Playing with Yodin Zaku : How to make a Range combo

Hola Splinterland Players!!

I hope you all are doing good and enjoying Splinterlands!

The wind blows fast in the world of Splinterlands and the old dogs know it's a signal before the venom rain starts. From the mountains of Gloridax to the burning lands, Every splinter warrior seeks the iron throne by acquiring the top place in the leader board. But not everyone is capable of bearing the toxic rain and the uncountable fire arrows after reaching the champion tier.

Most of the veterans still sing the tales of Prince Rennyn and tells his victory stories. But no one there talks about the Yodin Zaku, the present ruler of Splinterlands, as it is strictly forbidden to speak his name out publicly. Since his awaking by breaking the ancient mystic artifact, The demon of war has forcefully overtaken the Reign from Prince Rennyn and forced him to hide deep in the Grasslands of Primordia.

Since the Yodin Zaku got released, he has captured the throne of most powerful Summoner in the whole splinterlands. The crown used to be booked for Prince Rennyn who is the well known 5 mana legendary summoner from the Earth realm. For his multiple buffs, the prince was untouchable in mid and large mana games. At 5 mana cost, he provides +1 range attack to all friendly monsters and gives them +1 speed and +1 health each.

We generally used to see the top 50 players often using prince to defeat the opponent. Prince is still an ideal summoner for range matches and you can use it in even in 18-21 mana games if a right strategy is being applied. For high mana matches, Prince was the blind choice against any possible deck. But the long reign of the beloved prince had to end when the demon of war got uncaged from the ancient magical artifact.

Who is the Zaku, I mean really!!

Yodin Zaku is a legendary untamed summoner from the Fire empire. At 7 mana cost, he provides 3 buffs which make your decks surprisingly powerful. Those 3 abilities are +1 range, +1 health and Blast ability to every friendly monster.

Now, the first 2 abilities could be managed by other legendary summoners. Every legendary summoner (except Selenia) provides 3 buffs which generally includes health or melee/ranged/magic buffs or debuffs. Take our prince for example. He provides +1 health, +1 speed and +1 range attack. For Valnamore, its +1 health, +1 speed and +1 magic attack. But when Zaku came, the whole gameplay theory got changed. The change occurred due to its blast ability.

Just think, when your every monster in the line up gets blast ability, regardless of their attack type, speed, health or anything. What possibly you can do with it? You can choose multiple snipers to demolish its' backside. You can use opportunity ability to kill the weak ones and also beat down its buddies on the adjacent sides or you can straight go away with a mixed deck and kill the opponent easily. Really not fair Zaku :)

But not only this demon is the most powerful one, but it is also the most Expensive summoner currently on the market.

The above screenshot is from the current market listing where Zaku is, as usual, enjoying the costliest place at 18.50$ per bcx. The second place is occupied by Chanseus and his price is 9$ per bcx so I think you have already felt the giant gap between them. The first one is listed at 18.50$, the next ones go for 20$, 21.5$ and 22.99$ and so on. If you are planning to buy a max level Zaku from the market ( total 11 bcx ) you would have to pay 608,708.944 DEC for that. ;) The recent downfall in the market may have sold some max Zakus over 400-500K DEC but I don't think that won't happen again.

Today, I am going to try the brand new max Zaku in the battlefield. Thank you @netaterra for this awesome card, you really surprised me! I already have a max beta deck in Fire region and also some untamed neutral cards to assist. Let me show you the fore cards before jumping in the battleground.

I also have a good number of max neutral cards, specially Mantoid, Centaur as sniper duo and Tower Griffin to protect me with a layer of armour and also others. So without further ado, let me fight those top bosses of the battlefield.

Match line up

Ruleset Of Battle

Battle link Click here
Opponent @bestpartnerever
Ruleset So, It was an Aim True (all melee and ranged monsters will always hit their target) + Lost Legendaries (Only non legendary monsters can be used in the battle). It's 99 mana match and I will test this one with my Zaku!
Mana count This match holds a massive 99 mana cap!
Summoners This battle supports Fire, Water, Earth and Life summoners.

At this much huge mana cap, I don't even have to count my mana as I can use any monster regardless of its mana cost. As I was discussing with @burlarj over the neoxian discord channel, I will use the Sniper Trio (fire beetle + centaur + Mantoid) in this match.

Line-Up

`SERPENT OF THE FLAME`

I chose Serp. as the frontal defence in this match. I could go for some big mana monsters. But I wanted to try Serp for his high speed and retaliate ability. At max level, It gives me 3 melee power with 6 speed, 2 armour and 10 health with 3 abilities as below.

