TRAITS MAPPING : DEATH SPLINTER MELEE CARD

As usual, just as a reminder before we started, you can find the essential guide to read my traits mapping post here:
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@kid.miniatures/traits-mapping-update-1
https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@kid.miniatures/traits-mapping-update-2
https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@kid.miniatures/traits-mapping-update-3

We now have finally arrive on the last basic Splinter faction. Death Splinter have been notable because of Cursed Windeku (No. 14) as their prominent melee figure. By far it might be the most frequently encountered melee, which justified for its Anti-Tanker aspect, the huge health and Thorns. But beyond it, Death Splinter have provided some of the most unique and specialized melee cards. You can get the fully armored Ever Hungry Skull (No.12), or Silent Sha-vi (No. 10) with its deadly Sneak, and also the menacing The Gorlodon. All these cards have decorated the melee collection into something remarkable. So sit tight, we gonna watch and find out!

Number of Card by Rarity and Mana

As usual before we continue, please familiarize yourself with the mana range grouping used to ease mentioning any particular cards.

Mana Range	Range Term
0 - 3 mana	Low Mana
4 - 7 mana	Mid Mana
8 - 10 mana	High Mana
11+ mana	High-End Mana

Rarity	1 Mana	2 Mana	3 Mana	4 Mana	5 Mana	6 Mana	7 Mana	8 Mana	9 Mana	10 Mana	11 Mana
Normal	2	2	3	2	3	2	1	1	1		1
Rare						1	1
Epic									1
Legendary								1		1

Death Splinter surprisingly have an immensive 23 cards in total (it even surpass Fire Splinter which only had 22 melee cards). The cards are well spread from the lowest 1 mana up to the highest 11 mana. The number of cards are concentrated mainly on the mid-mana range, which means this melee collection will have more alternatives for the medium mana cap battle. There's also a quite number of cards on the high mana range, and only single cards for 10 and 11 mana. Chaos Legion editions have contributed more on the lower mana cards, while Untamed available mostly on the higher mana cards.

The mana distribution of Death Splinter might have a very similar figure to Fire Splinter, but the rarity are differ so much. Death Splinter far more limited number of Rare, Epic, and Legendary. But although they are available for the mid and high mana ranger, they are not exclusive, as we can still find some Normal rarity cards there (even Night Ghouls which cost 11 mana is Normal type card). This cause Death Splinter not only affordable in price, but also more accessible when ruleset like Lost Legendaries or Rise Of The Commons is active.

Traits Mapping

You might find that most of these cards are not easily obtainable, since most of them come from Untamed editions. The Riftwatchers and Soulbound editions provide 2 additional cards each, which seemed to fill some gap especially on the high mana range where mostly consist of Untamed editions.

This collection showed a very dispersed health-mana ratio spanning across the SOUTH-WEST quadrant to SOUTH quadrant, covering between 0.25 up to 1.50 tick. This melee collection is the most dispersed Splinter compared to other Splinter, even it has some of the lowest ratio. But this is due to several cards have an absolute armor traits, like Marrow's Ghost (No. 5) or Ever Hungry Skull (No. 12). The good news, we could find balance between the low and high mana cards among the low and high health-mana ratio. For example we could Pelacor Deceiver (No. 11) costing 5 mana on the highest ratio and yet there's also Undead Badge (No. 4) costing 2 mana on the low-side ratio.

There are 10 cards having armor traits, which is quite many if compared to melee from other Splinter. The armor value also quite huge as some cards solely rely on armor rather than health. Speed also looks much better since almost half of it are yellow nodes.

The damage-mana ratio looks fair with nothing particularly remarkable. The cards still gathered on range between 0.25 up to 0.50 tick. Abilities looks decent, with most of the cards started with only single ability.

With so much Normal type cards, the max level chart shows significant shift. Health-mana ratio now shifted mostly into the SOUTH quadrant. Unfortunately there's only few cards able to passed into the EAST or SOUTH-EAST quadrant (except the four most lowest mana cards).

Damage-mana ratio grow in decent rate. We could see most of them reached the upper side of the SOUTH quadrant; but there's still quite number of cards left behind in the lower side. Most of these are clearly the high mana cards, but surprisingly we could also find some the high-end mana have better damage-mana ratio. This point to The Gorlodon (No. 20) and Undead Rex (No. 21), both having 6 melee damage. There is also Possessed Puppet (No. 20), which due to its Double Strike, if combined will deal twice higher ratio.

Speed grow in quite number having a total of 6 blue nodes and only 4 red nodes remaining. When we though the progression already expended on parameter only, abilities give so much surprise. We could find half of the cards now have triple abilities, and there are an addition of 1 cards with penta abilities.

Abilities Mapping

Striker Abilities and Tanker Abilities are still the prominent abilities for melee collection. But compared to Fire Splinter which are equal between Striker and Tanker, Death Splinter have more number of Tanker Abilities.

From Striker Abilities, we could see the Target Altering still dominate with Reach become the most one, followed by Sneak and Opportunity. But they are mostly available only on cards with less than 5 mana. Gorlodon (No. 20) is the only with the highest mana to possess Reach.

Its quite surprising to find Knock Out is the only Damage Booster Ability available, while in other Splinter melee we could easily find abilities such as Fury, Oppress, Giant Killer, etc. Blast is very rare to be seen in melee, and yet Death Splinter have such ability on Nightmare (No. 18) (Fire Splinter also have one on Exploding Rats). But Blast on melee is less effective since hitting the front row will only deal blast damage to single back row (compare this to ranged card with Snipe which deal front and back blast damage).

The Tanker Abilities mainly dominated by Flying ability, all 5 are spread evenly from the lowest to the highest mana cards. The other Defensive Abilities include Shield and Void. Death Splinter melee also had the most Taunt ability, but unfortunately its only available on high mana cards, the Dark Ha'on (No. 22) and Night Ghoul (No.23). Pelacor Deceiver (No. 11) and Phantasm (No. 15) are very similar each other, with exception to Phantasm having higher speed. But in my opinion Backfire would be preferrable for high speed cards, since it has better chances to trigger.

Support Abilities are only handful and again unfortunately most of them available to mid and high mana cards, leaving them less efficient.

Personal Thought

This final section, I give my personal thought for several card mentioned below.

'1. Cursed Slimeball

This is the best card you need as a cannon fodder. Having 4 health for 1 mana is a very great bargain. But the cutting edge come from the Redemption ability which the ultimate end of having cannon fodder.

'2. Wily Coyotian

Wily Coyotian started with decent parameter and consistently grow into a fully raw cards (cards which depend mostly on status parameter only). At max level this card is very powerful having 3 armor and 6 health. In addition Phase provide contingency plan to parry magic attack.

'3. Pelacor Deceiver

Pelacor Deceiver is a side-by-side Cursed Windeku as primary Tanker for Death Splinter. The only matter is Cursed Windeku might be preferable for its 2 melee damage, and Thorns which surely effective to chip the front-row of opponent. I think Pelacor Deceiver turns effective starting from Level 6, where it obtained Backfire. Backfire will get much leverage from the high speed and Flying.