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Today, I'm going to show how top champion players are using Dhampir Stalker, Chaos legion death monster.

Before looking at battles and strategies, let's review what his stats are.

It is a 7 mana death monster.

Lv1 (bronze): 3 archery, 2 speed, 5 health with true strike.
Lv4 (silver): 4 archery, 3 speed, 6 health
lv6 (gold): 4 archery, 3 speed, 7 health with deathblow
lv8 (max): 5 archery, 4 speed, 7 health

It is not a card that is getting so much attention. However, stats are decent and true strike comes in handy sometimes. I don't think high mana deathblow cards are so useful since the game is almost over in a high mana match if you have only 1 monster on the battle field.

Battles & Rulesets

Back to basics

Often times, monsters without popular skills are good in back to basics ruleset because they are more likely to have better stats.
I think it is true for Dhampir stalker.

https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_07be8924f0c4c42e981ee9212461bd54

Death has multiple summoners that are good for back to basics. Mimosa (void, -1 archery), Owster (magic reflect), Thaddius (-1 magic, -1 hp).

Probably death is my 3rd go to choice in back to basics ruleset after Yodin, Vulnamor in high mana back to basics matches. In death, Dhampir stalker is a great choice!

Spreading Fury

https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_614e1dca755ba7b0b4a453ffcc3f3111

Spreading Fury gives everyone enrage ability. Once they lose an HP from their max health, their speed becomes 1.5x. Of course that makes it hard to hit the opponent.

In this ruleset, you can dodge a lot if you have multiple speed buffs. This battle is also lost legendary and Kitty is not available. It's easier to get misses in both sides.

It makes sense that both of the players went for nightmare + speed buffs/debuffs and blind. The differences here are xdragon has 1 more slow and has 1 true strike monster.

This is where Dhampir stalker's true strike becomes very valuable. You can be assured that at least one of your monster will hit no matter what. Sometimes, that's enough to change the game.

I think true strike monsters are under utilized especially when kitty is not available or simply you don't have kitty to use.

Reverse speed

58 mana, reverse speed, holy protection
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_45a58c2b0a95738ea5e40fe670a3b2f2

Death has good slow monsters, so it is popular choice in this ruleset. However using Dhampir stalker might be a little unexpected to some of you. It was certainly for me because Dhampir stalker has 4 speed.

The reason why some players use Dhampir stalker in reverse speed ruleset is because it will never miss an attack and it has 5, a good damage output.

A monster like Cathulhu 1 speed + Flying and if you add blind, it can be very evasive in reverse speed ruleset. Even if your monster is 2 speed, Cathulhu has 50% chance to dodge the attack (15% blind, 25% flying, 10% from speed differentials)

Again, Dhampir stalker has guaranteed hits to the target, even if it attacks last, that is an advantage.

Unprotected

In this ruleset, everyone loses armor, so physical damage would become relatively stronger.

58 mana, Unprotected, Lost magic
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_babd04291d26fdd66409ebf1d75915fb

Kraken is a very popular choice in this kind of rulesets. One of the strong point is that it has enrage, so it has a good chance to dodge attacks. It has retaliate and demoralize, so melee attacks can get weaker and might get attack back.

I found that Dhampir stalker is a good counter to Kraken in this ruleset because archery damage doesn't get reduced and it has true strike, so it will not miss. Also 5 damage is almost 40% of kraken's hp.

In this ruleset, opportunity monsters get relatively stronger because if it attacks the weakest monster first, it can kill enemy's weakest monster before they can do anything. Death has an excellent opportunity card, Lira the dark.

In order to protect weakest monsters, taunt monsters are important. Taunt monsters without any armor are relatively stronger because if a taunt monsters lose any armor, part of the monster's strength is lost. In that sense, taunt monsters like Dark Ha'on, Magnor, Mycelic slipspawn are good.

Within death monsters, Dhampir stalker is not a bad choice because of the high damage output and true strike especially in modern format.

High mana Equalizer

60 mana, Equalizer, Heavy hitter
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_61a6882d66a9ae27e6196522de4e004f

In this ruleset, using kitty + evasive monsters with phase in front is popular. If you're not prepared for that, you might have a difficult time doing enough damage.

Dhampir Stalker becomes useful again with the true strike. In this match, even soul storm with 6 speed missed Almo cambio. Dhampir stalker never misses and dropping 5 archery damage every time. Without this card, it probably would have been much harder to kill Almo cambio.

Death has a lot of good monsters for equalizer like Ever-hungry skull, Soulstorm, Kain Hace, Vampire, Fallen Specter, Screaming Banshee etc..
Along with those monsters, Dhampir stalker is not a bad choice.

Speed meta

Chaos legion and Riftwatchers introduced multiple summoners with speed buffs/debuffs.

• Kelya
• Quix
• Jacek
• Ilthain
• Lux Vega
• Aquatus and Skargore are also related to speed meta

With these new summoners, speed is more important than ever. Attack order and percentage of dodges are very important part of the game. With that in mind, monsters with true strike might become more valuable, especially after Kitty goes out of modern format.


On a different note, I just thought that introducing this many summoners with speed buff/debuff might be an indirect attempt to counter Kitty (or make Kitty less dominant) by the Splinterlands team.

Summary

Dhampir Stalker is not a popular monster but it has decent damage output with guaranteed hit. This card might be more valuable than most people think.
This card can be a good choice in these rulesets.

• Back to Basics
• Spreading Fury
• Reverse Speed
• Unprotected
• Lost legendary
• Rise of Commons
  
  

There are more attractive looking cards with better skills but don't forget about this card especially in these ruleset listed above!

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Thank you for reading!!