Splinter Reviews Part Two: Death (Pre-Untamed)

Death Splinter Review.png

Check out the previous post here: Water Splinter Review

Today were getting 2spoppy5me! MEMES I got them!

Let's talk about the Death Splinter, you like dark stuff, the color black, and the walking dead? Well then this is the splinter for you!

This splinter is considered one of the weaker ones, at least in the higher leagues (diamond + champion). But I have seen good success with getting to champion 3 two times with it already! It might be slightly weaker, but in capable hands it can still rock!

~~~ Common Cards ~~~

Starting out here, we already have some mediocore cards. Vampire and Monotaur are almost never used, and generally not worth the mana cost. Spineback Wolf and Haunted Spider see more play, but arent the greatest either. I had some decent success with the spider when I first rented a max lvl death deck, but would not do that anymore, there are better options most of the time. If there would be a "status effects always apply" ruleset in the future, then spider-boi would be great!

That leaves us with two more commons!

ANIMATED corpse.JPG

Don't let the low price of this card fool you! Its one of the cheapest BETA set cards there is, but I think its actually really decent! I use it in many of my death splinter games.
Once it gets void at lvl 4, it starts to become really durable. Its no Lord Arianthus, but it can be played in any rulesets except the "no melee units" one.
It also has some decent attack value. One of the best meatshield you can get for 4 mana!

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The best common card from the death splinter is without question the Skeleton Assasin, for only 3 mana you get a super speedy sneak unit, thats comes with poison. Having 5 hp allows him to survive two reflects from thorns aswell. He can even be unit as a frontline unit in back to basic, if you want to inflict some damage early on. Dont use him in reverse speed tho!

~~~ Rare Cards ~~~

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Alright! The rare card section of death has some really good cards that see heavy use ingame!
Skeletal Warrior can be a good unit to spent your last two mana on and protect your backline against sneak units. He can be used as a frontline tank, but he wont take many hits there.
Undead Archer is another 2 mana card, which makes him useable, if you play if early leagues a lvl 4 vrsion of him provides you 2 ranged dmg for 2 mana, which is really good! He also comes with affliction, which has a chance to apply a debuff to the target, so it cant be healed anymore.
From lvl 5 on he gets shatter, which removes all of the targets armor on hit. This is a really good ability aswell, but not usefull in every game.

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The third and last two mana card of the death splinter is the undead priest! He starts out just as a debuffer with weaken, he gets his max dmg of 1 at lvl 3. Once he reaches lvl 5 he gets the debuff slow aswell. Which means you can two really strong ability on a 2 mana body! Really good! USE HIM!

His max hp at lvl 8 is 6, which is also really good for a 2 mana unit, I often use him in the back as a sneak protector, or in the 2nd spot as snipe bait.

Now this is a tank alright! Haunted Spirit is used a lot early on and in games where legendary units cannot be used! It starts out with just heal, but gets magic reflect at lvl 4 and void at lvl 7, which makes it a really good tank against magic users!
While the spirit can still be killed fast by melee or ranged damage, you can reduces the former if you use Zintar or Crypt Mancer as your summoner!

The last rare card is my favorite death splinter card! The Twisted Jester.
Hes the snipe unit of this splinter and packs a good punch! He starts out with two dmg and goes up to four. Besides snipe he also gets the "dodge" ability at lvl 5, which makes him less likely to be hit, thanks to that its possible to use him as the last unit and survive a few hits, I would recommend putting some other units there tho, like the Undead Priest or a chicken! You dont want to miss those 4 dmg hits!

~~~ Epic Cards ~~~

Honestly, the current selection of epic cards for the death splinter is very sad. While these cards look amazing in their artwork,they kinda suck.

The Dark Enchantress is a flying unit with stun, but her high mana cost and low hp makes her bad, shes almost never used. The other two have slitghtly more use cases.

Screaming indeed, I wanna scream when I see her stats :(
Early on she is just a 3 mana unit with 2 dmg and 1 hp. Thats simply horrible. At lvl 3 she gets the blast ability. This is her only saving grace, blast is generaly really good, but by the time she gets blast, youre in a legue where you will see many tanks with magic reflect, which means she just dies in 1-2 reflect hits. Her max hp is only 3 aswell. Do not invest into this card unless you want a full set.

The third epic card might be the best of these, but hes still not good. This phantom is meant as a magic tank frontliner, he gets silence and void, which makes him be able to take many magic attacks, but in most cases its better to use prismatic energy, for the magic reflect.
If you do want to use him, look at his stats first, you have to decided between having 3 dmg and 10 hp on lvl 5 or 4 dmg and 9 hp on lvl 6.

~~~ Legendary Cards ~~~

HAHA legendaries here we are. Fallen Specter is an amazing debuffer for 2 mana, but his max hp is 1, which makes him very hard to use, since hes a magic attacker he dies against reflect. There are usecases where you can use him but since the two-mana-spot is already so strong, its hard to justify to use him over any of the others.

But now were at the main attraction!

(I made this myself, Im proud of it haha)

Lord of D. and the Pegasus work really good together! Lets look at them.

lord of d.JPG

Early on the lord is mostly a dm frontliner, but once he gets shield at lvl 3 and retaliate at lvl 4, he becomes a tanky murder-machine!
To keep him alive you want to use his best friend, the pegasus. :)

Pegasus is currently the only source of tank heal in the death splinter. Playing the Lord/Pegasus combo from gold league on becomes very good! With their combined frontline dmg, the heal and the defenses they make a wondeful team. Thy can get countered by sneak units or magic dmg dealers, so be carefull!
Its also possible to use pegasus together with arianthus to keep him alive longer and have a decent dmg dealer in the 2nd spot.

~~~ Summoner Cards ~~~

So here are your choices if you want to play this splinter! Zintar is the base summoner for three mana and debuffs all enemy units, reducing their melee-dmg by one. There are situations where he isnt that usefull. If you can only afford one death summoner, I would go with Jarlax. Hes the two mana summoner of the bunch, he of cours is stronger in the silenced summoner ruleset, but also in fights where the enemy isnt using many melee units, or in rulesets where they cannot be played.

The Crypt Mancer is the legendary option for five mana, and hes a powerhouse in games where you can afford him. If you use him together with the Undead Priest, you debuff all enemy units with -2hp and -2 speed, which is really good!

~~~ Dragon Cards ~~~

There are two dragon cards I want to highlight here, the first one is Manticore.

As mentioned before the spineback wolf is not very good, so if you dont use or have the pegasus the best choice for a reach unit is the manticore!

The other card I want to talk about is the Harpy.

The Harpy needs a bit of an investment before her true power is revealed, but its worth it! Shes the only unit with "opportunity" which makes her attack the enemy with the lowest HP. That means she can attack from any spot. Shes an awesome edition the the already strong low mana cards in the death splinter. Its possible to overwhelm low manacap games with a lot of units in with this splinter!

~~~ Neutral Cards ~~~

While grumpy is not one of the strongest units, and if often joked about, I mostly prefer to use him over the Wolf. Hes also your only reach unit in the little league ruleset.

Next up we have the Centaur.

While he is strong in every splinter, I like to use him even more in the death splinter, teaming him up with jester makes for two very strong snipe units, to kill the backline of your enemy.

Okay, we did it, were done! Thats all the cards I wanted to talk about today. I hope to see you again next time, when we talk about the next splinter! Making the post took longer than I wanted, becouse I had to do some IRL stuff, but Im still aiming to release all splinter reviews before the untamed release next week!