Hello dear Splinterlands enthusiast! Finally the day has arrived! The REBELLION deck is out! I got up early, brewed myself a good coffee and sat down to open my packs. During the runup to the release we were able to sneak plenty of peaks at all the new cards but we also needed to wait for any final changes to be applied and it is so much better when you can look at them all one by one, check out the stats and read the lore.
With a brand new deck just out it is easy to lose scope and get overexcited about it all, so I am taking my time deciding which cards I want and which cards don’t fit my deck and/or don’t suit my playing style. In THIS previous post, I mentioned that the first things I look at when new cards come out is what they can do for my favourite deck, the Death Deck. In that post I took a quick look at the dual-element Death summoners and today I want to take a look at my most preferred Death cards and discuss why I want them in my Death Deck.
Apart from the two dual-element Death summoners, ZEDDICA and DOLFAR DARFLAK, which I will look to level up for gold league as soon as possible, I have my eye on two other cards at the moment: FENMOOR HAUNT and WAILING WRAITH. Let’s take a closer look at them and talk about why they are must-haves in the Death Deck.
The first card I want for gold league at level 8 is FENMOOR HAUNT. First of all, being a fan of Little League and low mana battles, I like this card for its low 3 mana cost. At level 8 he has 3 melee, 4 speed, 5 health but no shield. His abilities are Sneak and Taunt. I love putting together Sneak teams, so he will go very well with Silent Shavi and Uraeus to terrorize the opponent's backline. When combined with the new dual-element summoners, he can get further Sneak support from cards like Tenyii Striker or Pelacor Bandit, among others. The Sandworm from the neutral cards can also throw his hat in the ring during a mega Sneak play. In a higher mana game with a big fat tank at the front, the rest of the lineup can be made up of up to five different Sneak monsters to turn your opponent's strategy upside down.
Although FENMOOR HAUNT gets Scavenge at max level, I will keep him at level 8 in order to not lose a melee attack and maintain him at 3 melee. His weakness is having no shield, yet is still quite fast and can get Protect from Ravenhood Warden to provide him with 2 shield. The Taunt ability is not really useful unless there is stray magic Scattershot from Jacek and when he moves to first position and is exposed to magic attack. For extra speed we can add Supply Runner to make him yet a little faster. All in all, FENMOOR HAUNT is a great little support card. Being a common monster, he should not be too expensive to get to level 8 early.
I am very excited about this next card! WAILING WRAITH is another low mana card, making it perfect for little league and battles with 20 mana or less. It is a Reach and Affliction monster, similar to Shadow Snitch but better. This new REBELLION monster comes with one of the new abilities, Armored Strike. This ability gives the little darling an additional melee attack using its armor stats. So provided WAILING WRAITH maintains its armor, it will have extra melee power to damage the enemy tank from the second position.
At level 6, WAILING WRAITH gets Rust, taking 2 shield from all enemy monsters. This is very useful especially in all melee battles with lots of shield around and furthermore, as there will be more monsters on the battlefield with the new ability Armored Strike, taking this capability away with Rust is a good counter in this situation.
WAILING WRAITH's downside is speed. Other than the neutral Supply Runner, the death deck itself provides very few options. The only death monster with Swiftness is Lira the Dark. In low mana bouts with Taking Sides, WAILING WRAITH would be a lame duck, especially when hit with a speed debuff by the enemy. Overall, this is a great little card and I will be looking to level up for gold league as soon as possible.
There are tons of new cards out, so many that it makes a player dizzy. So this is my first impression of the new Death cards and it will a very interesting next few weeks experimenting and trying out all the new features. I am looking forward to combining splinters, working with summoner tactics, working out how to best apply the new abilities and generally trying out all the new cards that are now available. I am also curious to see when and which of the numerous new monsters will appear on the battlefield.
You have never played Splinterlands? click HERE and get started!
WHAT IS SPLINTERLANDS?
Splinterlands is an autobattle digital card game on the Hive blockchain. The playing cards are NFTs, therefore they belong to you and you can trade, transfer or delegate them as you please. All you need to move cards and other ingame assets around is a Hive Keychain login. There are three types of battles you can play: ranked battles, brawls and tournaments. Every battle you win brings rewards, including SPS and/or loot chests containing cards, potions, packs and merits. The ingame currency is DEC and the governance token is SPS. For gladiator packs you need to earn merits through brawls and loot chests. Tournaments can bring you stacks of SPS if you play well. There are several third party card markets, including Peakmonsters.com and the best places to learn to play are PeakD and YouTube.
I hope you enjoyed this post and I will see you on the battlefield!
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