Waka Flaka in Flames: The Defeat of Waka

Greetings Splinterlanders a lot of you are here asking yourself:
Is Waka Spiritblade worth the thousands of dollars it costs? Does he offer a meta advantage beyond currently available summoners?

The brutal and short answer is. Absolutely not. This card is by no means revolutionizing the death splinter, and I will explain why below. However, will there come a time when newer cards exist where poison for a death splinter summoner is more relevant? Probably in the future years of this card game, but right now Waka Flaka is quite... meh. Was is it worth the over 2 thousand dollars it cost to buy in vouchers and SPS at the time? Only for Waka Flaka fans, which is a more sentimental and less strategic value. All this and more explained in depth below.

Pick Your Poison: Death's Poison Abundance

In the death splinter there exist at least 5 cards with poison. At higher lvl play these creatures will have their poison ability and will likely be rented or owned at their appropriate lvl for their league in decks you encounter, so this means Waka grants no bonus to those units whatsoever. The same way Brighton Bloom won't grant flying to a creature that already has flying.

RNG is a harsh mistress AKA Poison percentage

Poison doesn't offer a guaranteed activation on hit, this makes wakas ability highly dependent on the RNG of his lineup's hits. This means that even in the best of times with Waka Flaka RNG can lead to defeat. This ability is NOT guaranteed. Even when it DOES activate, poison only adds 2 damage per turn to the target. Multiple targets envenoming the same target won't increase the potency, so overall damage potential with this summoner's ability is significantly lower than other's that can be used in it's stead.

While this is normally not an issue when this ability is present on individual creatures, this becomes a lack of tactical value when it's your summoner's primary ability. Many fights at higher ranks only last a few rounds, that isn't a lot of opportunity to attempt to envenom your opponent with Waka and makes this summoner too reliant on RNG for a quick encounter.

By Fire be Purged: Cleanse & Immunity EVERYEWHERE?!?!

EVERY splinter in chaos legion/untamed this time around appears to have cleanse readily available, meaning any attempt to punch through the front line tank with damage over time is unlikely to succeed. There are also additional tanks with immunity in the coming meta, making damage over time an ineffective strategy versus raw damage. Damage over time isn't an effective strategy to use as your main assault upon the enemy in fast combat.

Sprititblade Subdued: Strategy and Placement

In the battle located here the enemy utilized waka flaka in low mana with both magic and ranged creatures that did not have venom naturally. In this lineup blast and venom is an interesting combination, but too RNG dependent and with a lack of burst damage.

I placed Hero from Beyond and Lone boatman behind my chicken spacer, the enemy was burst down quickly. With only one turn of poison effecting the front line (a practical example of RNG being fickle as mentioned earlier). The enemy only killed the chicken spacer and was quickly demolished by blast. It should be noted that the "snipe" ability allowed blast to occur in 2 directions, and was guaranteed to hit the backline with the no melee ruleset.

This is an excellent example of why Waka Flaka is not very prominent at higher ranks. At lvl one my creatures wouldnt have additional abilities and Waka Flaka would have a distinct advantage, but in gold rank this is a much different tale with a higher lvl of cards available. I normally would analyze this fight in more depth, but this round is very cut and dry. Less damage per turn and less sustain (healing/ armor up) = defeat. The opponent's creatures were well chosen, but overall damage and sustain was lesser. Even Khala's +1 health buff provided more value in this fight than Waka's poison did.

Is Waka Worth it? Not right now, but...

Tactically in the current meta waka is not very strong compared to other summoners in the death Splinter. Oyster, Brood, Contessa, and the various other summoners available offer more definitive battlefield advantages that are less dependent on RNG. Even Brightoon Bloom (a dragon summoner who grants flying which is an RNG related skill) has the benefit of granting all your units immunity to the earthquake ruleset.

To a fan of the artist Waka Flaka this collectible will surely hold value, but in these cases this value is not related towards it's gameplay in Splinterlands whatsoever. This value is the value of owning a collectible piece of Waka Flaka on the blockchain, because in the current meta poison on a death summoner isn't very utile at higher tiers of play. It will likely win regularly in lower tiers like bronze or silver where poison isn't present, but with the over 2 thousand dollars you would have spent you could've gotten numerous cards including summoners that would bolster you strategy. Overall as a summoner this card is not very strategically significant compared to other summoners (particularly legendaries) that are currently available, but as a Waka Flaka collectible? Only time can tell. This would be a completely different value perspective if this summoner wasn't such an extravagant price on release, but currently this card is relevant in only Bronze and Silver. The price tag is too large to justify this utility when other summoners with better meta play exist in the current Bronze/Silver meta. A random person who both likes and comments on this post will receive a 15 day delegation for Centauri Mage. Don't forget to follow and like for more #play2earn stuff, tournaments, art, writing, or whatever else I might be posting.
Keep Summoning and See You in the #Splinterlands