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Pirate Captain

I bought a 3 BCX Lv. 2 of these guys, despite rarely using him: I believe he has a space in a ranged Water meta that is currently under utilized, and he has a space within the melee Water meta that is currently being horribly slept on. Venari Wavesmith does a very solid job of completely shutting him out against magic comp, but with the removal of Alric and many of Water's strongest magic attackers, I think we will see Pirate Captain see more play as he goes on, as Pirate Captain is a very useful low mana sniper, and he has a great power spike even just leveling him once, to level 2. I believe he'll pop back into the meta very soon, with the release of either a +1 Ranged or +1 Melee Water Summoner.

First though, some info on Pirate Captain:

THEME	Pirate Captain
Edition	ALPHA/BETA
Rarity	COMMON
Splinter	WATER
Attack Type	Range

The Pirates of ΛZMΛRÉ are not to be trusted. Their Captains are among the most cunning (and dangerous) creatures in the Splinterlands. Armed with muskets of secret ΛZMΛRÉan make and prepared for any situation, the Pirate Captains sail the seas looking for treasure.

Pirate Captain costs 3 Mana. This makes him viable in Little League, Odds, and, as a Ranged Sniper Attacker, he can destabilize the enemy's backline, including magic attackers, ranged attackers, and cards with no attacks, allowing him to bypass the opponent's tank. He has 2 Speed, 1 Range, 3 Health, 3 Mana, and Snipe. Many players will use him, to, seemingly disappointing results initially, but I swear to you this is because of the current meta completely shutting him out of being relevant, and not because he is weak by any means.

At Level 2, he gains +1 Range, becoming a much more threatening and devastating Ranged Attacker, and then, at Level 3, he gains +1 Speed, allowing him to strike faster and harder. Pirate Captain counters other Water teams who do NOT have Venari Wavesmith available, as his fast 2 range attack can take down an unsuspecting Ice Pixie, Enchanted Pixie, or almost kill a Medusa or Elven Mystic. Paired with Bortus, he is a ranged attacker who can favor, and counter Alric's +1 Magic comp, and, even against Venari Wavesmith, is at least a shield breaking attacker for your tank and other attackers to eat through Venari's Armor.

At Level 6, he really ramps up, with 2 Range, 4 Speed, 3 Health, Snipe, and Inspire he now empowers your melee attackers. Pairing this with Demented Shark, and Daria Dragonscale, you can easily hit +3 Melee and have an absolutely devastating Sabre Shark and Pelacor Bandit eat through your opponent's backline like a knife going through butter. THAT makes him fun.

At Level 10 though, he's at a rather frightening 3 Range, 6 Speed, and 3 Health. This makes him one of the few maxed monsters that has the same health as his Level 1 Counterpart but now he hits hard for a 3 mana card, and he hits FAST.

He costs about $4.75 per BCX in his Beta variant... His Alpha variant costs $11.95 making it one of the more affordable Alpha cards out there, and the cheapest of the Water Alphas.

**LEVEL COSTS**
Level 2 costs $14.25 for Beta, and $23.90 for Alpha, this is where he gains **+1 Range**
Level 6 costs $247 for Beta, and $621.40 for Alpha, this is where he gains **Inspire**
Max Level costs $2398.75 for a Beta, and $6034.75 for a maxed Alpha. As one of the cheaper Alpha commons, that's 6 GRAND to finish upgrading him. 6 Grand.

*Keep in mind that higher BCX Cards come with discounts, this is the math for purchasing 1 BCX Cards, which you should NOT do if you're planning to level.*

ℙ𝕣𝕖𝕗𝕖𝕣𝕣𝕖𝕕 𝕊𝕦𝕞𝕞𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕣

As a Ranged Sniper, Lir Deepswimmer gives him the survivability in armor, and anti-ranged capabilities he needs to vastly empower a Water Melee lineup in Lost Magic, where Lir's higher mana cost can be offset by slotting in a Pirate Captain instead of a more expensive sniper option, like Mantoid. If you're thinking you're going to run into a Delwyn, or an Alric, or potentially a +1 Magic Summoner from Chaos Legion, whichever Splinter that may be, you're going to want a Bortus to cut down that magic attack and give Pirate Captain the chance to safely snipe some of those squishy magic attackers while your tank, perhaps an Elven Defender, the famous Torhilo, an Oshannus, or a Void Gargoya Lion just eats all of that juicy magic attack for you. What if you're feeling spicy though, and want to bounce off of a Dragon Summoner with this guy? You have lots of options:

Your Wild Format Dragon summoners that will work best with Pirate Captain decide whether he is a part of your Offensive presence, or whether he is a support. If you're running an offensive team, where you want Pirate Captain to be one of your heavy hitters, Selenia Sky is your option, pairing very nicely with cards like Axe Master, Azmare Harpoonist, and Poseidon, to name a few.

