Splinterlands - Best Entry Level Death Summoner?

This season, I am focusing on my Death splinter!

This splinter is my weakest right now, and I want to convert it to one of my strongest! Similarly to my post on best entry-level Dragon summoner I will run through each of the available Death summoners, diagnose their strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately choose my top one or two recommendations for new summoners.

My situation is a bit different from last season when I was working on my dragon deck - my card collection now has specific strengths and weaknesses that I have noticed over the last season which I want to address. As I wrote about in my last post, I have found that I am very weak in the following types of matches:

• No dragon or earth - I don't have a 3rd splinter to back these 2 up, and having both of these splinters ruled out is fairly common
• No melee and no earth - If melee is banned then my dragon deck is useless. So it's earth or nothing.
• No magic and no dragon - if magic is banned then my earth deck is useless.
• Non-Legendary, Untamed only - my Llama is legendary and Daria is a Reward cards which means that they cannot play in the Untamed only non-legendary tournaments. I need to make sure at least one of my summoners comes from the untamed pack.
• 4's and below games are not great for me, especially if dragons are also banned. If dragons are allowed I can sometimes pull off a win w/ Dragon/Fire using the Serpentine Assassin w/ +1 attack.

So, let's get into the Death summoners! There are 6 to choose from.

Contessa L'ament

Stats:

• Rare Summoner
• Untamed Edition
• Power - Ranged -1
• Market Value - $0.343
• Fully Leveled - $39.45

Pros:

• Cheapest per BCX and cheapest fully leveled
• -1 range power would fit in relatively well with my dragon deck which is melee. - Battles when I am not using that deck will tend to be battles where ranged attacks are favored - hence the -1 range will be useful.
• I need a good Untamed summoner that isn't legendary for the untamed tourneys that don't allow them.
• Still being printed - price could go up

Cons:

• -1 range isn't especially powerful
• Fully leveled price is very high

Owster Rotwell

Stats:

• Rare Summoner
• Dice Edition
• Power - Magic Reflect
• Market Value - $0.446
• Fully Leveled - $51.29

Pros:

• Magic reflect is a cool power - could easily tilt games that have a heavy magic component.
• Power would fit in well with my existing melee dragon deck for the same reason as above - games that penalize melee or favor magic are likely to be games that I don't want to use the dragon deck and so will be using this one.
• Still being printed - price could go up

Cons:

• I may be wrong, but magic reflect seems like it could be a good low-level skill (b/c health is lower) but not scale that well at high levels.
• Power would fit in well with my existing melee dragon deck for the same reason as above - games that penalize melee or favor magic are likely to be games that I don't want to use the dragon deck and so will be using this one.

Zintar Mortalis

Stats:

• Rare Summoner
• Beta Edition
• Power - Melee -1
• Market Value - $0.470
• Fully Leveled - $54.05

Pros:

• -1 Melee can be quite good - probably marginally more useful that -1 range
• I see a lot of players using Zintar

Cons:

• -1 melee doesn't stack especially well with my dragon deck, since if Melee is favored then I will probably be wanting to use the dragon deck
• Beta edition is out of print, and so probably already priced up

Jarlax the Undead

Stats:

• Epic Summoner
• Beta Edition
• Power - None (but 2 mana)
• Market Value - $1.074
• Fully Leveled - $49.40

Pros:

• 2 mana is always useful, especially in low mana games
• Cheap on a fully-leveled basis

Cons:

• No powers
• Beta, so price may already be high

Mimosa Nightshade

Stats:

• Legendary Summoner
• Untamed Edition
• Power -1 range, Void, Affliction...but 7 mana
• Market Value - $7.75
• Fully Leveled - $85.25

Pros:

• Great powers, effectively takes out ranged and magic - so in rulesets w/ no melee this would be deadly

Cons:

• Expensive
• 7 mana, too mana expensive for some rulesets
• Did I mention expensive?

Crypt Mancer

Stats:

• Legendary Summoner
• Beta Edition
• Power -1 melee, -1 speed, -1 health...but 5 mana
• Market Value - $13.50
• Fully Leveled - $148.50

Pros:

• This guy is a beast...-1 melee, -1 speed, -1 health really takes out the enemy team. And for 5 mana, not 7.

Cons:

• Way out of my price range
• Price is likely maxed - don't see it going up any higher from here

Conclusion

So, which should I choose? I am tentatively leaning towards either Contessa and Jarlax - both seem to fit in well with my current decks, and they're at a price that isn't too terrible. Let me know if you have a favorite Death summoner in the comments, and see you next time.

-Brucolac