Artwork created by AI
This post is an investigation of one of the leaked Rebellion cards: the Ulundin Overseer. We discuss his stats, when to play him, synergies and weaknesses.
Personally, I think he looks quite badass, and I look forward to seing this massive hippo in my Splinterlands games soon!
Ulundin Overseer stats
Lore
The Ulund are a fiercely territorial race, and their overseers are the weighty enforcers of their city-state’s borders. Massive girth undulating, earth trembling beneath each lumbering stride—the sight of one leading a charge is unlike no other.
In combat, their physical efforts largely consist of simply standing firm. It serves their Ulund compatriots well, however, as the overseer’s thick hide creates a nearly impenetrable barrier.
Ulundin may have bowed to the Chaos Empire but their overseers continue to protect the integrity of its borders with a mix of pride and stubbornness… as well as a healthy dose of passive resistance.
Discussion
Ulundin Overseer is an absolute wall. At max level he packs the highest basic defensive stats of all the cards in the game. He is also quite expensive at 11 mana.
Ulundin Overseer has one of the new abilities coming to Splinterlands with Rebellion. This ability is called Flank. In the Rebellion introduction post, Flank was described as:
Flank - If the unit with this ability is in the first position, then the unit in the second position gains the Reach ability. Prepare to leverage positioning and the element of surprise. Now your first two units can work together to bring down the enemy tank!
This is a pretty good ability to have on such a bulky tank. If we place a high-damage melee unit in the second position, even if it doesn't have Reach, then it will still be able to attack. Such setups have proven to be very powerful with Possibilus the Wise, and Flank allows other summoners to play similar setups, even if its a weaker version of what Possibilus provides.
Mana efficiency
In terms of mana efficiency, Ulundin Overseer is not that great. A card that can be compared quite directly to him is Peaceful Giant, who has the same health, no armor, but costs only 5 mana:
In a previous post I've documented how one point of attack, ranged, magic, health, armor and speed are worth approximately the following (in terms of mana):
| Attack | Ranged | Magic | Health | Armor | Speed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mana Value | 2/3 | 1 | 4/3 | 1/2 | 3/8 | 1/6 |
Based on the stats alone, we can compare the two cards in terms of the value we get per mana when we pick each of the cards:
| Level | Ulundin Overseer | Peaceful Giant | Ulundin Overseer w. Flank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.73 | 0.83 | 0.82 |
| 2 | 0.77 | 0.93 | 0.86 |
| 3 | 0.81 | 1.03 | 0.90 |
| 4 | 0.84 | 1.13 | 0.93 |
| 5 | 0.89 | 1.23 | 0.98 |
| 6 | 0.92 | 1.33 | 1.01 |
| 7 | 0.97 | 1.43 | 1.06 |
| 8 | 1.0 | 1.53 | 1.09 |
| 9 | 1.05 | 1.63 | 1.14 |
| 10 | 1.13 | 1.73 | 1.22 |
So its pretty clear that this is not a card we include for its stats alone if we dont have A LOT of mana to spend.
But Ulundin Overseer has Flank, and that is also worth a bit. A comparable ability is Reach, which has generally penalized cards that have it by 1 mana cost. Assuming that Flank is worth the same as Reach, we get the mana values in the last column in the table above. Even with that factored in, he is not good value for the mana spent.
That being said, there are combos that can make Ulundin Overseer worth the mana, and there will likely be many situations where he is a card that should be considered. Also, mana efficiency becomes much less of a factor in high mana matches.
Combos
Healing
Ulundin Overseer gets great value from healing. This can be achieved with Tank Heal or Triage, but most often it will be based on Tank Heal, since there will often not be much of a reason to place this card anywhere other than the first position.
Tank Heal will restore 1/3 of the units max health, rounded up. This means that that Ulundin Overseer will be healed for these amounts at different levels:
| Level 1-3 | Level 5-9 | Level 10 |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 5 | 6 |
We can also achieve 7 health heal if we get him up to 2 health, which we can do with for example Possibilus the Wise and 1 Strengthen, or Lily Shieldpaw and 2 Strengthen.
Good healing synergies:
Offensive strategies
Ulundin Overseer provides Flank, which gives the next unit in line Reach if Ulundin Oveerseer is in the first position. This allows playing high damage but fragile melee cards in the second position. These units will be hard to target (Snipe will only target ranged or magic attackers), and can therefore deal a lot of damage with the help of Flank.
Prime Flank synergies:
Weapons Training
Weapons training is an obvious choice for Ulundin Overseer. With his bulky stats, he will be able to gain quite a bit of value from being trained to have some sort of attack. However, he is vurnerable to Dispel since he is likely played frontline. Because of that, I imagine that using Weapons Training with Ulundin Overseer is most effective in Up Close & Personal matches. (There are only three melee cards with Dispel currently:
So the main Weapons Training synergies are with:
(although Reach and Flank is somewhat wasted when played together). We could also see new and exciting Weapons Training cards in Rebellion.
Weaknesses
( Giant Killer, Oppress, Affliction,Dispel )
Since Ulundin Overseer costs 11 mana and is a no-attack card, he has two double damage effects that can be used to effectivly bring him down. These are Giant Killer and Oppress. Giant Killer in particular is quite available in high mana matches, so that is something to watch out for.
Healing strategies are eliminated with a single Affliction proc, so watch out for that, and make sure to bring Cleanse if you really want to make sure that Ulundin Overseer will stay alive as long as possible.
Finally, if he is used in a Weapons Training strategy, Dispel can be the bane of that. Dispel units are easily able to target frontline units, and it makes little sense to try to hide Ulundin Overseer behind other units. Depending on the meta, it might be hard to effectively train Ulundin Overseer. In modern matches, Water, Earth, Life and Death have cards with Dispel that are really popular. Currently, Fire and Dragon do not have great access to Dispel, so maybe that is a niche where Ulundin Overseer can be trained. (Keep in mind there are also two neutral dispellers, and that new Dispel cards can come with Rebellion).
Final words
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Best of luck in Splinterlands!
Kalkulus