card I have is Isgald Vorst but she's a great option with Opportunity and Bloodlust and I've managed to surprise my opponent a couple of times with these two.

If I should get even luckier I would need only one more GF Pembrook Nymph to get her to level 3.

In conclusion, I think I'll skip Kelya Frendul for now and put my trust in Alric and Pembrook.

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Soulbound Upgrades

Then there are these! Soulbound cards have really changed my gameplay and fortunately, my favorite ones(so far) happen to belong to water splinter.

Swamp Spitter and Coastal Nymph are already well on their way to level 3. Swamp Spitter is quite a useful monster expanding the lifespan of my magic monsters with his Repair ability while I still haven't found a good use case for Coastal Sentry. She could perhaps do well with the Melee Mayhem ruleset if put her somewhere in the middle where she could freely express herself with her Double Strike ability.

Riverboat Captain is a true gem even on level 1. I've won battles just because of him and his Blast ability which has taken out the tank healers lurking behind the tank units. The annoying thing is that I've been just one card close to upgrading to level 2 for quite a while now.

Maybe today's daily chest will finally hold the one I need.

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This Is A MUST

My love for Riverboat Captain is true but damn, there's still one piece missing - Spirit Hoarder.

I just recently rented this one because I needed a 3-mana magic monster for my team. After playing a few battles with it I totally fell in love with its Triage ability. Just take a look at this battle and you know what I mean!

Spirit Hoarder working together with Riverboat Captain is one of the most beautiful things I've seen in Splinterlands.

Its price is currently down quite a bit if we compare it to what it was a week ago and I must say, I feel very, very tempted right now.

Probably the best thing about this monster is that it is not a water monster at all but Neutral instead. I feel I could have so much fun with Spirit Hoarder and with other splinters too!

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Conclusion

That's about it. Oh, one more thing!

The tank I've been using with my water team is the very popular Djinn Oshannus. I'm currently holding two copies of it and planning on buying the third one and making the upgrade. This would mean I would have to rent a level 3 Alric in the future to enjoy Djinns' new stats.

He would also have a Phase ability making him able to dodge magic attacks as well.

This won't mean I'm neglecting other splinters but the idea is to make at least one really competitive deck and slowly move from there to improve the others as well.

Please, I'd love to hear what you think, and any tips to make it even better are highly appreciated. Thank you for reading!