Share Your Battle - The Best Water Ranged Card?

The theme for the current "Share Your Battle" challenge is Legionnaire Alvar but I don't really use him so I will talk about Water cards once again! This time, it will be Axemaster, one card which is somehow forgotten these days but still very deadly if left alive for too long.

Looking at the stats, the key ability for Axemaster is Double Strike, which is available at Level 1. For Bronze and Silver fights, dealing 4 damage per turn is extremely deadly. With a speed of 4 (5 after Kelya Frendul's boost), it's unlikely to miss as well so the damage is more or less guaranteed.

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

The mysterious clan who call themselves Axemasters are perhaps the most peculiar group of people in the whole of ΛZMΛRÉ. They live under the moist ground in cave dwellings in the eastern thickets of the great Jungle, somewhere between the Palace of Eld and the treacherous tree known as Sligbough Oak. For many generations, they have protected the treasures of Eld from intruders, raiders, and even pirates who are unfamiliar with the legends of the curse. Some scholars claim that the Axemasters consider themselves the stewards and true owners of the treasures of Eld, but if you could get close enough to an Axemaster, they would tell you that they are merely protecting the people who would be foolish enough to touch the cursed treasure.

Genetically, Axemasters are a hybrid race called Meru that was created by merging Human and Mer (with a touch of Chaos magic) into amphibious creatures. Mer stories say that these demon offspring were ousted from Poseidar long ago, that they were not welcome anywhere under the water. As a result, they found the surface and made a home for their clan on the shores. In the years since, the clan has continued to migrate further and further from the water, where their Mer enemies are plentiful.

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Battle Type & Team Lineup

Position	Card/Level	Mana	Notes
Summoner	Kelya Frendul	4	For a 99 mana battle, it's free for all. I would have gone with a Water/Dragon lineup because most of the big cards are with Dragon but with Dragon excluded, my best chance was Water.
1	Almo Cambio	7	Being an Enrage battle, I wanted a tank with high speed, so I chose Almo Cambio which slotted in nicely as a high HP tank. Hopefully it will be Enraged and opponents will miss their attacks.
2	Djinn Oshannus	8	No mid to high mana Water lineups would be complete without Djinn Oshannus and once again, I took advantage of his high speed and slotted him as the secondary tank.
3	Nerissa Tridawn	9	The strong attackers followed behind the two tanks and here we had Nerissa Tridawn who also had a high HP.
4	Deeplurker	6	No Water lineups are complete without Deeplurker because Opportunity is a very useful and dangerous ability for a card to have.
5	Coastal Nymph	9	Since mana was a luxury for this battle, I picked Coastal Nymph and gambled with the Scattershot ability, though it's an ability that I wasn't really fond of.
6	Axemaster	7	The card that would deal the biggest damage was placed last. Despite having the risk of Sneak attacks, I took the chance that having a speed of 5 or higher if Enraged would keep him alive for a while.

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• Pre Battle: Most of the cards were pretty similar except Almo Cambio and Axemaster. Let's hope Axemaster can escape the clutches of Sand Worm.
  

• Round 1: With a high damage output, my opponent's tank was easily dispatched while my Almo Cambio survived for the 2nd round. This bought extra time for all my attackers in the backline. As expected, Sand Worm missed its Sneak attack on my Axemaster due to the vast difference in speed.
  

• Round 2: Another missed hit by Sand Worm on my Axemaster! My opponent's team was being weakened at a fast pace with my damage output and it was clear which team had the advantage now.
  

• Round 3: 3 misses out of 3 by Sand Worm on my Axemaster. It could have been 15 extra damage, but putting a card with 1 speed for an Enrage battle was asking for trouble. Both Djinn Oshannus battled strongly this round and survived the full round.
  

• Round 4: I hope my opponent had some learning points from this battle (assuming he is not a bot hehe). Sand Worm now missed 4 out of 4 attacks on my Axemaster. Not surprising if you noticed that it's 2 speed vs 8 speed. Both Djinn Oshannus went off and it was Nerissa vs Nerissa.
  

• Round 5: My Deeplurker saved the opposing Sand Worm of further humiliation. With that Axemaster was safe and with just 1 miss, Axemaster dealt a total 18 damage over 5 rounds!
  

• Round 6: 22 damage over 6 rounds, Axemaster was definitely the gamechanger for this battle.
  

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

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Post Battle

Did my strategy work? I think so. Putting high speed cards for Enrage battles definitely paid off immensely especially when they get Enraged (speed increases even further).

Do I like Axemaster? With most players focusing on the Magic cards for Water, I think Axemaster is versatile in his own right and even with just 7 mana, he is a very strong addition even in a 99 mana battle lineup.

Final thoughts? Back to the question in the title, is Axemaster the best Water Ranged card? I would say yes, at least based on the Water cards that I have used so far. Of course, cards like Wave Brood, Igor Darkspear and Water Elemental have their own strengths, but on balance and overall, I would say Axemaster is the strongest.

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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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