Share Your Battle - Can Water Melee Lineups Win?

The theme for the current "Share Your Battle" challenge is Prismologist but as you would know I love to play Water lineups, I thought of sharing another great Water card! And that is Demented Shark!

As you can see from the stats, Demented Shark doesn't have any spectacular attack or HP for a 6 mana card but its main skill is actually the Inspire ability. Giving a +1 Melee attack to all cards can be very crucial especially if you are using a full Melee lineup or just countering a potential Demoralise from cards such as Disintegrator from your opponent.

The Demented Shark card that I am using is currently at Level 2, which actually is decent enough because Inspire ability is the main thing that we really need to do wonders to Melee lineups!

As usual, here's the lore for Demented Shark for your reading interest:

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 ΛZMΛRÉ, no Mer is safe.

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Battle Type & Team Lineup

Position	Card/Level	Mana	Notes
Summoner	Kelya Frendul	4	My Gold Foil Kelya Frendul accompanies me for my Water lineup and I decide to go with a Demented Shark Inspired Melee lineup due to the Common/Rare restriction in the battle modifier, i.e. most of the powerful Ranged and Magic cards would have been ruled out.
1	Sea Monster	8	Sea Monster's self healing ability seems to work better than Diemonshark and is slightly more resistant to Magic attacks.
2	Wave Runner	5	Tide Biter is excluded from the battle modifier, so I choose Wave Runner for the 2nd position and its Melee damage could potentially go up to 3 with Inspire.
3	Demented Shark	6	The star card for this Melee lineup and the main job of Demented Shark would be to stay alive for as long as possible. Keeping it in the middle of the pack should be relatively safe.
4	Deeplurker	6	Deeplurker is a definitely a must have for any Water Melee lineup and it has the potential to take out cards if left alive for too long. Keeping it in the middle of the pack should be relatively safe.
5	Sand Worm	9	Mana is somewhat a luxury for this battle and Sand Worm gets the pick. With a speed of 2 after the summoner's boost, it can get hits in relatively well.
6	Disintegrator	7	I am expecting my opponent to put in Melee cards as well since the selection is mainly down to Fire, Water and Death. Disintegrator's Demoralise is bound to affect some of the opposing cards.

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• Pre Battle: I wasn't surprised to meet another Water lineup, but card for card, my team was obviously the weaker set because my cards were mostly Levels 1 and 2, while my opponent had 4 Level 3 cards. Most cards were similar with both teams lining up Disintegrators, so let's see if Demented Shark can make the difference here.
  

• Round 1: My team was off to a good start with Deeplurker and Sand Worm combining to take out their last card and their armor boost was gone. Both tanks held on comfortably to no surprise of course.
  

• Round 2: The same thing happened again as they lost their last card in the same manner. Credit to Demented Shark which countered the opposing Disintegrator and maintained the team's damage output. Clearly, my opponent was struggling to deal good damage and Sea Monster's healing was causing some problems for them.
  

• Round 3: I finally lost my first card, which was the secondary tank, and it was taken out by the opposing Deeplurker. Like I mentioned, Deeplurker is extremely dangerous and had the potential to take out cards with Opportunity regardless of any battles.
  

• Round 4: My Sea Monster outlasted the opposing Diemonshark, and I did mention earlier as well that Sea Monster seemed to be a better tank (even though it is a just a Common card). It was down to 5 cards vs 3 now. Clearly a good advantage.
  

• Round 5: Both sides' Deeplurkers continued to strike hard and Sea Monster finally went off after 5 rounds.
  

• Round 6: We were almost there...
  

• Round 7: An awesome win against a strong(er) lineup!
  

If you are interested to watch the battle, you can find it here.

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Post Battle

Did my strategy work? Yup definitely, especially when I won a team with a stronger lineup. Demented Shark played a very crucial role especially when one fields a full deck of 6 Melee cards.

Do I like Demented Shark? Definitely yes, it is so versatile and it can be used with any of the Melee cards. The only downside is it is 6 mana card, I would not recommend using it for low mana battles, where you can't really field a full team of Melee cards.

Final thoughts? I hope from this post, one can also see that Water is not all about Magic cards, but they too have strong Melee cards as well. And the best part about Demented Shark is that, it is extremely affordable to rent or even purchase on the market!

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So that's all I have! What are your takeaways from this battle? Feel free to comment below, as I am always keen to learn and improve!

As always, thanks for reading and have a pleasant day ahead!

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