This week's battle challenge involves the Life Sapper! The Life Sapper is a Death splinter Magic monster that is an excellent card due to it's low mana cost and Life Leech ability!
Life Sapper Highlights
The Life Sapper is an incredible card especially in low mana battles. At only 3 mana, it has decent speed, good damage, but poor health. However, the Life Leech ability is amazing.
Being a Chaos Legion rare card, it is very affordable to buy/rent so you will see this card often.
| Icon | Ability Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
 | Life Leech | Monster's health increases each time it damages an enemy Monster's health in proportion to the damage dealt |
 | Redemption | When this Monster dies, it does 1 damage to all enemy monsters. The damage dealt is Melee and follows normal rules of melee attacks |
At Bronze and Novice league, Life Sapper isn't super strong but do not underestimate the Life Leech ability. Given the right setup, Life Sapper can end up being your tank.
In Silver, the 2 damage from this 3 mana card is excellent. Just like in Bronze/Novice, it can end up being a great tank if given enough time to build up health.
The next improvement is at max level where it gains redemption. Redemption can really ruin your day when it goes off against you so it's a great ability to have.
So when do I use the Life Sapper?
- One of my favorite uses is in the Explosive Weaponry ruleset where everyone gains blast. Life Leech will trigger for every enemy hit so you can potentially gain up to 3 life from 1 attack!
- Setting it up as a secondary tank is also a good use. Give it some cushion up front so it can gain some health and once it gets to the front it can be hard to kill at low mana
- It can be a bit underestimated but if you use this card with Thaddius Brood, you are essentially bringing your enemy down to your "level" so keep that in mind
- Be careful about Sneak attacks and Opportunity attacks because the Life Sapper's health is quite low and is at risk of getting 1-shotted before it gets an attack off
This Week's Featured Battle
In this week's featured battle, we have Thaddius Brood versus the dreaded Alric Stormbringer in a Back to Basics Explosive Weaponry battle!
Battle Ruleset
 | Back to Basics | Monsters lose all abilities |
|---|---|---|
 | Explosive Weaponry | All Monsters have the Blast ability |
 | 19 Mana | This is considered a low mana battle |
 | Active Splinters | All splinters except Earth are available |
- Back to Basics
- Bring out the Magic attackers! Magic damage is the #1 priority in these battles since it can attack from anywhere. Without extra abilities, Melee is restricted to frontline attacks and Ranged cannot attack from the front
- Think about playing Offensively vs Defensively. Sometimes you'll want to go Obsidian (not available) for the beefy damage but at low enough mana, maybe you'll want to nerf Magic damage instead
- Although Ranged can be effective, keep in mind that it will need to get through Armor
- Explosive Weaponry
- Another favorite ability of Magic monsters
- Now we're stacking advantages towards Magic attackers so Magic will be the #1 choice for you and your opponent
- 19 Mana
- This is a low Mana battle so expect to see a lot of low mana meat shields
As I mentioned before, these rules skew HEAVILY towards Magic damage and because I am playing in Gold League with a Silver deck, it's very likely that I will be outgunned if I try to go toe to toe with my opponent.
For that reason, I played defensively with Thaddius Brood to stifle their Magic damage. With no Obsidian available, my opponent will either be using Alric Stormbringer or have NO Magic buff which makes Thaddius Brood even more effective.
Additionally, the -1 health debuff will be huge in this battle due to the Explosive Weaponry ruleset especially when paired with Magic monsters.
The Lineup
| Position | Card Image | Card Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summoner |  | Thaddius Brood | Rare Death summoner that grants a -1 Magic and -1 Health debuff to the enemy monsters |
| Pos 1 (tank) |  | Chaos Agent | Obviously he can't attack but I want him to soak up some damage to protect my backline |
| Pos 2 (secondary tank) |  | Corpse Fiend | Same as the Chaos Agent except this costs 0 mana and can potentially get an attack off |
| Pos 3 (tertiary tank) |  | Carrion Shade | AGAIN, another damage soak with the ability to attack once it gets to the front |
| Pos 4 (attacker) |  | Magi Necrosi | Great Magic attacker due to it's high damage and high speed |
| Pos 5 (attacker) |  | Revealer | Low mana Magic attacker with decent damage |
| Pos 6 (attacker) |  | Life Sapper | Very low mana attacker that can dish out 2 damage! |
Let's Battle!
- My opponent went with Alric Stormbringer which is an excellent choice for this ruleset
- However, because of the low mana, my Thaddius Brood and Death lineup were the perfect counter to that play
- Not only were my monsters quicker, the health reduction allowed me to kill Nerissa before she could get a 2nd attack off. She was a major threat to taking out my backline with the Blast ability
- Getting 2 damage from my two last monsters was massive!
Did it work?
Yes! I was able to counter my opponent perfectly and took the win.
I analyzed the battle with Splintertools and was given a 100% chance of winning the battle. That is always great to see!
Final Thoughts
The Life Sapper is a great card to have and gets even better as you level it up. At only $0.16/BCX, make sure to pick up a bunch of cheap copies while you can.
Thanks for reading! I hoped you enjoyed it!
Referral link : https://splinterlands.com?ref=at.bui89
If you decide to use my referral link, I'll happily send you a few cards to help you get started!