Good mornin' Splinterlands!!!
click the banner above, to go to the Splinterlands in-game shopIt seems her arrival, however, has nudged our players into two camps:
Zyriel's Duality apparently pierces into the very fabric of our Splinterlands community.
Firstly, I'll dive into my personal opinion on the card, and then follow up with an alternative perspective.
First off, the card-art looks absolutely amazing! No ifs, ands or buts about it. Also the unique frame surrounding Zyriel makes the dual-splinter aspect of the card blend beautifully. The creative team really hit the ball out of the park with the whole visual presentation of the promo.
However, the 
Statistically speaking, Zyriel is actually a very unique and strong card, with lots of interesting synergies manifesting because of her splinter-duality. Players wielding Zyriel, will now be able to create fresh and unique strategies that are unprecedented in the game.
She also has an interesting combo of abilities at her disposal: Weapons Training, Life Leech, Divine Shield and Rust all offer a lot of creativity, that both a Life and Death summoner would greatly profit from.
Zyriel's 3 starting attack is pretty solid, but her 5 attack at max Lvl will definitely be dropping bombs. At that point she's doing serious damage, consequently increasing the potency of her Life Leech ability. Armor would normally prevent her from actually life-leeching, but she offers Rust as an efficient workaround to this.
Her Hit Points♥️ quite honestly, leave a bit to be desired. But due to her Life Leech, the longer a battle progresses, the more this weak point can be mitigated. And the added protection from Divine Shield will help her to stay in the battle long enough, to make a difference.
Zyriel's greatest weak point is, however, her Speed, coming in at a lacklustre max of 2. This makes her considerably more advantageous in a Reverse Speed ruleset for instance, compared to being a good fit for your everyday match in Splinterlands.
Because as an ancient and wise Time Mage once said:
Adding a swiftness or 2 to Zyriel, can of course quickly make her more viable, but must always be considered when fielding her in battle. With enough speed buffs/debuffs in the match, Zyriel can outgrow her weak points, and become a seriously interesting support card.
But despite having really solid overall stats and abilities, there's one BIG caveat! And this is the topic that has been the most polarizing and controversial in the community:
The price is easily the most criticized part of the Zyriel promo, and is the reason I believe it may end up not being as effective, at bringing in the desired capital.
I feel like a lower price point would have granted access to more players, ultimately making the card sell more. This in turn would bring the team MORE MONEY, not less!
At the end of the day, I personally don't mind the team releasing this card at a higher price-point, if it helps them gather a comfortable cushion of income in the process. After all, following our historic DAO proposal, the community received Vruz as a gift from the Splinterlands devs. And Vruz is a card that I absolutely love using (Martyr anyone?). The way I see it, we already got a "People's Card" recently, that was more accessible to the broader community.
But tell that to Mav Chat! 😂
The promo has unfortunately, left behind a bitter aftertaste for some players. The bodies of the poor souls that gave their lives defending their opinions in the trenches of the Mav channel, are testament to that. Unfortunately the culprit steep price could be the very reason, that a lot of players don't or can't buy Zyriel, letting the card possibly underperform the developers' expectations.
Did I mention that Overlord 
For this reason, I really hope the card ends up selling out (start haulin' ass Ultra-whales! 🐳), as this would be great news for the Splinterlands company.
But for me personally,
comparing Zyriel's:
Price vs. Utility
I've decided to NOT buy Zyriel.
However, I have decided to make another move within Splinterlands.
What follows, is my antithesis to purchasing the Zyriel promo card
I decided to go a different route, but still keep capital in the Splinterlands ecosystem, and invest in some fundamentally integral cards for my overall water splinter strategy. These cards also make this splinter a very strong option, when there's a "Going the Distance" ranged only ruleset.
In our guild T&A Time and Attention (Legion II), I currently enter the wild or modern Gold Foil only gold league fray (hopefully we unlock GF diamond league soon🤠). Therefore, I always have to weigh in the GF factor into my thought process, when purchasing new cards.
