TEMPORAL MASTER : ABSOLUTE MOMENT

"I've never seen such wonder!" Larsa exclaim in awe. "This was made a long time ago. A sanctuary where our brother would dedicate their mind to study the temporal knowledge" said Master Oleg. Some of Oleg's hair have gone whitening, and small wrinkle could be seen from his cheeks. He looks mature enough, but his physics looks tough. They both walk through the hallway, step-up the stair, and past into small alley. "Help me move all this debris" said Oleg. Beyond the debris, a wooden door stand solid. The door looks very thick. Oleg pushed the door with both hands and enter the room. He threw 7 sun-bulb into the air, where it floats and bright light shine from it.

Larsa gasped, his eyes widen. "What is this contraption, master? I've never seen such" asked Larsa. "It's no ordinary contraption. It's the time enigma. The ultimate tool that bind the gravitation energy of this universe" he replied and then continue "This is it, this is where you will be tested, and after here it will be our beginning" said Oleg. "What should I do?" "You will save someone. She was lost a century before. We will bring her home". Still in a lot of confusion, Larsa stare and nodded to his master.

Oleg took momentarily silent and then preach into Larsa "Larsa, we at first though Time is universal and infinite thing in this world. We saw Time as a whole through the universe eyes. Only after all these years, I finally understand one very important thing. Time is just a Relative matter; it run faster in one place and run slower in other place. But one thing is certain. You always grow old in every places you live. You sense and experience that every moment you've live. Moment is an Absolute matter!" (to be continued ...)

Pros & Cons

Temporal Master is a fair low-mana magic card good as fill up on any vacant row. With 3 mana cost, it's very flexible to be deployed in battle with less than 25 mana cap. With its stats (1 damage and 2 health), it's similar to most 2 mana magic card; but only it cost 1 extra mana which make for the Recharge ability. In summary this card looks quite simple. But we will see later, how the abilities make the card little bit tricky. So let's see the pros and cons first:

1. Simple card with decent damage and health. Just like other low mana magic card, it's doesn't need deep thought to deploy this card.	1. Recharge ability are very tricky to be used. At the wrong momentum, the triple damage could be wasted if hit card with 1 health left. In addition the card alternate attack only on even round; meaning without sufficient endurance, the card might destroyed before it release the strike.
2. Among card with Recharge ability, Temporal Master have the lowest mana cost. Even Insidious Warlock which cost 5 mana, still have 1 damage at Level 1. This somehow make Temporal Master a powerful Striker at low mana.	2. Recharge ability and low speed could turn into quite a challenge. Low speed means it will strike later by turn order, which means opponent health might be already depleted by other cards. This will cause the triple damage become wasted again.
3. With only 3 mana, Temporal Master start with only 1 magic damage and damage grow rather late (at level 4). But 1 damage has its own benefit. Any magic reduction ability would be useless (1 damage is the least damage allowed), and then this card still strike with full triple damage. In the other side, it would be tremendous to have Summoner with magic damage booster (sadly there are none currently in Life Splinter collection).	-
*Reference for Archetype term : Striker --> Superior Damage / Tanker --> Superior Health / Ninja --> Superior Speed.

Market Price Analysis

The current price of Regular foil is $0.27 and gold foil is $3.89. This make regular-gold price ratio around 1:14-15. For Rare category this is a high ratio considering it only needs around 4 to 5 times regular card compared to gold foil to be at the same level. Although the regular price chart looks more stable, while the gold price chart shows some downtrend; the gold foil price are somewhat still too expensive, and for safe choice it would be better to purchase regular foil.

Progression Analysis

You can follow Temporal Master growth by following the white circle and line above. We can see that this card have primary growth on health. This growth is very beneficial, considering magic card (especially with Recharge ability) will need a lot of endurance to avoid eliminated at charging round. At level 5, 5 health for 3 mana are very solid. The damage addition at level 4 also make a powerful addition. At level 6, Temporal master will gain Knockout ability. You will realize that Recharge ability make Knockout ability under-utilized as Knockout will only triggered every 2 (two) round. And yet there are a lot of cards with Knockout ability (49 cards as per Splinterlands database). But this could be made by design as well, as we found there are other card costing 3 mana or less where a reversion happened when Knockout is attained (take for example Igor Darkspear and Gremlin Blaster).
In overall considering the cost and benefit of leveling Temporal Master, the best goal would be reached Level 5, and Level 6 could be pursue if you have spare budget.

