It's Friday again already, which means it's another Battle Challenge in Splinterlands. Thankfully, this is focused on a much more fun card than last week's Temporal Master. The Dhampir Stalker is a heavy hitting ranged attacker for the Death splinter. I believe this is the only Dhampir monster currently, being a mix of half human and half vampire. With that pedigree, it's a bit surprising there's no Life Leech ability on this card.
At a 7 Mana cost, this is a fairly expensive card to play, but it can deliver a heavy 4 ranged damage per turn and has a decent amount of health. Specifically, I like it for the True Strike ability which ensures the stalker will hit its target - very much aligned with the lore bit about their talents.
The Battle
The battle we'll take a look at is focused heavily on magic and ranged attackers with the Keep Your Distance rule disallowing any melee attackers, and has the Healed Out rule in effect - meaning there'll be no health recovery.
Given a 56 Mana budget for this battle, there's quite a few high mana cost cards in play on my side.
 | With a choice between Death and Dragon summoners, I opted for Dragon. Quix's debuff of -1 Ranged Damage and -1 Speed on my opponent's monsters would hopefully be effective in reducing their damage while giving me a slight edge in relative speed. | ||
 | Not normally one I put in the tank position, Djinn Muirat is a great magic tank choice in this case. With the Keep Your Distance ruleset, it's almost a guarantee you'll see some magic damage dealers. The Void Armor helps absorb that while the Reflect ability at level 3 helps deal a little bit back. In Healed Out battles, this becomes even more helpful when paired with a Repair support monster - as there's nothing stopping the armor from being repaired which could be considered an "effective heal". | ||
 | Hail Cthulhu! The 3 magic damage per turn and high health make this a good candidate for Keep Your Distance battles, even if it is slow. The Stun ability is a nice match for Djinn Muirat's Knock Ability, potentially doubling the damage output there. | ||
 | The most expensive card in terms of mana cost here, the Chaos Dragon is an uncontrollable wild card. The scattershot and blast helps deal out damage across the line up and prevents any taunt-enabled monsters from drawing its fire. Something I've come around to appreciating a bit more, the Blind debuff at level 3. Coupling this with some flying and the speed debuff from Quix, it provides a pretty decent chance for grounded creatures to miss (except those with True Strike, such as the Stalker). | ||
| Firmly in the middle of the line up, the Dhampir Stalker is able to aim and deal some ranged damage. The True Strike helps ensure it'll always land a hit and not receive any damage from Backfire due to misses. The 6 health help make it a candidate for a middle position rather than in the back. | ||
 | The Venari Bonesmith is one of my favorite Death reward cards. 4 Mana for a 4 speed/4 health with 2 magic damage and poison and life leech? That's an insane value for the mana. The poison here helps negate any Void Armor as it'll do health damage directly while the Life Leech helps negate any Reflect damage. The downside is it's the first lowest health creature here, meaning it'd be targeted by Opportunity. | ||
 | Like last time, I'm keeping my Gargoya Devil in the back. There's not too many monsters with Sneak that'd be playable in this match, so that's not a concern, though Scattershot could be. The Deathblow may come in handy here, as will the Close Range to ensure the last slot can still deal damage on the front lines. |
Looking at the field, my opponent took a similar strategy with Djinn Muirat as the tank, but opted for Thaddeus Brood to debuff my magic damage and health:
There's a lot to unpack here ability wise. The middle of my opponent's lineup is camoflauged, which means they won't be directly targetable - but thanks to the scattershot and blast from my Chaos Dragon, I can still get some shots in before they reach the front. The inclusion of Riftwing is a bit odd, while it could conceivably draw Sniper fire and maybe deal damage via Backfire, there's more than enough mana to replace that with something that could deal guaranteed damage per turn or have more health.
Like I pointed out, my Venari Bonesmith was a target for Lira the Dark - the opportunity attacks knocked it out at the beginning of Round 2, but at that point the DPT (damage per turn) balance was in my favor, especially with the ranged attacks in the back of my opponent's lineup. They found themselves unable to attack and their Dhampir Stalker was easily dispatched by mine - a bit poetic considering the circumstances.
Final Thoughts
While the Dhampir Stalker is a solid all around card, it can be hard to position it most effectively. As seen in the battle, having it last to try and capitalize on the Deathblow ability can be risky. In battles that have a high enough mana cap and the close range ruleset, it becomes very usable in the last position.
Where do you find the most effective position is for monsters with Deathblow? Let me know in the comments - thanks for reading!
