Yodin Zaku is one of the most seemingly overpowered legendary summoners in Splinterlands. It can pretty much guarantee a win in certain rulesets especially in the lower leagues. Here’s how you can counter lineups built around Yodin Zaku.

Yodin Zaku

First things first, let’s get to know Yodin Zaku a little more and find out what exactly makes this summoner special. According to lore, Yodin Zaku was a War Demon who was imprisoned for a long time before eventually breaking free and now continues to wreak havoc in the world of Splinterlands. Despite having admittedly a pretty cool backstory, it’s this card’s abilities that make it such a popular pick.

When used, Yodin Zaku gives +1 Ranged Attack, +1 Health, and gives all friendly monsters the Blast ability, which does additional damage to monsters adjacent to the target monster. Needless to say, most players who abuse Yodin fill their team with ranged monsters or high damage melee monsters with the Sneak or Opportunity ability plus a durable tank in the frontline that can take a bunch of hits without folding. Yodin’s monsters are free to attack while the opponent’s monsters are helpless as they get easily taken out thanks to Blast. 

Yodin Zaku is definitely one of the more powerful summoners in the game. It can feel overwhelming to try and think of a strategy to beat this former war demon. We can’t blame you if you’d rather just hit the surrender button over trying to pick a lineup to counter someone who’s been using Yodin for their past few games. It may seem difficult but rest assured that there’s a way to absolutely demolish this legendary summoner. How you may ask? Well, we’ll be using a well thought out strategy that aims to use Yodin Zaku’s strengths against him.  

Lir Deepswimmer

This is the best counter to Yodin Zaku. It’s almost as if this card was created specifically as a counter to it. Now, Lir Deepswimmer’s lore is all about an ordinary summoner who finds a way to harness an incredible power to do his bidding. A fitting narrative considering Lir is a very underused card and players who stumble upon it may be surprised at how strong it really is.

Lir Deepswimmer gives +2 armor, grants friendly monsters the Return Fire ability, and debuffs enemy monsters with the Blinded effect. The +2 armor right off the bat can help counter Yodin’s effects because armor blocks melee damage, ranged damage, and the effects from Blast. But it’s the two bonus abilities that make Lir a direct counter to Yodin. Let’s take a closer look at both of them.

Return Fire

Return Fire does what it sounds like it does. It returns all forms of ranged damage to the attacker but the damage is reduced. Since lineups built around Yodin are usually ranged fire monsters, this is a huge help. 

Blind

Blind is basically what it is. Melee and ranged attacks are more likely to miss their target. Like we’ve mentioned before, Yodin lineups rely on melee monsters with sneak and opportunity as well as ranged monsters. They attack your backline and spread out the damage to the rest of your team. This helps tone it down and you’re more likely to survive their assault so that you can retaliate.

So if you put all these together with a decent lineup from the water splinter, you’ll be beating Yodin Zaku in no time. Don’t believe us? Well, let’s take a look at Lir Deepswimmer in action.

Lir Deepswimmer Usage

This is a high mana cap battle in the Silver League. As expected, the lineup around Yodin Zaku is composed mostly of ranged monsters and one decent front tank. This allows them to fully take advantage of Yodin’s buffs. But they were probably not expecting how good our lineup is. We have Torhilo the Frozen as our main tank and Kelp Initiate as our second tank. Since most ranged monsters will attack the first position monster, having another beefy tank at the second position to absorb some of the blows from Blast is important. We also placed a tank in the backline since we were expecting a monster with the sneak ability. The ruleset also permits melee monsters to attack from any position so having a melee tank at the back works well in this scenario.

Round 1

Lir Deepswimmer already gives us +2 armor but since we have Venari Wavesmith, our armor gets another +2. Torhilo the Frozen already has a whopping 4 armor in its base stats so it gets another 4 armor thanks to all the buffs in our lineup. This helps it effectively absorb a brunt of the damage from the enemies.

Round 2

At the start of the second round, we can already see that the enemy team has lost a monster and most of their backline has already been damaged. Torhilo is barely hanging on and Kelp Initiate is also a hit away from being removed. Luckily, our lineup is filled to the brim with high health monsters who can also serve as a tank. 

Round 3

At the start of round 3, we can already say that we’ve won this battle. You’ll really see the benefits of having Return Fire as an ability for your monsters. The enemy team went from still having 5 monsters at the start of the 2nd round to having only one monster left by the 3rd round. On the other hand, we still have 4 monsters left and all of them are at full health. Needless to say, the match ended after this round. 

