Today I'm sharing my water sneak strategy that kills your enemies' backline monsters before they can do anything!
Key cards
Pelacor bandit
Pelacor bandit is a chaos legion reward card. It is an excellent card at any level. It has sneak, flying, and good speed, especially in higher leagues. This is a key card in the water sneak team because this card is going to be one of the fastest monsters to attack and have a very good chance of killing a backline monster before they can do anything.
Sabre shark
Sabre shark is a beta/alpha card that has very similar stats to pelacor bandit. The biggest difference is that Pelacor bandit has flying and this card doesn't. I usually put Pelacor bandit towards the rear than sabre shark because bandit is more evasive with flying. However, flying can be a bad thing if an enemy monster has snare.
Those two cards are absolutely key cards when you're building a water sneak team. Sabre shark is a bit expensive now. Also, it can't be used in the modern format that is coming in some months. So I recommend considering renting if the price is too much.
Nice cards to add
Coral wraith
Coral wraith is an untamed card that offers magic sneak and rust, which removes 2 armor from the opponent team. It comes in very handy time to time because the opponent sometimes has armor to protect from melee/archery attacks which we're going to do with water sneak team. Coral wraith is a great add to the team.
This card is also not very cheap. So I usually rent this card whenever I have a water quest.
Uraeus (neutral)
Another amazing epic reward card with sneak. It gains poison at level 4. The melee attack at max is 3 while Pelacor bandit and Sabre shark is 4. So I typically add Uraeus if I have mana and a spot after bandit and sabre shark. Potentially Uraeus can do more damage with poison but poison is 50% chance. I sometimes get unlucky and don't get any poison. That's another reason why I use Uraeus after those 2 water sneak cards. Another great thing about this card is that it has one armor! Kelya gives everyone armor but Uraeus has an extra armor compared to other cards. I tend to put Ureaus in the very back or towards the front after a tank because of the extra armor.
Elven Cutthroat (neutral)
It is a beta neutral card that offers sneak. I often rent this card when I have a sneak quest since it is a neutral card and it is an expensive card to own. The max melee attack is 3, the same as Uraeus. However, Uraeus has poison but this card doesn't. The great part of this card is that the max speed is 6, while Uraeus is 4.
Let's look at battles!
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_fc02db85feb71da3b046ccc7422b2c86
VS Selenia Sky, 12 mana
I chose 3 meat shields before pelacor bandit and sabre shark. The opponent chose selenia sky with the earth sprinter. Their setup is very popular, failed summoner, earth elemental, khmer princess. Failed summoner is especially powerful because of high hitpoints, magic reflect and demoralize. It reduced our melee attack by 1.
1st round, my pelacor bandit kills their chicken immediately. Sabre shark attacks their naga assassin. They put naga assassin to dodge some attacks but it doesn't work at all because our melee attackers are faster than their naga assassin.
2nd round, the bandit and shark kills the naga assassin. The game gets easier for me because the only big attacker is earth elemental with 4 archery damage but it is very slow. My melee attackers killed one monsters every round before they even get to the 3rd meat shield, Ooze.
VS Lord of darkness, 18 mana
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_60372ceaf265e17717e6f0bd20a171ad
This is another low mana battle. Again, I chose meat shields in front, and then I got sabre shark, coral wraith, pelacor bandit, and Uraeus for sneak attacks.
This is a tough opponent because their summoner, Crypt Mancer reduces melee damage, speed, and health. All bad for my team. Also, they have shadowy presence to attack their sneak monsters damage. Lord of darkness as the tank, is one of the best cards in the game.
One advantage I have is the speed and the number of sneak attackers. My summoner Kelya adds 1 speed and 1 armor. Their summoner negates the speed buff. However, I have 4 sneak attackers while they have 2 sneak attackers.
1st round, the shark and the bandit took out their meat shields but their 2 sneak attackers took out my Ureaus. Their great tank takes time to get through my meat shields because of Kelya's armor.
2nd round, my sneak attackers takes out their sneak attackers with no problem. The game looks like an easy win for me because I just slam shadowy presence and lord of darkness while he is taking time killing my meat shields.
At the end, while I was killing the lord of darkness, the bandit got retaliated and died. That was impressive but not enough to win the game. My coral wraith finished him.
VS Lorna shine wit Dr.Blight, 18 mana
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_e927a5e8e746a2fbf771463caec40c5a
The ruleset was tarket practice where all ranged & magic attackers has snipe ability. So I picked Kelp initiate and angelic mandalin to distract attacks from my main damage dealers (3 sneak attackers, sabre shark, Ureaus, Pelacor bandit)
The opponent chose Lorna shine giving divine shield to all monsters. They also have Dr.blight giving poison and defender of truth which giving 2 armor to everyone.
This opponent was very strong because of the divine shield and 2 armor. I wasted the whole turn not being able to kill any monster. In round 3, I finally took down the defender of truth and all of their 2 armor went down. From then on, the game looks easier for me.
My kelp initiate is level 3, which is a very low level for the diamond league but this strategy worked out very well. Kelp initiate and angelic mandarin served their purpose. My sneak attackers were untouched when they only had pelacor conjurer and Dr.Blight. My team just took out those 2 and the game is over.
VS Lord Arianthus + Lir deepswimmer, 20 mana
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_4e581a0b73ec0e2811e86ced87d1e326
Ruleset: Lost magic, Target practice: every archery/ magic monster has snipe.
They have an interesting defensive setup. Lir Deepswimmer offers return fire, lord arianthus offers thorns. They have 1 tank heal and 2 triages. They were looking for my attackers kill themselves.
From their battle history, I could clearly see that this person was using Lir deepswimmer and lord arianthus a lot. I personally don't like lord arianthus because of void, shield, magic reflect and thorns. I found that the best way to kill lord arianthus is either to use oppress, use high damage archery, or to use sneak to kill other monsters first and then all target Lord A. last. I saw lir deepswimmer that offers return fire. So it was easy for me to pick sneak team to win the game!
They have very little damage output and my fiend was nerfing their archery damage. They barely do any damage, just 2, while I'm doing 18 damage per turn. Yes, it took 5 turns to get to Lord A. because of their triage and a miss from blind from their summoner but none of my monsters died by then. My team then plummeted the Lord A. at the end. Good game!
Closing remark
I hope you could see how powerful the water sneak team is from the example battles. It is a very competitive strategy, especially in low mana.
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