Traits Mapping

You can find guide to read the traits map through this link and the update link here. As per above chart, you can find Temporal Master on reference no.4. As we see in the Level 1 chart, most of Life Splinter's magic card are crowding out in the south-west quadrant, and most start with only single ability. This make Temporal Master quite indifferent in term of stats. One thing to note, in Temporal Master are Striker type rather than Tanker type. And this archetype seemed to get accentuated with the level progression. At max level, Temporal Master health grow tremendously entering the south quadrant becoming the 2nd best, while damage also grow fairly and still better than most cards. But this growth costing Temporal Master with less abilities than other.

Rulesets To Be Watched

Ruleset	Strategy
	Explosive Weaponry could cause great side damage if combined with triple damage from Recharge ability.
	Temporal Master strike once every 2 (two) rounds, therefore needed a lot endurance. Noxious Fumes could mess up Temporal Master attack timing by chipping away its already low health. With Earthquake, the same thing would happened, since Temporal Master got no armor at all.
	Although Weak Magic erased the essence of using magic card; with Recharge ability the damage might great enough to cause tear in the enemies armor.
	It's better for large damage to launch early in the Round to chuck off larger health. While Temporal Master had a constant speed of 2; Reverse Speed will make Temporal Master at least come earlier than the rest of the cards.

Here's one of my battle experience with Temporal Master in my formation. Click Here for the battle link. The battle have 58 mana cap, with Little Leagues ruleset (which of course make the mana cap become useless). For my formation, I used:

Summoner : Mother Khala
1st Row : Xenith Monk
2nd Row : Sunkai Harvester
3rd Row : Stitch Leech
4th Row : Time Mage
5th Row : Grenadier
6th Row : Temporal Master

My opponent formation:

Summoner : Thaddius Brood
1st Row : Riftwing
2nd Row : Uraeus
3rd Row : Revealer
4th Row : Life Sapper
5th Row : Soul Strangler
6th Row : Weirding Warrior

I choose to focus my striking power into the front row. Only Stitch Leech which I reserved for it Sneak ability to strike the last row and also as backup sub-tank. My back row are rather weak, but with Mother Khala health boost and Time Mage Slow ability, my hope is to get the first strike and crumble down opponent's front row. Luckily opponent use Thaddius Brood which rather less efficient, since my magic card have 1 damage at most. Their striking power are quite dangerous, and Riftwing as their tank might be a challenge if its managed to sway much of incoming attack.

I believe this is one of the luck battle. All my cards hit right toward Riftwing and crushed it in just the first round. And what more Leech managed to destroy Weirding Warrior. Uraeus doesn't get chance to strike Temporal Master, and instead throw the last hit toward Xenith Monk. And it's all thanks to Time Mage with its Slow ability. It's an equal trade-off between.

The tide of the battle turning side to me again. And again Leech show a great performance by striking down Soul Strangler, while the rest of the team strike into Uraeus. Speed become a winning factor, as opponent got no chance to even eliminated Harvester. Now opponent now down to 2 cards, while my card still intact at 5 cards.

At Round 3, Harvester took the final blow. And then the remaining card launch a full-scale attack, defeating Revealer and put a blow into Life Sapper. By the end of Round 3, the fate is already sealed for me to come victorious.

Base on my battle experience above, the battle was ended even before Round 4 started. During the battle, Temporal Master only strike once at Round 2, and the strike hit Uraeus which only left with 1 health. The triple damage become wasted and a single strike seemed make no difference whether Temporal Master is there or not. Temporal Master are more efficient when the battle span for a long round. Especially when opponent employ a powerful tanker in front row, while the remainder back row are Striker with low health.

In addition, survivability and positioning also proof a challenge. It's lucky thing opponent didn't employ card with Sneak ability. Positioning in the mid row might be a better decision; at least by putting a sub-tanker in front of it.

Notes: Final word here's a bonus battle where I managed to utilized Temporal to pack 3 magic damage and the battle was ended with perfect victory (no death)