This is my submission to the Splinterlands Weekly Battle Challenge. This time it is featuring the Sea Monster.

About the card

The Sea Monster was one of the first reward edition cards and found its way early into the Beta meta of the game. It has been out-of-print for months now and we can see how it is slowly rising in value. While you can still get high level versions of the card for about 0.03 USD per BCX for a one BCX card you have to pay over 0.06 USD already. That's the price of current reward edition rares with the big difference that you need 500 Sea Monsters for a maxed out one, while you'd only need 115 for the max version of a rare card. The card therefore is a great example of how once cheap cards can increase in price, when they run out of print.

Card Use-Cases

In early Beta, the Sea Monster was one of THE tanks. There was not a big choice of tanks, so when playing a high mana match with the water splinter one would usually go with the Sea Monster in the first spot. This has changed lately now that we have other great tank options available and also more neutral tanks like the Chain Golem.

However, I still do see some distinct niches where the Sea Monster shows its full potential. My two favorite uses are:

• Low level matches: The Sea Monster start with 8 HP at level 1 and already has the healing ability. This is difficult, if not impossible, to overcome for most low level attackers. The damage they'll do to the Sea Monster will be recovered by its healing in the next round. Especially powerful when combined with an additional healer in the back rows.
• All Sneak/Melee Mayhem rulesets: The Sea Monster gets the Thorns ability at level 6. Therefore, it is a perfect card to use among other monsters with the Thorns ability in an All Sneak or Melee Mayhem match, where your opponent will likely use a high amount of Melee cards. Let them damage themselves!
• Lost Legendaries: The Sea Monster is a great alternative when other mighty high-mana cards are blocked because of the Lost Legendaries ruleset.

This weeks match

This week I used the Sea Monster in a Lost Legendaries battle. My strategy was to have the opponent dispair at the high HP tank healing itself while my back row slowly picks off their cards and supports my tank.

I chose the following Line Up:

1. Sea Monster

2. Creeping Ooze: This card I chose after assembling the rest of my team because I had a spare slot and a spare mana point. The Ooze can make a big difference and should be utilized in this situation. It makes the opponent slower, so your monsters can attack and kill first before the opponent has a chance to strike.

3. Sabre Shark: With its 3 ATK and high speed the Sabre Shark is a great card to pick off support cards from the enemies back line, which may debuff my Sea Monster tank.

4. Pirate Archer: 2 Mana, 2 ATK and the Blast Ability. Need I say more? Excellent to support the Sea Monster in diminishing my opponents front lines.

5. Crustacean King: What is more frustrating than a self-healing Sea Monster? Right, a Sea Monster that also gets healed from the back row and is also provided with additional armor making it take more melee hits, which in turn can do more Thorns damage.

6. Naga Windmaster: Breaks the Shields of my opponents, so that the Sea Monster can unleash its full wrath on the enemy's tank's HP. Also comes with the nice addition of Headwinds debuffing my enemy's ranged attacks, which provides safety for my Sea monster tank. On top of that the Windmaster poisons the enemies causing additional damage.

Conclusion

The strategy worked out quite nicely wiping out the enemy team while I hardly took any losses myself. I think it is a nice example of how a strong team can become near invincible with skilled allies in the back rows who support it with buffs, debuffs and other abilities.

Want to join the fight?

Create an account at the Splinterlands today and fight me in next week's battle challenge!