Battle Challenge: Life Sapper

He sucks the life right out of you

It hurts your enemy while strengthening itself. The Life Sapper is a must have card for your death deck for every league whether you are a beginner or seasoned pro.

Life sappers are in between life and death. One side of their body is ghostly while the other is alive and well. They are neither fully living nor dead. They feed off the energies around them, and simply being within view of a Life Sapper will make you feel sick and weak. They siphon energy from their victims, slowly weakening and sickening them while simultaneously healing themselves.

_{Splinterlands Lore}

Life Sapper

• Splinter: Death
• Rarity: Rare
• Edition: Chaos Legion
• Mana Cost: 3

Statistics and Abilities

Life Sapper starts with low health and and magic attack. Level it as soon as possible, for the increased speed and additional health is crucial in to protect it against snipers and opportunists. If maxed out, it leaves with a bang. Redemption causes one damage to all opposing monsters if Life Sapper goes down.

How to use it

For your average match place it in the middle to protect against sneak, snipe and opportunity. It shines in blast rule-set for every damage dealt (including blast) to opposing monsters strengthens its health.

With only 3 mana cost it can turn the tables in a low mana match.

The life leech ability gives you an edge in the "healed out" ruleset as it is one of the few monsters that can build up its health again and even gain additional max health.

It does not perform well at higher mana caps. Strong opportunists can get to it before it can build up health and the costly void armor keeps it from gaining strength.

My Battle Setup

The Ruleset

I was faced with a 13 mana cap no ranged attacks brawl match in CL only silver Fray. The allowed splinters Fire, Water, and Death in such a setting leave only few options. So I resorted to a standard Death combination.

The Lineup

I put Thaddius Brood as summoner, under these conditions he was the only choice for Death and yet he is perfect for the job. In a low mana match every point of health is important and he takes one from each opposing monster right at the beginning.

For 6 mana the Cursed Windeku brings 10 health with good attack (3 melee) and speed (3) for that price. It should take the enemy at least 2 rounds to get through it while the thorns ability does extra damage to any opposing melee tank.

The Life Sapper supports my tank. Being at same speed it strikes before the Windeku and while the tank protects it from the front it builds up health. In a low mana match the chances of encountering void shield, especially in this fray, are slim to nothing.

At the rear I placed the 0 mana cost Corpse Fiend to distract any opportunist and protect at least one hit from sneakers.

The Fight

Watch the Battle

In this case my plan worked perfectly. Life Sapper started draining the opposing gladiator's health while Cursed Windeku held it off and got rid of the armor. Once that was gone even the tank heal could not help anymore.

Conclusion

The Life Sapper is an essential card for low mana Death teams. As a rare Chaos Legion card it is affordable for buy and rent and is one of the first cards a new player should add to their collection.

Especially in bronze league it is part of many lineups so if you want to keep them rewards coming, do not play the starter card but call one your own as soon as possible.

Special-Opps wants you

We are looking for active players to fill the novice, bronze, and gold foil frays who will contribute at least 100 DEC per week to buildings. Our Guild has an active Discord chat with channels for all the important topics. We like to talk shop but also all sorts of things, from good card deals to resources and strategy and sometimes also off-topic chatter.

Membership rewards include weekly card giveaway drawings and free card packs for long term memberships.

Apply here for Special Opps

_{Pictures based on screenshots from the game
Guild-Buildings screenshot from baronstoolbox
Recruitment video created and published by @appbap - used with permission}