Apart from many interesting monster cards, the Chaos Legion expansion also brought several new summoners. They all cost 4 mana to be used in a battle, but compared to the previously most common ones which cost 3 mana, they provide more or better bonuses. Let us focus only on the rare summoners, which are affordable for most players.
The new ones from the Chaos Legion expansion are:
The death, fire and water summoners give all monsters two bonuses instead of one, which clearly makes them worth the +1 mana cost. The earth summoner adds only +1 magic attack, but considering that magic attacks are especially powerful, I think it is worth it as well.
On the other hand, the life summoner General Sloan gives only +1 ranged attack, which might not seem to be a wonderful trade-off. This has reflected also in its price, which is currently the lowest of all the new Chaos Legion summoners and much lower than most other summoner cards. However, in many situations / rulesets it is an extremely powerful bonus. And it is so particularly for a life summoner, since there is a lot of ranged attack life monsters with rather high (2-3) damage and reasonable tank. Below I will describe several examples in which General Sloan can be almost unbeatable.
1. Monsters loose all abilities ruleset
In this ruleset, melee attack monsters can basically attack only from the first position, since the reach, opportunity and sneak abilities won't work. One thus has to go either for ranged or magic attack in the other positions. Moreover, there is also no way for the back-row monsters to be attacked (apart from the reflect and return fire abilities). Although monsters with magic attack are indeed very powerful as they ignore the target's armor, they typically also have smaller damage and often also less life compared to monsters with ranged attack. As such, having even higher ranged attack per monster thanks to the summoner's bonus (putting it to 3-4) with some monsters having double strike ability on top of it, is deadly. Such a huge damage, if applied well, e.g. all to the monster in the first position, easily goes through almost any tank in the first round. Following monsters with less life then usually fall easily in the next one or two rounds.
In THIS BATTLE, for example, you can see that such strategy with General Sloan summoner can bring you to victory even if the opponent has a much stronger (gold) summoner:
In principle, the same applies for the "Monster loose sneak and snipe abilities" ruleset, in which you also don't have to worry much about you back-row ranged monster being targeted (opponent's monsters with opportunity ability might hurt though).
2. Low mana cap battles
In low mana cap battles it is often a good idea to use fire summoners that give +1 melee damage, which is deadly particularly if combined with sneak and opportunity abilities. However, if the given ruleset doesn't allow to use fire monsters, General Sloan makes a perfect back-up plan as the increased ranged damage easily kills low mana cost enemy monsters, often with a single shot. Below you can find two examples of such battles.
3. Opponent focused on healing the tank
Quite often the opponent relies on healing the tank, i.e. the monster in the first row with high health and/or armor. Commonly it is for example the Shieldbearer from life splinter or the Sea Monster from water splinter. In such a case, if the attack is all focused on this tank and you have let's say 5 range attack monsters dealing 3-4 damage each, it is close to impossible to have an equal level of healing. The tank thus often falls within the first round and the other monsters than follow easily.
4. Other rulesets
There are many more rulesets and situations in which General Sloan has proven to be an excellent choice. For example, in the Equalizer and Close range rulesets the ranged monsters gain additional advantage. Similarly, in the Unprotected ruleset the high ranged attack will deal more easily with your opponent's monsters.
Below you can find a couple of battles with different rulesets in which General Sloan won the battle.
As always, it is best to try for yourself.
Go to Splinterlands and hit them with one of your General Sloan's formation!
