Arena Architect -- Deep Delver

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ducecrypto14 hours agoPeakD5 min read

Welcome back Splinterfam for a #CommunnityEngagement Challenge centered around being an Arena Architect -- a summoner who builds the perfect team on the way to glory. It has been a few weeks since I last participated in a #Splinterlands challenge, so I figured why not give the community two winning battle scenarios for the price of one?!

Both of them feature one of my favorite females in Rebellion, the Deep Delver!

Deep Delver is one of only three units so far with the Corrupted Healing ability. It is one of the more complicated abilities, but the gist is that it will heal ALL other allied units up to 70% health (rounded down) and reduce one max health point.

Of the three units with Corrupted Healing, Deep Delver is arguably the weakest, since it is a range unit, and the other two --

and

-- are magic units.

What Deep Delver loses in attack potency as a range unit, it makes up for with synergistic support abilities like rust and deflection shroud. In range-only or no-magic battles, you'll be happy to have that -2 shield bonus to help. At max Level 8, the deflection shroud allows for tons of strategic flexibility to navigate abilities like blast on your tank or thorns on your Venka!

Deep Delver's slow 2 speed is frustrating, especially for 7 mana. The other Corrupted Healer in death, the epic Arachne Weaver, also has 2 speed, but it is cheaper and more durable with scavenger for only 5 mana. Finally, the fire legendary Inept Healer is only 3 mana for a 5 speed, 2 damage package.

Deep Delver makes herself especially valuable in a few battle situations that are more common than you think. In Rise of the Common battles, Delver is the only one of the trio available for selection. The same is also true of Might Makes Right, the battle that requires an attack power of 3+. Well, look at that 4 range attack coming in handy after all.

I've got an example of each rule set to show Deep Delver going about her business. Think about Slade + Delver teams with Cryptic in Rise of the Commons or Might Makes Right battles. I'm here to be your Arena Architech, and Deep Delver is our muse.

vs. @taug

In the Might Makes Right battle, I leveraged the Deflection Shroud of Deep Delver to protect Venka and Daarg, who are both high-value units in equalizer rulesets. Venka deals huge chunks of melee damage and Daarg heals up a bunch of health with triage while also speeding up the squad!

Slade is the best thing I can do in the 3-or-more-power ruleset, and I got lucky that my opponent mostly avoided magic attack. I didn't sneak Skinwalker into my lineup to silence their attack, so thankfully I wasn't punished, because Slade didn't have phase like it normally does with Jicarella or Arcanist. Slade's ability to survive is mostly thanks to my opponent and my muse for the article, the Deep Delver.

Over the course of the battle, she healed over 30 health just for Slade, thanks to the 13 health maximum from the opponent putting Silverleaf Mage in the back of their lineup. Each corrupted heal gave a minimum of 7 health and took one away from the max 13 HP.

What an insane deal, and it worked for every other unit in my lineup. The Daarg triage helped out to heal the Delver if needed, and this lineup crushed the competition! Even without a traditional tank heal, Slade survived the entire battle.

vs. @teut

In the Rise of the Commons battle, I once again turned to the deadly combination of Commander Slade and Cryptic to lead my team into battle. My first concern was to plan against the likelihood that my opponent would choose Kelan Gaines, since it is one of the best rares in Modern.

Rune Arcanist is a necessary sacrifice in the path of Gaines to give the phase ability to Slade. But I lessened each of the snipe attacks with lookout from Soothsayer in the 3rd position. Then, in the back of the lineup are two of the best rares in Modern, Skinwalker and Gaines, flanked around Deep Delver to protect them from blast and magic reflect damage!

Delver didn't get much opportunity to work her magic, since the speed of this Cryptic team got all over my opponent's forces. Lookout did a lot of heavy lifting, so my entire lineup survived the battle thanks to Delver, because the Arcanist absorbed Gaines's attack every round with the help of corrupted healing. This sturdy setup looks like it could go the distance against most any threat and is worthy of the Arena Architect's magic touch!

Two Deep Delver lineups and two runaway wins in support of Slade and Cryptic. Delver can be an alternative to Soothsayer when 3+ power is needed, or it can be a clutch option in noxious fumes when only commons and rares are available. She is most definitely one of my favorite rares in Rebellion and the key building block in this week's Arena Architect.

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@ducecrypto & @treycrypto & @shaelien
Proud members of Splinterlands' top-rated guild,
the original guild in the KoG alliance, @shield-of-glory!