This week we go with a card that should be under the radar of most players: the Temporal Master, a Life unit costing 3 manas.
At level 1 he gets 1 magic damage, 2 points of health and a speed of 2. He comes with the ability Recharge. That means that every 2 turns, he will deal 3 points of magic damage.
At level 4 his base damage goes to 2, meaning he will then deal 6 points of damage.
At level 6 he will get a second ability, Stun, which has really poor synergy with with Recharge. This ability gives a 50% chance to stun the opponent, from an attack that goes off every 2 turns, so...
So yes, he goes under the radar. I dislike Recharge, I feel that 1 damage every turn is better than 3 every 2 turns. It makes it too dependent of luck. You're charging a massive attack, will it go against armor? Or a 1-life monster? Or will it actually be useful?
Because of this ability that looks more to me like a liability, I would use it more in the Back to Basic ruleset, so that the Recharge is canceled.
His second disadvantage is his low life. When you shoot every other turn, you'd better stay on the battlefield long enough to actually attack.
Because of this I'm not particularly eager to buy it or rent it. But well, let's see him in action.
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_e859a7b0912af7828f4a8f2f229056f5&ref=engilhramn
The match plays in Modern Silver, with Silenced Summoners and Equalizer ruleset, 52 Mana limit and opened to Earth, Life, Death and Dragons.
I firstly considered Earth but then chose on Life, for the damage output of the Pelacor Arbalest, who does pretty well under Equalizer.
So I went with:
Summoner: General Sloan, he's silenced anyway
Chaos Knight: if I chose the Splinter well, I can expect a mirror match, the shield will be useful then
Temporal Master: with Equalizer, at least the low health problem is solved. Hopefully he will survive long enough with the help of the Venari Cristalsmith
Djinn Renova: because she's obviously good! Strengthen is good, Health is good, magic damage is good
Spirit Hoarder: well, this one is debatable, Sneak is often not to be afraid of under Equalizer, but it wouldn't take long (2 rounds actually) to a Sand Worm to mess with my strategy, so just in case...
Venari Cristalsmith: so important to have Tank Heal under Equalizer
Pelacor Arbalest: the damage dealer
Ah? Mister Opponent is a bot, who chose Life also (so I picked well!).
The notable differences are a Shieldbearer with Taunt at the back (I chose not to use this strategy to not lose on attacks in the early rounds) and no Healing at all. Its damage output is similar to mine.
Most damages went to my opponent Taunt and to my Tank, but the healing already mitigated a part of it.
The Temporal Master discharged his first shot, allowing to cleanly kill the Shieldbearer before the end of the round. So now all the battle will concentrate on the front, and my tank is slightly at disadvantage with 4 less points of health.
The tanks are tanking, the gap of health is only 3 points, but my Chaos Knight is dead at the first hit.
The Temporal Master already took some serious hits, but his second discharge got rid of the opponent's Knight of Chaos before my Pelacor Arbalest took his shots. I have one monster more, but with my speed disadvantage, the Temporal Master will just take the hits.
The Temporal Master took its two hits, job done, now I have advantage. Roughly similar damage output, but with healing.
No need to go further, we can all guess the result of the game.
That's why Healing appear so important to me with the Equalizer ruleset. Just a couple more points of health translates into a couple of attacks wasted, which translate into a numeric advantage and then a victory.
Temporal Master wasn't the MVP, but he did the job. His two shots were finely put. Without the bonus from Discharge, that would have cost 2 more attacks to get the 2 kills. And I did put him as off-tank, not the best place to shine, but yes, I value Djinn Renova more.
In the end, I just might be prejudiced against Recharge. Maybe the Temporal Master would have had a better chance to shine placed more to the back.