Lorna Shine

Lir Deepswimmer can be a very expensive summoner to purchase or rent. After all, it is a Legendary card. If you can’t afford it, there is a cheaper alternative you can explore. This time, we’ll be using Lorna Shine, a summoner from the life splinter. According to her lore, she is a mighty Khymerian summoner favored by angels and a magnificent warrior. 

Lorna Shine won’t give you much in terms of stats but her ability, Divine Shield, is very powerful against Yodin Zaku. Divine Ability essentially makes you immune to damage the first time you receive it. That should buy you enough time to wreak havoc on the enemy team. For this strategy to work, you’ll need to have specific monsters in your deck but don’t worry, most of them are either free or are very cheap to rent.

Lorna Shine Usage

The first monster you’ll need when using this strategy is Shieldbearer. It’s a life monster that has the Taunt ability which makes it the primary target of every monster on the enemy team. What we’re going to do is to draw the enemy’s fire using Shieldbearer and placing another high health offtank in the second position to absorb the adjacent damage from Blast. We’ll also need a monster with heal and some monsters who can use the sneak ability. We’ll take apart the enemy team from behind while holding our front and drawing their attacks. 

Offtank Monsters

There are plenty of decent offtank monsters you can use with the life splinter. The best option is a neutral monster called Gelatinous Cube. This monster has no attacks but it has high health and has the Scavenge ability, which increases its health whenever an enemy or friendly monster dies. The longer the match goes on, the higher health this monster gets. A free option would be to use Peaceful Giant which also has a high health pool but has no abilities at level 1. In low mana cap situations, you can use Pelacor Conjurer, Creeping Ooze, or Furious Chicken for the second position offtank.

Healing Monsters

Healing monsters are key in this strategy since it helps keep Shieldbearer alive and by extension, keeps the rest of your team alive. Divine Healer is a free monster that has the Tank Heal ability. If you can afford to spare some DEC for purchase or rent, you can go for Venari Crystalsmith which also has Tank Heal while having a ranged attack.

Sneak Monsters

The Sneak ability allows monsters to automatically attack the last monster on the enemy team. Melee monsters can usually only attack if they’re at the front, but thanks to this ability, they can be placed anywhere on your team and they’ll still be able to attack the enemy. Sneak monsters will be your key damage dealers in this strategy. Feral Spirit is a free starter card that has the sneak ability so you can easily include it in your lineup. If you’re looking for a monster that has more damage, we would suggest either Silvershield Assassin or Sand Worm. Both of these monsters have high damage output and are relatively cheap to rent or purchase. They do have a high mana cost though so maybe save them for certain situations.

Utility Monsters

Lastly, if you still have space on your team, you can opt to include a utility monster that can help counter Yodin. Armorsmith is a low mana cost monster that you should consider incorporating in your lineup. It has the Repair ability which means it will restore some armor to the monster who has received the most damage. It’s great for keeping your Shieldbearer alive. Truthspeaker is another utility monster you can consider since it comes with the starter deck. It has the Protect ability which grants all monsters on your team +2 armor. 

Useful Tips

1. Positioning is very important. Always have a durable offtank in the second position to help offset the damage from Blast.
2. Some monsters can be direct counters to lineups composed of mostly ranged lineups. A cheap monster you can go for is Naga Windmaster which has the Headwinds ability. Headwinds reduce the ranged attack of enemy monsters. 
3. Another monster you can consider is Giant Squid which has the Blind ability at level 4. Although it would only be usable from Silver and above.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are plenty of ways to counter Yodin Zaku. It’s all about using a bit of critical thinking to turn their biggest strength into their weakness. Dive deep into researching every monster and summoner’s abilities to see what they are actually capable of. You’ll be surprised at the amount of knowledge that just goes over the head of average players. In no time, you’ll be beating Yodin Zaku at his own game. 

Still can’t figure out how to create an account in Splinterlands? We got you covered! Check out our guide on how you can play this amazing NFT card game here.

Looking for more guides on specific splinters? Check out our life splinter guide here and our water splinter guide here.

So there you have it! That’s everything you need to know to counter Yodin Zaku in Splinterlands. Be sure to check back with us again for more awesome guides on your favorite games. Have fun!