Water Splinter Starter Cards & Combos - Splinterlands New Player Guide #07

In the lower leagues, the Water Splinter is mainly known for its magic monsters. You'll learn, in this guide, how to use the available Starter Cards (those ones that are available after buying the 10$ Summoner's Spellbook) to build a strong deck, enough to climb up to the Silver League.

The Summoner

Alric Stormbringer is the most popular Water Summoner for a good reason: the +1 Magic Attack for all creatures is EXTREMELY powerful, considering that Water Splinter is full of mana-cheap, 1-damage magic monsters.

As you'll be naturally using several of those magic monsters per match, Alric will double the firepower of each one of them, from 1 to 2 Magic Attack. Suddenly, these weak magic monsters become powerhouses able to kill enemies really fast.

You'll be using Alric in 99% of your games. The other Water Summoner available is Bortus, and his special ability is giving all the enemy creatures -1 Magic Attack. I honestly see just one special case where it's a good idea to use him: when your opponent is playing several games as Alric Stormbringer; in this case, you can pull a sneaky on him, playing Bortus together with non-magic creatures of your own (as you won't have the +1 Magic Attack to your own monsters).

The Frontline Tanks

The Frozen Soldier is the most capable tank you'll have within the Water Splinter Starter Cards. If he only had his 5-Armor and 3-Health, he would already be a reasonable tank. But he also has the "Shield" Ability, reducing the damage he receives from Melee and Ranged attacks.

The Shield ability halves the incoming damage, rounded up. Also, an incoming damage of 1 just gets ignored, making this ability very strong in the lower leagues as the majority of the monsters deals just 1 damage per turn.

Magic attacks bypass the Frozen Soldier's Armor, and then he becomes fragile with his 3 health points. If you feel that the enemy player is going to play lots of Magic monsters, you better find another tank! Against Magic, your best alternative would be playing the Snipeback Turtle, a 4-mana monster with 6 health.

Another valid replacement would also be the neutral-card Peaceful Giant: he doesn't have any attack capability, but have a huge healthpool of 8.

Unfortunately, your Water Starter Cards doesn't offer you a strong Water frontliner against magic creatures, and this will be an unavoidable weakness. The Earth Splinter, for example, has the Unicorn Mustang with 10-Health and the "Void" ability, reducing all the incoming Magic attacks.

Suggestion: the Sea Monster is an 8-mana, 8-health frontliner with the "Heal" ability, making it a strong tank against magic creatures due his large healthpool and health regeneration. He's not part of the Starter Cards, but he's extremely affordable and is being sold for less than 4$ in the time of writing. If you're looking to keep yourself on a very tight budget, Sea Monster would still be one of the cards that I would recommend to be bought. If you're willing to spend a bit more, Torhilo the Frozen is a great tank for you to use against magic damage: the card has the "Void" ability, a large healthpool, and high Melee attack. I have a very high win-rate on high-mana matches with him, as he's extremely powerful on his own.

The Magic Damage

I like to call these 4 monsters as the Magic Gang: Elven Mystic, Enchanted Pixie, Ice Pixie and Medusa.

They're all very cheap in terms of mana cost, allowing you to play all 4 of them in almost every match but ones with small available mana pool.

If you can't fit all the Magic Gang on your team due mana restrictions, try to fit most of them until you reach the maximum mana. For example, if you have only 5 mana available, play Enchanted Pixie + Ice Pixie. If you have 6, Ice Pixie + Elven Mystic (or Medusa, they have literally the same stats), and so on.

Without Alric Stormbringer bonus, the Magic Gang isn't strong: they only have 1 Magic Attack each, not enough to kill the enemies in a reasonable amount of time. But they synergyze incredibly well with Alric Stormbringer +1 Magic Attack bonus. Think about it: when you play Alric as your Summoner, the Ice Pixie becomes a 2-Mana, 2-Magic Attack, 3-Speed monster with the Flying ability. It can't get better than that!

The main weakness of the Magic Gang is that they have low Health and no Shield, making them fragile against enemies that are able to attack your backline: they are a prime target for enemies with Snipe (Targets monsters with Ranged, Magic or No Attack), Sneak (Targets the last monster, and not the first) and Opportunity (Targets the monster with the lowest health).

Suggestion: there are two affordable Magic monsters that you can purchase for cheap prices on the market that have higher health, allowing them to survive against Snipe/Sneak/Opportunity attacks: Captain's Ghost (3 USD) and Sea Genie (1 USD). They're budget cards that I would strongly recommend if you like playing with the Water Splinter.

Utility

The Crustacean King is a very nice card to play, specially on high mana matches. This card only job is to use his "Tank Heal" ability, healing your first monster each turn for 1/3 of his total health, allowing your tank to live a few extra turns and protect the rest of the team. As he has no other role on the team, I would play it on the 2nd place, directly behind the Tank, so he can soak some damage from an eventual enemy with "Blast" (Does additional damage to Monsters adjacent to the target Monster).

The Crustacean King is even stronger on matches in which you use the Spineback Turtle as your tank: the Frozen Soldier doesn't synergyze well with "Tank Heal" as he only has 3 health and, thus, receives only 1 health/turn. The Turtle, with his 6 health, receives 2 health/turn.

Finally, the Albatross is a card that you will fit into the middle of your team when you have 1 mana left after choosing your cards. He'll be able to absorb one attack from the enemy, giving a bit of an extra protection for your other monsters; if you get lucky, the Albatross will even dodge some attacks due his "Flying" ability (extra 25% dodge chance against non-Flying monsters), disrupting the opponent strategy.

Backline Defense

The Water Elemental is your dirty trick against both Sneak and Snipe enemies.

Snipe is the ability that allows the enemy to attack your Magic monsters in the backline. If you put the Water Elemental before your Magic monsters, in the 2nd or 3th place, he'll receive the Snipe attacks. As he can heal himself every turn, it's extremely difficult to kill him just with those Snipe attacks: more often than not, he's able to outheal the incoming damage, making him "immortal" against those pesky snipers!

Conversely, Sneak is the ability that allows the enemy to attack your last monster (and not the first one as usual). If you put the Water Elemental as your last monster, he'll usually be able to outheal the incoming damage from the Sneaky-Sneaky enemies, protecting the rest of your team.

But you'll have to make a decision: if you put the Water Elemental before your Magic Monsters, he'll protect your team against Snipe but not against Sneak; if you put him in the last place, he'll protect against Sneak but not against Snipe.

The Fire Splinter, for example, doesn't have any Starter Card with Snipe, but it has the extremely-popular Kobold Miner with Sneak; in this case, I would suggest you playing the Water Elemental in the last place. Similarly, the Life Splinter has the Feral Spirit, another strong monster with Sneak. On the other hand, the Death Splinter has the Twisted Jester card, a strong Ranged monster with Snipe, and the Water Elemental should be placed before your Magic monsters so he can absorb the Jester attacks.

Conclusion

The Water Splinter is one of the strongest ones when you only consider the Starter Cards due its focus on Magic: bypassing Armor is very powerful and makes games easier to win.

After this guide, you already have a basic understanding of the main synergies of this splinter, using the summoner Alric Stormbringer to strengthen your magic monsters. You also know how to protect your team by positioning the monsters correctly.

With this strategy and knowledge, you'll surely be able to climb ranks in no time!

Thanks for reading this article, and until next time!

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