Haunted Spider - Battle Challenge

Hello everyone!

Welcome to another weekly challenge. This time we are playing with Haunted Spider. An amazing cards belonging to the Death Splinter.

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About Haunted Spider

Haunted Spiders is a common Death monster that belongs to the Alpha/Beta edition. With only three mana cost he is an amazing pick in the Small League ruleset. The best things about Haunted Spider is his Poison ability on higher levels.

Lore

The second form of a Dark Eternal is determined by the state of the soul. Some of the more twisted souls take insect form, and the Haunted Spider is the favorite. The projectile venom and massive, armored thorax make the Haunted Spider a formidable (and intimidating) enemy in any battle.

The Battle

You can watch the whole battle on a link below. Further down I will try to explain why I picked cards that you can see in my team. I will not go through events that happened in the battle as you can see that easily by yourself. I hope that my point of view will help new players in tailoring strategy for upcoming battles.

You can watch the battle on this link

My Lineup

If you don't want to watch my battle you can see my starting lineup below.

My Strategy

Death splinter is interesting one. My strategy was to use Drake of Arnak for +1 armor that will help my team to survive longer as my weakness was low health of my monsters. Then with extra armor and Haunted Spirit with Heal ability in the first spot I tried to outlast my opponent. That way my backline with Death Elemental, Haunted Spider and Twisted Jester had enough time to do enough damage.

Did it work?
Since I won and earned an I would say it did work. Plus 1 in armor is a good idea, especially in lower levels where there is a lot of teams that focus on magic damage. That +1 armor can help you survive longer against melee and ranged teams.

Would I change anything now?
When looking my team now I see mistake I made. Part of my team is attacking the first monster in the enemy team, part of my team are Snipers and par of my team are Sneak attackers. It is miracle that I won after spreading attack that much. For this team I would rather change my team more to Sniper or first target oriented attackers. That way my damage would be more focused.

Cards that I used and why?

I already explained my strategy and now I will try to explain why I use each card. All cards have some positive and negative sides. In the end, the only thing that matters is if you win or lose. This is determined by the synergy between your cards. Every card has its role in the battle.

Drake of Arnak - A simple summoner that gives +1 armor to all your monsters. I like this summoner as it gives additional protection to my monsters.

In case of ranged and melee attacks, my monsters can tank one extra attack due to +1 armor. Of course, this does not work against magic attacks. It is not as good as Divine Shield. In this battle Drake of Arnak was a great choice as my opponent did not have any magic attack monsters.

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Haunted Spirit - This monster looks like one of the most used monsters in the Death splinter. For only 5 mana you get monster with 7 health and Heal ability.

Heal - Restores a portion of the Monster's health each round. 1/3 of the monsters max health rounded down is restored. Minimum is 2.

Heal ability is amazing as it allows your tank to survive for a long time. That will give a plenty of time for your backline to do the damage to the enemy team. On lower levels Heal is even more powerful as many monsters does not have big attack and sometime they even can't kill your Heal monster at all.

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Undead Badger - This monster was just a filler in this case. I chose him because of his good speed which means he will attack at least once, even if my opponent have blast or Snipe attacks.

Sneak - Targets the last Monster on the enemy Team instead of the first Monster.

Sneak ability is interesting one as Undead Badger will attack the last Monster on the enemy team. I chose him as I thought there could be some low health monsters in the last spot. I was wrong, but still he did his job.

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Death Elemental - Interesting card that I use a lot when playing with Death splinter. I like Death Elemental because of combination of his magic attack and Snipe ability.

Snipe - Targets enemy Monsters with Ranged, Magic, or no attack that are not in the first position.

This means that you can often one-shot monsters with one health that could have been buffed with armor. This is especially good when playing against Water splinter, to kill those Pixies fast. In this team, he performed well in combination with Twisted Jester.

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Haunted Spider - Really good card where you get +2 ranged damage for only 3 mana. Yes, speed and health are low, but if you protect Haunted Spider he can deal some nice damage.

Sneak - Targets the last Monster on the enemy Team instead of the first Monster.

On higher levels Haunted Spider will even get Poison. That will allow him to do 4 damage per turn to the enemy monster. And that is just amazing for a monster that costs only 3 mana.

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Twisted Jester - One of my favorite cards in the Death splinter. Decent speed, decent health and 2 damage for only 4 mana. I will pick this card in any low mana game.

Snipe - Targets enemy Monsters with Ranged, Magic, or no attack that are not in the first position.

Snipe is great ability and you can often find Twisted Jester one-shoting badly positioned attacker. In combination with Death Elemental they are doing 3 damage per turn to often most vulnerable enemy monster.

Cards that would be good with this setup

Instad of Undead Badger I could use cards that would perform better and that would focus on the first target in the enemy team. Fallen Specter, Theorosa Nightshade, Shadowy Presence and Darkest Mage are coming to my mind. As I am limited with cards I had to play budget option in form of Undead Badger.

Summary

I enjoyed this game. It was a close one and it could easily go in another direction. I like Haunted Spider and I am a little sad that soon it will not be playable in the "Normal" format. That's why I will be playing him a lot in upcoming weeks, to say goodbye to him and all those Alpha/Beta cards.

P.S.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this content. If you would add something extra please let me know in the comments. I am trying to write this content so there is not the only battle but also explained the strategy that will maybe help some players.

Have fun and see you on the battlefield!