What's up everyone! It's been quite a long time since I've made a post mainly because of lack of time in my medical residency program. With the release of Grandmaster Rathe, it's quite the time to start brainstorming about the new Chaos Legion Legendary Summoner!

Abilities

GrandMaster is a 6 mana Legendary Summoner that belongs to the Life Element that provides 3 abilities to the summoned monsters:

• +1 Armor
• Void Armor: Combined with +1 Armor, magic damage dealers can no longer one-shot backline monsters.
• Amplify will be our focus on this blog post:

Amplify

Amplify increase by 1 the damage from Thorns, Return Fire and Magic Reflect

Each monster with one of these abilities profits greatly from Grandmaster Rathe Buff. So will be exploring monsters from both the Wild and Modern format:

Life Monsters

• Thorns

Crystal Jaguar isn't your usual main tank despite getting thorns at level 4 but finds its place in little league ruleset or super sneak when placed on last position with 1+1 Armor, 6 health and 3 damage from Thorns

Crystal Werewolf is usually played for its Silence ability but similar to Crystal Jaguar it can be used in little league and super sneak rulesets.

• Return Fire

Shieldbearer is the only monster with return fire in the life element and gains this ability at his last level 8 (Diamond League+)

Still, Shieldbearer benefits greatly from the Void Armor as it struggles against magic damage

• Magic Reflect

Pelacor Conjurer one of best Chaos Legion Reward card that gains Magic Reflect at level 4 playable starting from the Silver League. With flying, +1 Armor, 5 Health can be a decent tank against magic damage.

Blinding Reflector not the best tank but can be used alongside Pelacor Conjuger in the second position if your most probably faced against the OP Magic Water Cards:

Enjoy watching Ruler of the Seas taking it's own life on the first turn after taking a taste of its own medecine!

SilverShield Paladin is a great tank on the Beta format and benefit greatly from both Void Armor and Amplify when faced against magic damage.

Neutral Monsters

While life monsters have some decent Magic Reflect Monsters, let's not forget some of the most OP neutral cards that are spammed by the top leaderboard players on Gold/Diamond League.

• Lord Ariantus

Lord Ariantus, known as Lord A-- by the enemy, is living up to his name as a monster who takes forever to take down!

Not only it's extremely tanky with Shield and Void but also spanks pretty hard both magic and melee attacks dealers with both Magic Reflect at level 2 and Thorns at level 3.

Did we say Amplify earlier? so it's deal minimum of 3 damage to melee attacks monsters and 2 damage to magic attacks dealers.

• Cornealus

We were talking about Lord A and how tanky it is, add Cornealus on second position and enjoy watching enemy team suiciding to both of them!

He got all 3 reflections in addition to a freaking Heal and ready to slap the enemy way harder with archery and amplified reflections.

Cornealus shines in both blast and Target practice rulesets with all reflections and sustain.

• Almo Cambio

A go-to on Poison ruleset thanks to its immunity and plays pretty well against magic with Phase and Magic Reflect at later stages.

Can go as a main tank due to its high health (even better when you got tank heal) and decent dodge chance (5-6 speed) or second position to attract Snipe monsters and return fire.

Blind Pick or Counter Pick

Grandmaster Rathe is more likely a Counter Pick to Magic Summoners:

• Alric Strombringer
• Delwin Dragonscale
• Obsidian
• Valnamor

With Void Armor every tank will be hard to kill with Magic in addition to numerous Life and Neutral monsters gaining Magic Reflect.
If enemy is abusing those summoners in his last battles, Rathe is a must pick!

I hope you did enjoy the reading and glad to be back to posting after such a long time. If you haven't joined Splinterlands yet, feel free to use this Link