Share Your Battle: Venator Kinjo

Prelude
Hello everybody, how is everyone doing? Today I am going to do a sharing on Venator Kinjo. A card that I owned but not sure how to use. In today's sharing, I will analyse this based on a match that my opponent use Venator Kinjo against me.

Thoughts on Venator Kinjo

Venator Kinjo, a mysterious fighter with hidden capabilities.

Without further a do, let's get started with this week's sharing.
Let's look at the Level 1 base stats for Venator Kinjo:

Mana	Attack	Health	Speed	Armour	Ability
2	1 (Melee)	1	2	NA	Reflection Shield, Camouflage

Bronze League - NA
Silver League - Health + 1, Immunity
Gold League - Health + 1, Slow
Beyond Gold - Amplify

What does Venator Kinjo looking on growth?

Honestly, I didn't had a good impression of this card when it came out and while I own a copy of it, it never appear in any of my lineup unless I run out of choices.

At level 1, it contains camouflage to prevent it to be killed from the backline if being placed at behind. It also had the reflection shield deemed to protect against blast, magic reflect, return fire and thorns.

As Kinjo grows, it gained a myraid of abilities from immunity (good for noxious fumes battle), slow and amplify. It also gained additional 2 health as it grow.

To date, I have not seen how this reflection shield can come in handy, hence this is what we want to see today in this battle sharing.

Alritey, let's see start the battle sharing.

The Battle
Link: https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_77eee6b8ad01a0ba6aab0d8bd7df472f&ref=vaynard86

Rules
Explosive Weaponry
Mana Limit: 36

Lineup

Splinter	Mana Cost	Position	Reason
Kelya Frendul	4	Summoner	Levelled Water Summoner to bring out Phase ability of Oshannus
Diemonshark	8	1st	Trusty Water Splinter tank
Djinn Oshannus	8	2nd	Front hitter/tank
Deeplurker	6	3rd	Opportunistic attacker
Torrent Fiend	0	4th	Padding to allow more sustaining for Axemaster
Axemaster	7	5th	Fast and hard hitting double striker
Pelacor Bandit	3	6th	Good backline defence with flying and sneak
Total Mana:	36

Opponent Lineup

• Summoner - Kelya Frendul
• Position 1 - Djinn Oshannus
• Position 2 - Tide Biter
• Position 3 - Deeplurker
• Position 4 - Venari Wavesmith
• Position 5 - Venator Kinjo
• Position 6 - Wave Brood

Prediction before pressing rumble
I was expecting a walk in the park with my trusty water splinter lineup. While opponent fielded a similar one but I saw Wave Brood and Venator Kinjo.

Let's get ready to rumble
Round 1, Full lineup in tact, but what I am amazed is that Kinjo survived 5 blast from my team where the main attack landed on Wave Brood.

Round 2, Another 4 blast from my lineup, Wave Brood finally fall, but Kinjo is still in 1 piece, with one the attack going to Wavesmith which Kinjo also endured.

Round 3, Many casualties this round, Torrent Fiend, Diemonshark and Axemaster from my side and Tide Biter from opponent side. And Kinjo still stands unharmed.

Round 4, Oshannus from opponent side fall and my Deeplurker fell too. Now it is my Oshannus and Bandit vs Deeplurker, Wavesmith and Kinjo.

Round 5, Opponent Deeplurker fell. Down to 2 vs 2.

Round 6/7, Oshannus coming on top taking out everything in the way and finally overcome Kinjo in round 7 to secure the win.

After Thoughts
This is so crazy, I couldn't believe Kinjo could have lasted all the way till the end. With my heavy artillery lineup with the likes of Oshannus, Deeplurker and Axemaster, how this match went was really out of my expectation.

This brings me to a possible strategy that works well with Kinjo.
While we know explosive weaponry ruleset sprays damage everywhere, a taunt with Kinjo effectively shut off the crazy spraying of damage.

To make this work, it will be a last 2 position combo for consideration with a taunt card at position 6 and Kinjo at position 5. Some common taunt cards are Mycelic Slipspawn and Wavebrood. This combo will allow damage other than first position blast to get channeled to the taunt card. I would like to recommend a further enhancement to this "Taunt Kinjo" combo by adding a Spirit Hoarder at position 4 to heal up the taunt monster. However, this enhancement will require heavy hitters at first 3 positions else sustaining till the end will up not doing enough damage.

Did my strategy work in this game? For my own, I know this is a very trusty lineup that frequently being used by me. But on strategy used my opponent, it really gave me a deep insight on how to use a combo on Kinjo with a taunt monster.

Will I be using Venator Kinjo in the future? After seeing this, this will be a possible consideration when there is explosive weaponry ruleset.

Previously I did question why Venator Kinjo was considered a legendary, but after witnessing this capability of Kinjo displayed during the matchup, my perspective changed. Kinjo indeed have so much potential that I gotta sweat with my levelled up Water Splinter Lineup.

In terms of buying it up, I think it is a worthy consideration especially with further skills coming as it levels up. However, I find it can be a little one dimension at times and there could be better cards to fill that spot. Hence, I would strongly urge everyone prior to making a purchase to consider renting and test out.

Wrap Up
I hope you guys enjoyed reading my sharing on Venator Kinjo. I would really appreciate it if you liked and/or commented to let me know what are you thoughts.

I am currently part of PIZZA, an active gaming and creative arts crypto community on the HIVE blockchain and part of PIZZA guild. Popular cryto games such as SPLINTERLANDS, RISING STAR and HASHKINGS are actively discussed in this community.

Many events are being organized from time to time. Join the PIZZA DISCORD. This is a place filled with 💰🍕🎁GIVEAWAYS & AIRDROPS💰🍕🎁 and most definitely consisting of a friendly community to be in.

Till my next battle sharing, take care, stay safe and happy battling!

If you are keen on playing Splinterlands, feel free to join me via this link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=vaynard86