Card Highlights #9: Demented Shark

"Great whites are considered social creatures that travel in a group called a school or a shoal. When one great white wants to take the other's prey, both sharks will display various slapping demonstrations to discourage each other." - livescience.com

Lore

Sharks are incredibly resilient in the wild of the Outer Ocean. Because of how recklessly and indiscriminately they throw themselves at prey, they are often marred and damaged by those they attack, who possess unseen (and often horrific) defenses. One of these creatures of prey that sharks continue to foolishly attack in the wild is called the edgefish, whose scales are sharp like blades of steel. Another is the genus Coelomomyces, a group of aquatic fungi creatures that when attacked, lay spores inside the brains of larger fish. Several weeks after the spores are laid, small, treelike fungus begins to grow from the sharks’ heads. This causes the sharks to completely lose control of themselves and fall into a perpetual blinding agony of rage. This is how the monsters known as Demented Sharks are born, and when they find their way into the inner sea of AZMARÉ, no Mer is safe.

Rental Cost

I, myself, own a copy of Demented Shark from a reward months ago. If you're planning to rent one, get a higher level for efficiency. There's a level 4 for 1.63 DEC per day which has increased damage, health and speed. It is more efficient to rent this especially if you have a higher level of summoner to partner it with.

Buy/Sell Cost

Right now, you can buy one for half a dollar. It's quite cheap and is also good in combination with the new Chaos Legion cards.

Card Stats

Demented Shark's stats are good as a second tank. I normally put him either on the second or the last. This allows him to survive a longer time to be able to provide longer support.

Card Effect

Inspire || Gives all friendly Monsters + 1 Melee attack. Only works if your monsters have melee damage type.
Thorns || When hit with a Melee attack, does 2 damage back to the attacker.
Did you know? Shield Ability reduces this damage by half.
Demented Shark is good for both tank and support. He has a good enough stats to tank a few shots and a good ability to provide good support to an all melee team. He's one of the unused gems in water element due to last meta's overpowering mages. Right now, with a lot of good melees in the water tribe, he's an overlooked gem and really quite strong.

When to use

Demented Shark should be used with care. From experience, he's not good as a main tank because he doesn't have any defensive abilities. He works really good though as a secondary tank when most of the damage dealers have been taken care of. With no form to attack besides the first position, you should use the rule set's advantage to be able to do so. Always put him in the ranks when there's Melee Mayhem, Super Sneak, and Equal Opportunity.

Equal Opportunity || All monsters will attack from any position (range monsters cannot attack from position 1) and will target the enemy Monster with the lowest health.

Melee Mayhem || Melee attack from anywhere. We recommend using your strongest melee attackers with abilities like blast, opportunity, retaliate and inspire. You could also select a summoner that will lower your opponents melee power, Zintar Mortaus or Camila Sungazer.

Super Sneak || All monsters have the Sneak ability. Targets the last Monster on the enemy Team instead of the first Monster.

When not to use

You should not use Demented Shark when the above Rule Sets are not in play. You can use Demented Shark still but there's a lot more better options due to the fact that he cannot attack from any other position besides the first.

Battle

Replay Link

This is the positioning I used for this battle:

In this battle, I decided to use Demented Shark as the main tank but given the fact that I have an extra mana, I decided o add Hardy Stonefish as a soft main tank. My squad for this game is composed of Hardy Stonefish, Demented Shark, Feasting Seaweed and Deeplurker.

Round 1

My Hardy Stonefish dies as well as the opponent Feasting Seaweed dies.

Round 2

A bit of a chill round with no deaths but damage done to Demented Shark and Disintegrator.

Round 3

By end of round 3, Disintegrator dies leaving Mantoid in the front line. My Demented Shark also "almost" died this round. Fortunately, it's only almost.

Round 4

Being a ranged creature, Mantoid cannot attack when he's in the first position. Game ends with the death of my opponent's Mantoid.

Disclaimer

• I do not own any of the animated pictures. Visit Giphy to get more information.
  Happy Holidays. Good luck. Have fun.