More weeks mean more challenges. As always the clocks in the Splinterlands universe are ticking fast. And in most cases you always better try to stay up-to-date. What is the hint to what I am talking about? -Again there are upcoming changes to the reward system.

But let's not waste more time on things we cannot change and look at this week's monster: Diemonshark. Again this is not my first choice of monster. But I suppose there is some potential in this card.

Just to be clear: Most of my thoughts (and battles) are somewhat limited to observations in Silver league as this is where I play. Here you encounter for the most part unleveled monsters. (At least for now.) ;)

What do I see in this stats?
-First (-): It is a rather expensive card to play, costing you 8 mana. So you will not choose Diemonshark in low mana battles.
-Second (+): 7 health AND 6 armor stat. To me this means this card is made to be your first tank as it can certainly score more than one hit.
-Third (+): 4 initiative. Water Splinter is quick, but 4 is already good. A lot of tanks just "tank", but are never able to retaliate. Diemonshark will get its chance to fight, for sure. Kelya will give him even more boost.
-Fourth (-): 2 melee attack. Actually this is not enough to me for a monster costing you 8 mana.
-Fifth (mixed): Trample ability. It is nice to have, but in most of my battles this ability is not triggered often enough. So I usually do not take it into consideration.

And overall? -As you hopefully see with my new approach to a unit's evaluation, this one has a lot of pros but also some cons with a con being the first one that caught my attention. Therefore this is again a "mixed" unit to me. Obviously not a no-brainer but it has some reason for being included into your deck.

Perhaps one of my battles could change our minds:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_accb7da1f93b7de30e4d50675e483b41&ref=jdike

Some hard facts: Modern format, 50 points mana cap, Holy Protection rule set.

hmmm... some sentences above I mentioned that I see Diemonshark as a natural tank vs melee and ranged. What did I encounter? -Yes, my opponent chose a magic damage deck...

So you could guess the Diemonshark played a minor role, as he left the field without really countering melee nor ranged damage.

Actually you are right. ;) Still I chose this battle to point out a strength that might not catch you at the very first: I think Diemonshark and Flying Squid form a really, really good wall against any kind of damage hitting your front line. As you just see: As soon as Diemonshark was gone the Flying Squid took his place!

The rest of the fight is not of such importance regarding the Diemonshark, I think. Still feel free to watch: I finally won, after Flying Squid and Oshannus scored several hits.

So any learnings you might have taken from this battle of mine is that one of Diemonshark's additional strengths is not obvious at first glance. It can form very good combinations with other Chaos Legion water splinter cards like Kelya, Flying Squid and even more!
-Diemonshark and I we have not come to fall in love with each other. But at least from my side, this card earned my respect. ;)

As always (no financial advice) if you are not yet into Splinterlands and feel free to use my sign-up link https://splinterlands.com?ref=jdike