I do not normally do these weekly challenges, but I guess any time is good to start! I will try to do this every week from now on and I'm quite excited about this one, because it is about a unit from my favourite splinter - Water. Kulu Swimhunter itself is not an exciting monster at all, with no abilities at all. That said, it still makes for interesting inclusions in teams, especially in some particular rulesets and mana caps.

The way I'll do it is first talk about the battle itself, its rulesets and mana caps. After that, I'll go over my whole team and then each individual card that I've included and why they make sense in this context. Finally, I'll talk about Kulu Swimhunter itself, what I think about it and what are its strengths and weaknesses in my opinion.

The Battle

The battle I decided to include in this post comes from a tournament I was playing in over the past 24 hours - the Chaotic Bronze Blunderbuss. I believe it showcases the unit's strengths very well and puts it in the interesting scenario when you are really forced to make the best out of a fairly limited amount of choices, due to being restricted to only Chaos Legion cards.

Not only that, however, as the ruleset is Little League, meaning that Kulu Swimhunter is actually a premium choice, being the max amount of mana that can be included, with the mana cap being functionally inexistent (as you cannot get to 34 mana in any way with just Little League cards).

You can find the battle right HERE

In case you don't feel like watching the battle, here's a screenshot of the teams.

Card Choices

The cards that I was able to choose were heavily influenced by the restrictions mentioned above - with only Chaos Legion and Little League available, even with relatively complete CL collection, I was forced to choose out of just a handful of cards, regardless of the splinter I would've chosen. On top of that, Life was unavailable either, while Dragon is permanently banned in the tournament (No legendary summoners rule removes a possibility to play Dragon in CL). My choice of the team was pretty much between Earth and Water, but with no Queen Mycelia in my collection, I felt like Water was the way to go.

Frontline

Whenever playing Water in Little League scenarios, I find myself in a bit of a struggle to choose my first position monster. Between Cruel Sethropod and Xenith Monk, they are both great units that can tank quite a bit of damage. In this case, I had absolutely no problem with that, as the lack of good off-tank options in the splinter meant I had to include both.

My main worry now was to decide on which one will get to be in the front. The reason I went for Cruel Sethropod was that it offers more damage and I hoped to tear through whatever frontline the opponent might put out - especially in case it had Shield. In my head, however, I was thinking Antoid Platoon and it ended up being the little Crypt Beetle. Cruel Sethropod also allowed me to get more out of the Repair ability. Finally, once Sethropod dies, I had planned for the opposing frontliner to be gone as well, meaning that it is easier for Xenith Monk to heal through whatever damage is left on the enemy team.

As you can see in the battle, that worked out and Xenith Monk ended up heroically withstanding the onslaught.

Support

In the 3rd and 4th position, I was sure I would include Scavo Hireling. It is an insane card when paired with Kelya Frendul, as there will always be something to Repair. I was sure there would be some sort of Physical damage incoming, as there are few Magic monsters in CL Little League, so it was a no-brainer to include it.

For River Nymph, this was more a case of a lack of options. The Cleanse ability does not matter that much. Even if Doctor Blight was to apply Poison, it would proc before Nymph could Cleanse it, likely killing the weak bodies of Little League monsters. She does, however, offer Magic damage, combined with decently high speed and health, meaning she can also tank some hits if the worst comes and the frontline gets killed.

Damage

Finally, the time came for the backline monsters that can dish out damage. This is where our hero - Kulu Swimhunter comes into play. At 4 mana, there is no way I am not playing this card in Little League, as it also packs quite a crazy amount of stats - obviously paying the price in that it has no abilities. The high damage of Kulu was the reason my team was able to get through the Crypt Beetle and Xenith Monk before the enemies got through my own frontline.

Both Kulu and Igor are high speed ranged units, meaning that they are able to take down enemies before they are even able to attack. This was one of the main criteria for choosing Igor Darkspear who only has 1 attack, meaning it's weak to Shield. Of course, this was also caused by the lack of other options - the only other real consideration was Angelic Mandarin, which is strictly worse in Bronze.

Kulu Swimhunter

There isn't so much to say about Kulu as a card. I actually really like its simplicity, as it makes it a versatile monster. I find that one of its main strengths is the Little League ruleset, as it has pretty ridiculous stats for that one. Obviously, we cannot forget Back to Basics, as it feels like that's what it was made for - with no abilities, it brings its full power to that ruleset.

There are few rulesets that affect it negatively - it does not have abilities to take away, nor does it rely on a particular ruleset to be powerful. That said, it is also hard for it to shine or abuse some of the rulesets. While other monsters might love some of these, Swimhunter is simply alright in everything. Jack of all trades, master of none.

As for mana caps, low-to-mid mana caps is where it has the highest power, as with higher mana cap, there are simply more powerful options for pure damage, such as Azmare Harpoonist and Axemaster.

Closing Words

There it is, my first weekly share your battle post! Kulu Swimhunter is a great addition to many lineups, but it's never really THE card to make your game. Even with that though, it will always finds its use in some ruleset as a pure damage card, especially that it can tank some Sneak or Snipe attacks with its high health.

All images are screenshots from the game, while the thumbnail is copied from the official Share Your Battle Challenge post.

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