Hello fellow Splinterlanders!
Today I decided to throw a quick glance at the Life splinter in the upcoming Chaos Legion expansion and think about which cards might be a good investment going forward.
With General Sloan coming up as the new base summoner, the Life splinter will likely become range focused which opens up quite a few synergies with existing cards, which I will talk about in another post. Today I want to take a quick look at the new Chaos Legion cards that profit from Sloan's bonus:
1. Portal Spinner
Portal Spinner is a 5 Mana, Life, rare card that starts with 2 ranged damage, 2 speed, 1 armor and 4 health and comes with the new Scattershot ability. At level 5 it gets the ability to ground flying opponents and on max level its stats are 4/3/2/6. On base level the card will be able to deal 3 damage, which doesn't sound too bad, however you have to factor in that the Scattershot ability makes it pretty luck based where that damage will be applied. While this sounds like a high risk to take, it might very well be worth it because your opponent can't account for this ability very well. There is a chance you may snipe their well protected healer or buff provider and ruin their match, but you might also hit their tank and waste your turn. I really like the concept of this card and the inherent randomness will keep things fresh.
2. Pelacor Arbelest
Pelacor Arbelest is a 6 Mana, Life, rare card that starts with 2 ranged damage, 2 speed, no armor and 2 health and comes with the Double Strike ability. At level five it earns the Flying ability and at max level its stats are 3/2/0/5. Having the Double Strike ability from the start means that this card will be able to deal 6 damage per round on the base level if you factor in the summoner bonus which is huge. This card might as well be the burst you need to wreak havoc in your opponent's frontline.
3. Prismologist
Prismologist is an 8 Mana, Life, epic card that starts with 3 ranged damage, 2 speed, 2 armor and 4 health and comes with the blast ability. At level 4 it gains the Forcefield ability, which results in the Prismologist only taking 1 damage when hit with attacks that would deal more than 5 damage usually. At max level the card gains the silence ability and ends up with stats of 4/2/2/5. On the base level, the card is already quite strong, being able to hit its main target for 4 damage while dealing another blow to the monsters next to it. This ability comes at the hefty Mana cost of 8 though, which means that in a lot of matchups this card will not find a proper use. Once the card hits level 5 though it becomes the perfect counter to cards that hit like a truck like Sandworm for example. This card will likely be a regular rental for everyone deciding to play Life while mainly using General Sloan as their summoner.
5. Supply Runner
Supply Runner is a 6 Mana, Neutral, common card which starts with 2 ranged damage, 3 speed, no armor and 4 health. At level 5 it learns the Swiftness ability which raises the speed of all your monsters, as long as Supply Runner is alive. At max level it learns Strengthen which increases the health of all your cards by one and is left with stats of 3/5/0/5. At the base level this card is very expensive for what it offers, which is a simple 3 damage with average speed and a small amount of bulk. I cannot imagine this being a pick worth taking over other options, if they are available, when talking about base level. The strength of this card lies in its supportive abilities. Even at level 5 the card becomes a lot more valuable as the new ranged cards introduced are all not the speediest kind, so one extra speed will go a long way in winning those close battles. With Strengthen added at max level this card might just be essential to use as a supporter.
6. Xenith Archer
Xenith Archer is a 2 Mana, neutral, rare card that starts with 1 ranged damage, 2 speed, no armor and 2 health. This Card does not gain any abilities and ends up with stats of 3/4/0/4 at max level. This card scores with its low mana cost but has very little going for it. Xenith Archer will likely be a Mana filler for matchups in which you have little Mana and one slot open and consider extra damage to be more worthwhile than utility.
7. Gem Meteor
Gem Meteor is a 5 Mana, neutral, epic card that starts with 2 ranged damage, 4 speed, 0 armor and 4 health and comes with the scattershot ability. At level 4 it learns the blast ability and on max level it ends up with stats of 4/5/0/4. This card is the quickest new ranged monster available to the Life splinter and with it's 5 Mana cost can be used in most matchups. While Scattershot makes this card just as random as the portal spinner, incorporating the same upsides and drawbacks, the blast ability it gains on level 4 makes this card an absolute killer. Imagine nuking three of your opponent’s cards with 4 damage. This is a rough awakening for your opponent if RNG blesses you. In my opinion this card is going to be a must have for dedicated General Sloan users.
8. Celestial Harpy
Celestial Harpy is a 2 Mana, life, rare card that starts with 1 melee damage, 2 speed, 0 armor and 2 health and comes with the Flying and Opportunity abilities. At level 5 it learns the true Strike ability and on max level it ends up with stats of 3/4/0/5. You may be wondering why Celestial Harpy is listed here, as it is a non-ranged card and does not profit from General Sloan's range boost. The Reason her inclusion in this list is not it's fancy artwork, but the True Strike ability. There is nothing more frustrating than having an awesome line-up only to have the RNG Gods decide to let you lose due to missing 5 times in a row. With True Strike this is not going to happen any longer, so this card has high value for higher level play.
Alright guys and gals, time to wrap it up here. As you can see, the new cards in the Life Splinter are going to make playing General Sloan very interesting. Next time I will be providing some insight into existing cards that will be very viable to use with him so stay tuned for more!