Ability strategy twitter.png

Introduction

Interesting week for me because this week i will write about a ability that i never use.
I never pay attention to it and i might learn something myself by writing this post.
Hope to find some interesting setups that I can share.

The main reason why not use this ability is it only does 2x damage when there is only one monster left. So you already almost won the battle often. This is in my opinion a counter to a last stand monster.

Ability

Monster with Deathblow does 2x damage if their target is the only Monster left on the enemy team.

Official ability information from splinterlands: List abilities

Synergies / strategy

Abilities benefits
Last Stand - When the enemy has a last stand monster this is very useful. Onyl down side is there are not many last stand mosnter.

Beaware of abilities
/ / Thorns/Return Fire/Magic Reflect - Be aware that your monster with Deathblow double the damage when it is the last monster it also then has a higher return damage.

Forcefield - When the only monster to beat is a monster with forcefield it might work against you with the 2x damage. When your damage exceed the 5 damage it will be reduced by the forcefield to 1 damage.

Select / favorite

Monster that is own with deathblow:

No1 Card.gif

This week is choose the Dhampir Stalker and the second place will be the Gargoya Devil.
Mainly because of the true strike this monster is often a choice with the 5 damage. Often it is placed in the back, when no sneak monsters expected, so it has a higher change to use the deathblow ability

I have a 62.5% win percentage with this card. Still collecting data. Noticed with the writing of this post a nice filter option should be implemented🤣.

Strategy

This battle all monsters have the snipe ability and this will improve the Dhampir Stalker. Pretty high mana show that will have some potential for some high mana cost monsters.

Rulesets

Odd Ones Out:
Only odd mana cost cards may be selected.

Target Practice:
All monster will gain the snipe ability which means they target enemy Monsters with Ranged, Magic, or no attack that are not in the first position.

Ferocity:
All monsters will have the Fury ability meaning all monster will do double damage against taunt monsters.

The Lineup

Summoner

Card	Reason
	There she is again my friend. the extra shield in combination with the snipe is useful

Monsters Lineup

#1	#2	#3	#4	#5	#6

Legionnaire Alvar (lvl 3)
Nice high level monster with demoralize. Will not be the targeted monster.

Djinn Muirat (lvl 3)
This will most likely be the targeted monster therefore the magic reflect is very useful here.
I will not use any stun monster this battle so the knock-out ability is useless. Again void is helpful because i expect some magic / ranged attack monsters.

Silent Sha-vi (lvl 10)
To counter my own strategy I bring a sneak attack monster hopefully my opponent have a weak backline.

Insidious Warlock (lvl 6)
Heavy hitter ever other round (3x damage) it needs to instant kill range/magic monster that is not in the first position .

Lira the Dark (lvl 3)
Nice monster with the extra speed.

Dhampir Stalker (lvl 8)
There it is the star of this week in the back so it longer alive hopefully to demonstrate the Deathblow ability.

The Battle

Reference

Link to the battle:
Link to battle

Rounds

Start :

Complete different setup by my opponent he has some higher level cards then that i own.
The extra level of Legionnaire Alvar gives him also deathblow. Not expected that he will survive the complete battle, even tough it is an battle with snipe abilities on all monster.
No sneak monster that is important for my deathblow strategy

Round 1:

They all attack Djinn Muirat which was expected and he has some magic monster so the magic reflect is helping a lot. this will kill his Venari Wavesmith and River Hellondale by himself.

Round 2:

Nice killing round this thins the herd. Better change for my deathblow to shine.
Nice to see that snipe did attack Noa The Just previous round, because from its base it does not have melee therefor targeted by snipe. Now that Kulu Mastermind is in the second position that has melee, is skipped. TIL

In this case it help me kill first some weaker monster then focus on the big health monster.

Round 3:

This is looking good to demonstrate the deathblow. Slowly killing my opponent one by one. At this point the battle is already over.

Round 4:

Two heavy health monster left.

Round 5:

Next round is coming down to that order if we see the deathblow ability in action

Round 6:

There it is... wait what -5 expected -10 or does it only display the -5 because the Kulu Mastermind only had -5 left

Conclusion

I have tried a few more battles to get the deathblow to demonstrate, most of the time the order is off or my deathblow monster is dead before it gets to the last opponent.
This is also my opinion the reason why it is not that useful. 90% of the battles when you are down to last monster you often already are winning, also without the deathblow.

Very niche situation this deathblow can be useful, in combination with last stand opponent this might be useful, only not seeing this very often.

Previous ability strategy posts

Below you will find references to the other ability strategies / analysis posts.

Ability	post
Affliction	Ability post: Affliction
Amplify	Ability post: Amplify
Backfire	Ability post: Backfire
Blast	Ability post: Blast
Blind	Ability post: Blind
Bloodlust	Ability post: Bloodlust
Camouflage	Ability post: Camouflage
Close Range	Ability post: Close Range
Cleanse	Ability post: Cleanse
Cripple	Ability post: Cripple
Deathblow