Hello Battlemages!
This week we go with the staple tank for Death: Cursed Windeku!
Cursed Windeku is a Rare Death monster of the Chaos Legion set. He costs 6 mana to play, which is very good compared to his other stats: 9 Health, 3 Speed and 2 Melee damages, at level 1.
You will see every Death team with a Cursed Windeku as tank. He's such a no-brainer: low mana cost, high health, and some nasty Thorns (deals back 2 damages to melee attackers) at level 1.
He also gets self-Heal at level 5 and Slows enemy at max level. A no-brainer indeed, doesn't he look like a good nasty tank?
But not only! He has other uses as well. Let's see in practice!
The battle
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_21b93cffc32b4f27c6e605165a69a5cd&ref=engilhramn
The battle is played in Modern Silver. It is opened to Earth, Life, Death and Dragon and the mana cap is 48. The ruleset is Weak Magic (armor protects from Magic attacks) and Heavy Hitters (does double damage when the enemy is stunned).
The lineup
I could have gone with Earth with a lower mana cap. Weak magic is not such a big problem, but I do find that my Obsidian-magic team hits a power ceiling around 35 mana.
In the meantime, I expect the opponent to choose Life or Death, with quite a focus on Sneak or Range attacks. Looks like it's a battle for...
Summoner: Quix the Devious! Malus to range and speed, and high mana is good for Dragons, let's go!
Tank: Djinn Chwala, thorny as Windeku, even nastier!
2nd position: Carnage Titan (I just pulled him from a pack, yeah!) - high armor, high Health, Reach and Double Strike, that's a nasty off-tank!
Third position: Silent Sha-Vi, the official Death Sneaker, near the front to let him run a long time
Fourth position: Revealer, with the Stun, let's see if we can take advantage of the Knock-Out
Fifth position: Sand Worm, another Sneak, slower and more powerful, his low speed may be problematic sometimes so he's at the back: I prefer to lose him first instead of Sha-Vi
Last position: our Cursed Windeku - I think it's a better position here. In a mirror battle, the Cursed Windekus will neutralize each other quite quickly. At the back like this, he will take care of the Sneak units, just as nastily!
Our opponent went with Thaddius Brood, with a team as I expected: Sneak and Range.
He went with:
Cursed Windeku as tank
Harklaw as second, good one
Disintegrator, while I'm heavy on melee
Sha-Vi for the Sneak
Soul Strangler and Dhampir Stalker for the Range attack
Round 1
The Disintegrator is indeed troublesome: I only dealt 3 damages to the Windeku and I took 6 damages due to the thorns, the armors of the Djinn and Titan took a big hit.
On the other side, his Disintegrator and Harklaw don't attack anything yet, while I took down the Dhampir Stalker already.
Round 2
My Titan wasted his armor on the Windeku's Thorns, but hopefully my Revealer killed it before the Djinn attacked, it's still 2 points saved.
On the back, my Sha-Vi took down the Soul Strangler and the opponent's Sha-Vi was already agonizing by my thorny Windeku, my Sand Worm gave it the coup-de-grâce.
Round 3
Now it will be a matter of my sneakers taking down Disintegrator before I can truly damage the Harklaw. Should be a piece of cake though: it is sitting duck with nothing to attack my backline.
We just got the armor this round, and let's hurry as my Carnage Titan is harmless against Harcklaw's Shield!
Round 4
That's it! Disintegrator is down, Harklaw won't last long now!
Takeaway
While Windeku is a nasty tank, he is also nasty at the back! Actually, he could have taken down the Sha-Vi by himself, just passively. Same with a Tenyii Striker.
For sure you want him in your team, and you want him upgraded! He's one of the first monster I upgraded myself.
The rest of the team did perfectly their job: attacking the backside while maintaining the front.
One aspect of my opponent lineup that I didn't like is 2 monsters not attacking. I always feel you can get away with 1, but 2 passive monsters is too much. You fall behind damage output quite quickly if so.
See you on the Battlefield!