Retaliate - When hit by a melee monster, has a chance to hit it back.
Poison - Attacks have a chance to apply poison, which will decrease a portion of health with the start of every round.
Piercing - if applied damage on enemy exceeds its armour, the remaining damage will affect its health.

`PRISMATIC ENERGY`

I chose prismatic energy at the second place for its high health with void and reflector ability. At high mana matches, opponents tend to go with big magic monsters so Prismatic Energy will protect the frontal defence with great effort having Lord with his side.

Void - Take reduced damages from magic attacks.

Reflector - When hit by magic, reflects a portion as damage back to the attacker.

`CYCLOPS`

I chose a wild card in the third position, The one-eyed Cyclops. Cyclops is not everyone's choice, nor it was a Slow match but I still chose him for his Stunt ability at 3 range power (3+1 for Zaku). At max level, it provides 3 range power at 2 speed and 9 health. Cyclops holds the below abilities...

Shield - take reduced damage from melee and ranged attacks.
Stun - when hit enemy monsters, has a chance to apply Stun on it and make it skip for 1 round.

`FIRE BEETLE`

I chose Fire Beetle in the fourth position. It is the first sniper card of my trio combo. At max level, it carries 3 ranged attack at 3 speed, 2 armour and 6 health. It also gets the Sniper abilities as stated below.

Sniper - With this ability, it attacks the ranged, magic or no attack monster that is not in the first position.

`CENTAUR`

Centaur is an old dog in the battle of snipers. At max level, it provides 3 ranged attack with sniper ability at 6 speed with 6 health. Pretty fast and can take down one of your enemies in one blow.

Sniper - With this ability, it attacks the ranged, magic or no attack monster that is not in the first position.

`MANTOID`

Meat the Aliens.. oops I mean the Mantoid. ;) And please don't go for its small size as it has 4 range attack at 5 speed and 7 health. It also carries 2 abilities as stated below -

Snare - When attacking a flying enemy, disables its flying ability and can not miss.
Sniper - With this ability, it attacks the ranged, magic or no attack monster that is not in the first position.

Result

First, let us follow the opponent's line-up...

My opponent @bestpartnerever used Earth summoner Lynna Natura against me.
At the front position, he used Gilatinous Cube Max lev.
At the second position, he used Necter Queen Max level.
At the third position, he puts Goblin Mech lev 4.
At the fourth position, he chose Prismatic Energy Max level.
At the fifth position, he chose Wood Nymph level 8.
At the last position, he chose Javeline Thrower Max level.

Gameplay

You can directly view the battle. Just click the hyperlink below.

Battle Link

Well, first of all, I would say that my opponent's front defence was very strong. He used multiple max monsters in here I was amazed seeing that he used a max Gilatinous cube followed by 2 mega melee monsters! If I hadn't used Zaku I am sure I was gonna lose this match :)

Anyways, My Snipers worked beyond my expectation here. They started attacking the Prismatic Energy and also beat down the Wood Nymph which was adjacent to my target monster. The Javeline also go hit at the last the first round. After the 2nd round, only the Goblin Mech was alive and he also got dead at the beginning of the third round.

This match could have ended within the first round I have used Magnor but The Serpent did a great job here. While the Serp Prismatic Energy and cyclops were busy breaking the frontal defence, the snipers killed all the backline magic and range monsters as you can see in the battle.

I really enjoyed the match and also I am using Zaku rapidly in ranked matches and also in the tournament. It already helped me get some recent prizes from tournaments and I am hopeful I will do even better in future. Just give the novice enough time to learn aay!

I hope you have enjoyed reading my post. Please let me know your feelings by leaving a comment below.

Last but not least, I really wanna say thanks to @aggroed @yabapmatt and the entire @splinterlands team for their continuous and tireless effort on this game. You guys really rock!!

Haven't joined this awesome game yet?? now is the time dude! Follow the link below and get yourself in the amazing world of Splinterlands. Click here to join!

All the images in this post are screenshots taken from the site below:

https://steemmonsters.com

Cover picture is made with - http://canva.com

#posh - You can check my twitter handle at the comment section of this post.

Monster Market

Want some sweet cashback while buying packs and cards? Visit Monster market now! It an alternate to the Splinterlands market which gives instant cashback on the cards and packs purchases. It is owned by @zaku and @reazuliqbal. Also, feel free to contact them in Discord for any query.

Buy Packs from MM = 1800 DEC
Buy Orbs from MM = 2500 DEC