Hello, hello, hello fellow Splinterlanders,

another week another battle challenge. This week, we look at a death monster.
Life Sapper is a rare monster with magic damage and only costs 3 Mana. In that regard, he is almost always ready for battle.
As a true death monster, he has a deathly themed ability. Life Leech increases health points for Life Sapper in proportion of the damage, he has dealth.

As you can see on the chart below, he has life leech from the get-go and doesn’t get another ability until max level (level 8 as a rare card). Redemption is a fine ability, with which you can annoy your opponent, but at my current level (I play in gold and try to max out all cards, that means level 6 for Life Sapper) I only have life leech as an ability.

My Life Sapper has 2 magic attacks, 4 speed and three HP, which makes him a good, but vulnerable monster.
Death is not known for speed and various setups from life to water or fire are predestined to kill backline monsters with low health.

The usage of Life Sapper is therefore a balancing act and should be considered well.

If you want to take part in the Weekly Challenge, you can read all about it in this article written by the official @splinterlands account.

Like I said, Life Sapper is a niche card in that, it can be killed quite quickly but with the right circumstances, it is a good support card.

This battle for example, had two rulesets. Taking Sides meant, no neutral monsters and the more important one was Target Practice, which meant, Ranged and Magic Attacks had the Snipe ability. That didn’t mean, I was shielded from opportunity melee attacks, but I had a hunch, I could get away with it, because my opponent would chose to put more magic and archery monsters in his lineup and fortunately, I was right.

Based on the rulesets, my opponents last battles and my own deck of cards, I chose death.

Over the last few months, I purchased all the important cards and am only short of one monster
(Magi Necrosi) to have a great death squad.
With 50 Mana to spent, I didn’t have to be close-fisted with my high-mana cards. If the white team had been available, I would have chosen Grandmaster Rathe and Pelacor Conjurer as the second tank, but both life and dragon were inactive splinters, so I decided on death.

My only death summoner is Thaddius Brood. I have him and all of my main monsters at max level for gold, which had cost me a pretty penny, but it is a good feeling to compete at that level.

The tank was pretty obvious. As the magic attacks as well as the ranged attacks would not hit my tank, I put Cursed Windeku in the first place. With his thorns and self-heal, he would be the perfect tank to withstand a slew of melee attacks, so that my second tank Djinn Muirat would absorb and reflect enough magic damage to kille a few magic monsters on the other side.

Third in line was Venari Bonesmith with Life Leech and Poison and in the fourth position, we find our hero of the week Life Sapper.

The back line was manned with two great ranged monsters. Dhampir Stalker with True Strike and Death Blow and Lira the Dark with Opportunity, Snare and Swiftness for extra speed. I wanted an extra speed in case, I would face the water team with Kelya Frendul.

My opponent chose earth and Obsidian.
Grund as the main tank and Mycelic Infantry as second tank was a good idea, but on glancing at the line-ups I had a hunch, I could win this battle with three magic monsters, who all had snipe.

Mycelic Infantry would be immune to snipe as a melee monster, but his third monster – Vampiric Blossom – would be toast in the first round I hoped.
In the fourth position, he had put Queen Mycelia for 2 extra shield and Triage.
Goblin Psychic with tankheal, silence and Affliction as well as Mycelic Slipspawn with taunt completed his line-up.

t would be a good and honest fight. Let’s have a look, how it ended.
Can you guess the outcome from the lineups alone?

Watch the full Battle here

As I said, I tried to prepare for a battle against Kelya and was very pleased to see, that all enemy monsters were quite slow. With Lira in my team, I would have the absolute speed advance and could apply my attacks before my opponent could even strike once.

I got through Mycelic Slipspawn (Taunt) very quickly, although his Goblin Psychic took a magic attack from me with Silence, but the placement of my Djinn Muirat was good. With only 2 HP left, Slipspawn attacks Muirat and killed himself. The taunt was gone within the first round.

Grund made some serious damage, but took 4 thorn damage as well, and the second tank „Mycelic Infantry was just a mere onlooker in the second position. He was not touched, but couldn’t attack either.
Queen Mycelia and Goblin Psychich each took Magic Reflect damage from Djinn Muirat, who still had 5 HP left. Unfortunately Grund was healed up to 9 HP, so he would survive his two attacks on Cursed Windeku and could trample through.

In the second round, I quickly killed the archery monster Vampiric Blossom and Queen Mycelia, which reduced the shield points for the enemy monsters.
After that, Grund plowed through my tank and almost killed Djinn Muirat with the trample ability. Only 1 HP left for my new tank. But I had nothing to fear from his other monsters, as the second tank could only sit there and watch it all unfold and Goblin Psychic was too slow to even do anything in the next round.

Life Sapper killed Goblin Psychic and accumulated a 7th HP with Life Leech (Great ability) and Venari Bonesmith in tandem with Dhampir Stalker got rid of Grund. Mycelic Infantry finally could get in on the fun and tried to attack Djinn Muirat, who only had one HP left.

But alas, he missed. Abandoned by his team, he faced the fourth round all alone.

What can I say? It was over soon. After my monsters attacked, the huge fungus was done for.
He didn’t get another chance to strike. I only had to mourn the heroic death of Cursed Windeku and triumphed over my opponent, who bravely fought an uneven fight.

My guess is, he thought the snipe ability meant, all ranged and magic attacks will attack the second position, as he placed the Mycelic Infantry there knowing, the monster could not attack. He surely meant for it to be a meatshield, right? That is my guess. I could be wrong.

I gained 21 RP and almost 1 SPS for the win. Very far from champion numbers (25 or even 35 SPS per win), but slowly, I fill my bags with SPS.