If you're feeling for more of a support role, and own a Level 6 or higher Pirate Captain, then look no further than a Daria Dragonscale who will amp up your damage with a 2nd Inspire, want a third? Add on Demented Shark and give +3 Melee to each of your melee attackers. What's that noise? Airhorns? That's the sound of an air strike of melee attackers about to punch, bash, and cut you into the ground. But Jakkal, these are both Wild format summoners, what if I wanna bust out a Modern summoner in Wild, for a different type of play?

Then Byzantine Kitty is your answer, offering Pirate Captain +2 Speed, True Strike, and healing for the tank who is so dutifully trying to survive for Captain to snipe some opponents. Byzantine Kitty, with a maxed Pirate Captain, would bring Pirate Captain up to 8 Speed, not including any buffs/debuffs and Enrage ruleset. That is a positively delightful number to reach on a sniper, and an Enraged / Close Range ruleset would be a lot of fun to try him out on.

ℙ𝕣𝕖𝕗𝕖𝕣𝕣𝕖𝕕 ℙ𝕠𝕤𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟

Position 3, Position 4, Position 5
As a Ranged Sniper, with a poor amount of health, you want Pirate Captain to generally be placed safely somewhere in the middle, but both further back, and not all the way in the last position as well. This will protect your Captain from sneak attackers and snipers, but will leave him open to Opportunity attackers unless you have some squishier bait to place in front of him!

This positioning does not tend to change, and becomes more and more crucial as he gains Inspire and becomes more of a supporting role for your other cards.

The Close Range modifier allows him to be placed further up, or with a higher ranged attacker allocation, but allowing him to reach position 1 is usually a bad sign, as he will drop fast, and he's losing his ability to snipe.

ℙ𝕣𝕖𝕗𝕖𝕣𝕣𝕖𝕕 𝕄𝕠𝕕𝕚𝕗𝕚𝕖𝕣𝕤

Close Range allows Pirate Captain to be placed in braver positions, and ensures he will be able to attack even in position . Equalizer gives him the health he needs to really shine in long, drawn out battles, where his higher ranged attack to mana cost is very nice. Little League ensures he'll be fighting targets that, at Level 2, he'll be able to take out in just 1-3 hits. Unarmored leaves all of his targets squishy, and ripe for the picking. Finally, Blast paired with Snipe usually allows a Ranged attacker to proc Blast twice on two adjacent targets instead of 1.

ℕ𝕠𝕥 ℝ𝕖𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕕 𝕄𝕠𝕕𝕚𝕗𝕚𝕖𝕣𝕤

Even Stevens prevents him from being used, as he costs 3 Mana. No Abilities makes him a fairly weak ranged attacker with better options, Target Practice gives everybody snipe, making his snipe ability effectively useless and opening him up to a lot of danger. Poison and Earthquake rounds, he lacks the health to handle either. Finally, No Ranged prevents him from being played, like Even Stevens.

Armored modifiers pretty much negate his sniping capabilities, although they do add some survivability to him as well, so it's not as much of a bad modifier as the others.

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔹𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕝𝕖 𝔸𝕙𝕖𝕒𝕕

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_bd6837f2b6508517d4a8e675b6f8fe6a&ref=jakkal

Poison & Close Range against a Yodin. The Yodin was, well, unexpected, but this was the perfect opportunity to utilize Water Ele, Pirate Captain, and Almo, in combination with Kitty's heal for devastating effect. A few misses and some carefully placed cards to where those Blasts were distributed nicely into non-sustain cards allowed me to steal the win from this Yodin.

It was STILL a very close game, despite his nonchalant disregard for Poison ruleset.

One of the things that pisses me off most about Yodin is that his Blast ability DOES NOT take into account Attack Type when calculating a miss, in other words, EVERY BLAST has 100% accuracy. I stand by my opinion that this is complete and utter malarkey. I'm sorry my 7 speed flying Dragon jumped can't dodge the blast from a 1 SPEED Living Lava punching Djinn Chwala in the face? Okay guys. Okay. I also think it'd be a (very) soft nerf to Yodin that would make him a bit more balanced in lower league play, giving more options for counterplay beyond "Have Lir", "Have Mimosa/Kitty and $1000 worth of other cards" or "Pray your Yodin opponent does not know how to make a Yodin comp"

I love accidentally destroying Yodins, almost as much as I love purposely destroying them. I can't pretend like this one was expected, but it sure did feel goooood

𝕊𝕚𝕘𝕟 𝕌𝕡 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕊𝕡𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕤 𝕟𝕠𝕨!

Wanna play with a Pirate Captain too? Maybe take down a few Yodins? Join me on Splinterlands! Goblin Shaman is currently a starter card and you'll be able to use him to your heart's desire! But don't wait too long! He will be leaving the Modern format AND the Starter Cards when Chaos Legion arrives!

Join me on Splinterlands, if you use my link, here:
https://splinterlands.com?ref=jakkal
I'll send you 100 DEC when you sign up and get a spellbook, (as long as you show up as referred) which should help you get started via renting! Also, feel free to message me, I can answer any questions, give tips, etc.