This big charming clump of magic-resistant water putty has been one of the last missing pieces in my max lvl GF Chaos Legion deck. Getting Wave Brood maxed out in GF, and therefore unlocking the ever-critical Return Fire ability, turns him into an absolute behemoth. Even more-so, when playing the ranged only ruleset.😈 His Close Range ability also makes him predestined to be the tank in this ruleset.
If Brood is "Clyde", then Sea Stalker is his "Bonnie". This gal gives him the motivational support he needs, to make his Return Fire damage extra destructive ( Amplify ). And if there's ever any goons that try to afflict or poison ole Broody, she'll whip him up some tasty homemade chicken soup ( Cleanse ), to get rid of all those pesky ailments. Not your typical support card, this lady knows how to dish out some real pain with her 5 ranged attack...all while being able to Snipe from the safety of her Camo-Hideout. By no means an inexpensive rare. But these are Riftwatcher Cards we're talking about here people...what's a guy to do? 🤷♂ But being such a strong card, I'm just glad she's now in the family.
This bad-boy was THE card, I was most looking forward to getting my hands on. But it also boasted a whopping $22.20 per BCX price-tag! But that's to be expected from a Beta card (especially in gold foil). Crustascean King's Tank Heal ability is absolutely must-have, and putting a consistent heal on Brood in the front tank position, will prove to be a very useful strategy in ranged only. Ultimately though, the Tank Heal and the added Protect will be an amazing all-in-one support-package for any water team. The Tank Heal will also be sustained, due to Sea Creature's Cleanse putting in work.
Axemaster always packs a punch with his Double Strike, but becomes really lethal at Lvl 4 with the Close Range ability and +1 to his ranged attack. For the time being, I'll only be running him in "light"-mode for my GF only games...because $35.50 for 1 BCX is no joke! And that was the cheapest one on the market🤣, the second cheapest already coming in at $49.90. For this reason, Axemaster easily takes the cake, for being the most expensive per BCX card in my lineup. Despite this, I'll be hoping to snatch up some good deals on him in the future, to eventually get him to Lvl 4. At that point, this card will be fully viable (and silly expensive).
Not yet at max Lvl...however, an already integral card in my water arsenal. Swamp Spitter's armor Repair synergizes amazingly with Kelya's +1 armor and/or Crustacean King's Protect. Having the Giant Killer ability is mostly an added bonus, that probably won't be as relevant for ranged only rulesets, but always nice to have in the toolbox nonetheless. The bar-none best thing about this card though, is that he's soulbound and therefore completely FREE, making him the most cost-effective pick in this lineup. 😂
In following, you can view the complete financial investment I had to put down for these cards.
Quite literally, right after buying these gold foil cards, I'm already at a $68.87 increase on my initial Investment. Anybody out there that purchased Zyriel, that can say the same currently? 🤪
In closing, this little essay was meant to show an alternative way of thinking and investing, and how sometimes it's better to focus on what everyone else is currently not. This is also a good strategy for any kind of asset-class purchases...buy when the others are selling, and sell when the others are buying.
Zyriel is hot off the press! Though for me, the decision to upgrade my GF water splinter was personally a much wiser investment, that has ultimately brought my deck to a new level. And this at a fraction of the price, that Zyriel would have cost me.
But to everyone that DID buy Zyriel: I hope you have a lot of fun with the new promo card, and that it can add new depth to your Splinterlands strategy.
If you liked this post or found some value in it, I would greatly appreciate your upvote. 😌 And leave a comment friend! 👍
Cheers everyone and much love!
CHECK OUT THIS THING I MADE!
UPDATE: if Zyriel's price on the market continues its current trend, I'll probably be grabbing a Lvl 3 Zyriel after all...I need those good deals man!
And...and...
...I clearly have a Splinterlands problem.
sincerely,
IGN king-arminius