Goblin Shaman, the Debuff Master - Share your Battle Weekly Challenge
Debuffing the enemy team is a great strategy to win more matches. Learn how the Goblin Shaman can help you to beat your opponents and grind your way through the ranks!
This post is an entry to the SHARE YOUR BATTLE Weekly Challenge - Goblin Shaman.
Goblin Shaman
LORE
Goblins are everywhere in the Burning Lands, but they are all larger and stronger than the Goblins of Anumün. The Goblin Shaman of the Smoldering Forest are especially skilled in slowing and weakening their enemies with enchantments. Many of them can hypnotize with a simple gaze from their blood-red eyes.
CARD DETAILS (Level 1)
Mana Cost: 3
Splinter: Fire
Edition: Alpha/Beta
Rarity: Common
Melee Attack: 0
Speed: 2
Armor: 0
Health: 4
Ability: Weaken (Reduces the Health of all enemy Monsters.)
The Strategy
The Goblin Shaman is a very strong utility card that's available for all players when they buy the 10$ Spellbook in order to actually start playing Splinterlands. So everyone can play him already from the start!
The main strenght of the Goblin Shaman is his Weaken ability: he's able to reduce the Health of all enemy monsters by -1. If the enemy monster has only 1 Health, he's not affected by this ability (or the monster would be dead from the start!).
Because of this rule, we can already see how to smartly use the Shaman:
Against 1 Health enemies, his Weaken ability is useless;
Against 2+ Health enemies, his Weaken ability is actually useful.
For each Monster that your opponent play, the Goblin Shaman will reduce -1 Health. If there's 2 Monsters in play, the ability will reduce a total of 2 Health; if there's 5 in play, it'll reduce a total of 5 Health.
If you think that the enemy will play lots of 1-Health Monsters (like, for example, the Magic monsters from the Water Splinter), the Goblin Shaman won't be a good choice to be played. This is relatively common on very low mana matches, for example.
Another situation in which the Goblin Shaman won't be good is if your enemy will play just a few Monsters. The most famous situation is the Kron the Undying strategy, in which the player just plays 1 Monster (Kron himself).
The more enemy monsters, the better.
Another strenght of the Goblin Shaman is his reasonable Healthpool of 4. This makes him a good secondary tank to be played on the 2nd place of your team, especially in low-mana matches in which you lack Mana and have to play smart in order to win.
In a brief manner, I see that there are two ideal situations to play the Goblin Shaman, in order to use his strenghts:
Low-Mana Matches, in the 2nd place of your team. In this case, you'll be able to use his Healthpool and use him as a secondary tank, protecting the rest of your backline. Not only that, but his Weaken ability will reduce the Health of the enemy Monsters, making it easier for your own Monsters to rake in the kills.
High Mana Matches, when you know the opponent will surely play 6 Monsters, so the Weaken effect will be maximized. In this case, I suggest playing the Shaman in last place (6th), so he can also be a Tank against Sneak attacks.
The Battle
This match was very crazy and fun because of its rules!
It was a 99-Mana Battle with 2 special Rulesets: Stampede (not very meaningful in the lower ranks as very few Monsters have the Trample ability) and Equalizer (all Monsters start with the Health of the Monsters with highest Health!)
The 99-Mana means that both players would play the maximum amount of Monsters. This is good for the Goblin Shaman, as you're 100% sure that the enemy will play 6 Monsters and, thus, that his Weaken ability will have the maximum impact possible, reducing a total of 6 Health.
I tried to follow the common basic rules of teambuilding:
The frontline tank is Living Lava, the classic Fire tank with high Health, high Armor, and the Shield ability.
The second Monster is Fineas Rage, a card that I love for being both strong and cheap to buy. Due his Reach ability, he can attack while on the 2nd place. He's a GREAT monster to be played, and is very affordable to purchase if you don't own it.
The third Monster is Lava Launcher, another Fire card that I love. It has a very high Mana cost, but it doesn't matter in this match due the 99-Mana! This monster is a Ranged Tank, with strong Attack, Armor and Health.
The Sand Worm comes next on the 4th place. This Monster is a classic on high-mana matches because of its 5 Melee Damage and the Sneak ability, allowing him to plow through the enemy backline.
Then, in the 5th place, comes the Goblin Shaman, working as a last-stand defence before my only Ranged Monster in the game (Pyromancer).
Lastly comes the Pyromancer, a very strong Ranged Monster due its 2 Ranged Damage and the Blast ability, allowing him to hit 2 Monsters at the same time.
In retrospect, I should have played the Goblin Shaman in the 4th place, before the Sand Worm, in order to protect both the Worm and the Pyromancer. The main strenght of the Sand Worm is being able to attack the enemy backline; so letting him be on my own backline a few extra turns would be very valuable.
And, again, in retrospect, I should have played the Fire Elemental and not the Pyromancer: the Pyromancer has more Health than the Fire Elemental, but the Fire Elemental has +2 Speed. In this game, due the Equalizer Ruleset, the extra Health doesn't matter as all Monsters have the same Health. So playing the Fire Elemental is always the best choice in this scenario.
The match was very balanced, with both teams being able to kill several monsters from each other.
The victory was mainly because of the Goblin Shaman and the Sand Worm. The Goblin Shaman made all the enemy Monsters a bit easier to kill, allowing me to be more efficient than my opponent. In the other hand, the Sand Worm was able to freely attack the enemy backline, killing the Living Lava before he even got a chance to attack.
If I had made those 2 changes I said before (playing the Goblin Shaman in the 4th place and playing the Fire Elemental in the place of the Pyromancer), I think that I would have won the game 1 turn earlier. But, as you can see, it's possible to win matches by following smart strategies even if you do small mistakes like I did.
Conclusion
The Goblin Shaman is a very powerful card because it has a very low Mana cost and gives to you a Monster with reasonable Health (4) and the incredibly Weaken ability, debuffing all the enemy's Monsters.
Because of these 2 roles in your team, the card is very flexible, helping you win the game in very different rulesets and mana-limits.
If you're a more experienced player using leveled up cards, the Monster just gets better: at Level 3, the Goblin Shaman receives 1 Magic Attack, and at Level 5 he receives ANOTHER debuff, the Slow ability, reducing the Speed of all enemy Monsters.
The Goblin Shaman is, indeed, the Debuff Master!
Thanks for reading this Battle Report, and until next time!
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