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Card Highlights #03: Djinn Oshannus

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" Some people love the ocean. Some people fear it. I love it, hate it, fear it, respect it, cherish it, loathe it, and frequently curse it. It brings out the best in me and sometimes the worst. "
- Roz Savage
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One of the units I like before. I tried him now and he's not as good as before. I even used the Alric Stormbringer summoner to increase his magic damage and I still get destroyed by Chaos Legion units. He's not as fun as he used to be and that's also the reason why I changed my strategy to The Kraken.

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Lore

Dawn of the Djinn 3 of 4 - The Djinn are angry at the way they were tricked by the Planet, but also appreciative that they can now enjoy this limited freedom, each trapped by natural forces. The Djinn possess powerful ancient magic of their own, which is now charged into the force of one element for each of them. The ancient demons of war are an awkward bunch to be chosen as a planetary defensive force, but they are also impressively capable of the job. As long as they are bound by the Planet, they will do its bidding. Whatever their would-be choices and allegiances, they will fight against the Chaos Legion to protect the sixth mana gate.

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Buy and Rental Costs

Djinn Oshannus is pretty cheap right now going from $0.86 to $9.04 from level 1 to max level. I bought a level 1 already and planning to buy a level 2 once I can constantly get to Silver and so on.

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Since Djinn Oshannus can be bought very cheaply, the rentals are also very cheap. You can rent Djinn Oshannus for 0.23 DEC to 1.00 DEC for a max level.

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Card Stats

He is strong, yes, but he's not as strong as before and might be best to use as defense with Bortus rather than a damage dealer with Alric Stormbringer. His stats is still way up there but with Earth having Unicorn Mustang on their arsenal, a magical fight between Water and Earth elements, Earth will always come up on top.

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Card Effects

Void	Reduced damage from Magic attacks. Attack damage gets halved (rounded up), except attack 1 which deals 0 damage.

This is a good ability and with Djinn Oshannus's high health, this can be an effective way of shutting down teams focused on magic damage.

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Phase

Magic attack can miss this unit (using the same hit/miss calculation as for Melee and Ranged attacks).

Normally, regardless of speed and other abilities, Magic damage cannot miss. That's a Splinterlands mechanic and not an ability. Phase allows you to calculate that magic damage, the same as you calculate hit and miss on melee and range making him a really good counter for magic damage centric teams.

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Forcefield

This unit takes only 1 damage from attacks with power 5+.

Forcefield, honestly, is probably the strongest ability in the game. Normally, the higher the damage, the better because you can kill your opponents faster. Especially in higher league where you fight with leveled up units with higher attack damage, going to 5 damage is not that hard. With Forcefield, you're forced to balance your damage so you hit hard but not that hard. I like Forcefield a lot but never had a chance to use it but theoretically, it would be really good.

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Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths

Djinn Oshannus's strengths come from his stats. He has high health, high speed and magic damage. Djinn Oshannus is an all in one package. You have his Void ability to deal with the magic damage and his speed to protect him from range and melee. His flexibility allows him to be used in front or back wherever you need him to fill in. When I use Djinn Oshannus, I use him alongside Venari Marksrat and Kelya Frendul. This focuses on speed to make sure the other units miss when they attack due to Djinn Oshannus's high speed.

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Weaknesses

There's two weakness I found while using Djinn Oshannus. First, even though the speed is a good stat to go and improve, it's unreliable as it is only a chance. Even if you have 20 speed, and your opponent has 1 speed, by some miraculous reason, there is always a chance that your opponent will hit. Second, he has 8 mana cost and you might need quite a bit of mana to use him. Alone, he's not that strong. With only 2 damage, it would take a while before he kills any opponent. So, I normally use him on games where I know I can also use Venari Marksrat for that extra damage from Martyr. Otherwise, relying on other units is better.

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When To Use

Spreading Fury

All units have the Enrage ability.

While this rule set is not really for mages and range, it is still very strong on Djinn Oshannus due to his high speed. When Djinn Oshannus gets enraged, his speed goes up by 3 giving him 8. If you add a double martyr on him, you get another 1 speed making a combo maximum of 11 speed. This makes it very hard for opponents to hit him in the battles.

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Keep Your Distance

Units with Melee attack may not be used in battles.

Since both you and your opponent cannot play melee, your opponents only have a choice of range and mages. Djinn Oshannus's Void and high health counters mages and his high speed counters range making it a good unit to be in the front in this rule set.

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Counterspell

All units receive the Magic Reflect ability at the start of the battle. Enemy units that attack with magic receive damage back.

Magic reflect returns half of the magic damage dealt. Since Djinn Oshannus has 2 damage, he gets to take 1 back for every attack. However, his void still takes effect on that damage. Since the damage he gets is 1 magic damage, it would become 0 due to void's ability description.

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When Not To Use

Equalizer

The initial Health of all units is equal to that of the unit on either team with the highest base Health.

This is a double edged rule set. You can use it to your advantage or the opponent will use it against you. Djinn Oshannus has 10 health and if you put him in that battle, he would probably have the highest health making all units also 10 health. 

As I said you can use this on your advantage by using low mana cost units besides Djinn Oshannus but the problem you will encounter is that your opponent would probably have higher damage because he has an extra 8 mana to use, and you used it already for playing Djinn Oshannus.

In my opinion, it's just not worth it to push him unless you have high pool of mana to use.

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Reverse Speed

Units with the lowest Speed attack first and have the highest chance of evading attacks.

With Djinn Oshannus's 5 speed, this becomes his biggest problem. Not only this rule set makes him slow to be hit by units with lower speed but he also attacks late. Avoid using units with high speed in this rule    set.

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Target Practice

All Ranged and Magic attack units have the Snipe ability.

This rule set has the ability to make you shine. If you can have a solid front besides Djinn Oshannus and put Djinn Oshannus behind him, then it's fine. But if that front dies and Djinn Oshannus goes to the front, all the range and mages will skip him as target of attack due to Snipe. This makes him unreliable and may destroy your whole team.

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Battle Sample

^{https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_a55fa3a03e189ed68d8ad0780855868d&ref=kpgamingch}

My opponents focused on units with Opportunity ability to thin out my team. The difference is that the one with the highest attacks on my team are the ones with the highest health as well. This caused issues with my opponent's strategy and giving me the win.

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Final Thoughts

I think Djinn Oshannus is strong. I do like his potential and seeing a lot of different nifty combos for him, it makes me want to play him. My only problem is that I don't think the calculation on the speed is fair. I had games where I were able to increase Djinn Oshannus's speed to 10 and a 2 speed melee unit hit him.

It feels like rolling a dice and landing on a 6 is less often than that discrepancy. Still, being a mage, I do like him. I think mages in general are the strongest ones in this game. I do hope they add new damage types in the future that have different effects.

All in all, Djinn Oshannus is still a good card and still one of the best for water. It is up to you though to stop making him good and make him great.

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If you have suggested combos or questions, feel free to comment it down below.

If you are planning to play and is inspired by my post, please consider using my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=kpgamingch

I do not own any of the photos in this post. All credits goes to:

• Splinterlands
• Peakmonsters
• Canva