Greetings to all the members of the Hive Blockchain community, most especially those who enjoy playing Splinterlands. This week's Share Your Battle challenge features the Life Sapper.
Getting to know you
The Life Sapper is a three-mana rare monster from the Death splinter. It is described as in between life and death. Its victims feel weak when they are near it, as the Life Sapper absorbs energy from them. In the gold league, it has a decent 2 magic damage and has a high speed of 4. Its ability is called Life Leech, wherein it heals itself up by a portion of its damage to its target's health. Because its damage is magic, it will almost always heal back whenever it does damage. Yet, I do not use it much because it gets negated by an opposing Thaddeus Brood. Nonetheless, there are times that I believe the Life Sapper can be a valuable card.
Battle analysis
I want to feature this battle in a Bronze league tournament I joined. I used the Life Sapper in this particular battle with these rules:
Equal Opportunity - All Monsters have the Opportunity ability
Equalizer - The initial health of all Monsters is equal to that of the Monster of either team with the highest base Health
Mana cap = 60
Splinters = Fire, Water, Life, Death, or Dragon
When I saw that one of the rules is equalizer, I automatically fielded in the monsters that have Life Leech in them - the Life Sapper and Venari Bonesmith. I chose Cursed Windeku as my main tank. I put Gargoya Devil as my secondary tank because it has the Flying ability. I also put another flyer called Phantom Soldier in the secondary backline. I then included Sandworm as a sneaker for the damage. I felt confident of my team as I thought I had a good mix of different types of damage. Unfortunately, I was wrong.
Right from the time the cards were revealed I knew that I lost this battle. I saw Exploding Rats. That was a good pick. Also, the damage output of my enemies' cards are too much for my Life Leechers. Their self heal could not keep up with the enemies' damage.
Rating
6 out of 10
I do not usually use the Life Sapper in my battles mainly because it is negated by an opposing team's Thaddeus Brood. The healing is not usually enough especially when most monsters do 2-4 damage in the Gold league. A magic summoner for the Death Splinter could boost the value of the Life Sapper. Nonetheless, I still use the Life Sapper in rules such as Little League and Equalizer. It becomes a semi-tank by mid-game. I also see some battles in the Diamond and Champion leagues where they use Life Sapper for low mana and/or Little League rules. The strategy is called the Suicide Squad. At level 8, the Life Sapper learns Redemption, wherein it does 1 damage to all enemy monsters when it dies. So, players field in the cards with Weaken (reduces the health of enemy monsters by 1) like the Undead Priest and Doctor Blight, and cards with Redemption like the Cursed Slimeball. I personally enjoy those battles because they all look like fireworks!
Are you ready to test your skills? You are welcome to sign up to @Splinterlands using my referral code.