Splinterlands - How To Beat Yodin Zaku

Full disclosure this post by no means has the solution to actually defeat Yodin Zaku. Instead I will be discussing strategies that has potential of slowing and maybe even stopping this lethal summoner. Take my opinion with a grain of salt.

The card that a lot of brawlers are trying to cut out from use is none other than Yodin Zaku. A creation by @neoxian this card is by far one of the best cards in the game.

With the most recent sale of Zaku well north of $800 per bcx this is one of the most highly sought after cards in the game.

Why is Yodin Zaku So Strong?

A legend fire summoner with range boost, health boost, and blast. The crucial ability that makes Zaku so dangerous is likely it's blast ability. The blast ability does the following:

The key words to take away:

Does additional damage to Monsters adjacent to the target Monster
Additional damage is equivalent to main damage divided by 2, rounded up

There is additional damage inflicted on opponent's second position monster by half of the damage the leading monster has absorbed. A simplified example is if the leading monster took 10 damage the second position monster would face a blast that inflicts 5 damage. Crazy!

Attacking the Rear Formation

If opponent was to use Zaku and there is no rule set that allows range monsters to be able to attack at the front of formation it will be obvious the opponent will place range monsters near the middle to the rear of the formation.

A good counter would be to use sneak ability. A quick general use of sneak ability cards are the neutral's Elven Cutthroat and Sand Worm. I recommend going with Sand Worm as the card is cheaper and if it does execute its attack it is a massive 5 melee on the rear monster.

In addition of you were to pick a specific splinter there are monsters that also has sneak ability. In total including neutral monsters there are 21 monsters that have sneak ability.

Slow Down Fire Splinter

In addition to applying sneak against opponent's formation another ability that may help in the battle is slow speed. As we are all aware some of the fastest monsters in attack are from the fire splinter.

In the Untamed series fire splinter monsters 7 out of 11 have a max speed of 4 or higher. This is ahead of all other splinter cards in Untamed.

Another example is the Beta series were 9 out of 10 monsters max speed is 4 or higher. Again ahead of all other splinter cards in Beta series.

There are 17 monsters in the game with slow ability and worth noting neutral's Creeping Ooze one of the most popular to use with slow ability due to its low mana 1 use.

By slowing down the opponent there is a better chance for you to be the first to attack and you need this to do the following.

One Shot One Kill

Again emphasizing to attacking range attack monsters from the fire splinter because Yodin boosts' those monster's attacks. Take note that out of the current 12 fire monsters with range attack that 5 of them have a health of 4 or less at max level. While most but Ettin Spearman have a health of 6 or less at max level. This leads back to my earlier recommendation of using sneak and specifically Sand Worm as it can attack the opponent's range monster and in one attack against a majority of fire range monsters would be killed. (Worth noting Zaku's +1 health may help these monsters survive the one hit one kill approach. Therefore ideally you would want to level up Sand Worm as it can reach a max melee of 7.)

Conclusions

As I said earlier this post by no means lists the definite solutions to beating Zaku. However it is not impossible to beat if one plays their cards right. These recommendations I have mention here is a good start to thinking of the strategies one can implement to knock out a formation lead by Zaku. Best of luck to you on the battle field when facing Zaku. If curious a couple days ago I posted a battle I won while facing Zaku and implementing the tactics discussed in this post. Here it is for your entertainment.

Until next time thanks for reading!!!

If you are interested to learn more about Splinterlands please go through some of my other posts. Order is from newest to oldest posts:

Everything About Dark Energy

All You Want To Know About Reward Chests

SPS White Paper Cliff Notes

Helpful Links for New and Veteran Players

Splinterlands Good Cards To Own

Splinterlands Rentals from a Lender Perspective

I have plenty of other cards for rent! Just go on peakmonsters and check out the market place and if you are curious what I offer here is a link:

mawit07 rentals

If You have yet to take part in playing this great game called Splinterlands please click on my referral link. It is free but in order to earn real assets such as cards and token you would have to invest in a starter deck or purchase game cards. Join the discord to learn more. Good luck!

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