TRAITS MAPPING : LIFE SPLINTER MELEE CARD

The arrival of Riftwatchers and Soulbound cards have given new colors into the Modern battle format, especially for the high and high-end mana range. And Life Splinter itself is no exception. I saw Life Splinter as balanced faction, where we can flexibly deploy combination of melee, ranged, or magic cards. Life Splinter are supported with variety roles of melee. The first melee card to come in mind would be Shieldbearer who've been the flagship and most frequently deployed melee from Life Splinter. But we will saw through this review, that Life Splinter have other potential melee cards, which work coherently with other cards.

But before we started, just for reminder, 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

Number of Card by Rarity and 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	1	1	2	2	2	2	1		1
Rare		1				1		1		1
Epic
Legendary							1				1

Before I continue on the distribution of the collection, let's take recollection on the mana range grouping to ease assigning each 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

Life Splinter melee cards have an even distribution which span across 1 up to 11 mana. We can see clearly the cards are concentrated on the mid mana range. High and high-end mana are available but very limited, only 4 cards in total (some of them are the addition coming from Rifwatcher and Soulbound edition). With this profile, Life Splinter seemed to be more versatile to be deployed on battle with medium mana cap.

The rarity tier also looks standar, with two third are normal type, followed by four rare type, and lastly two legendary type. Legendary and rare filled the high and high-end mana range, which means Life Splinter will be limited to melee cards with lower mana on Lost Legendaries or Rise Of The Commons ruleset.

Traits Mapping

Similar to melee cards collection from other splinter. Life Splinter gained much of its collection from Chaos Legion editions, which filled mostly the low and mid mana range. Suprisingly this might be the only splinter with the least melee from Untamed edition (there are only 5 cards in total).

The first impression come to mind about Level 1 chart was the great number of cards with armor traits. There are 11 armored cards which span from the low, mid, up to the high-end mana range. This could be the only collection with the most armored cards so far. This imply for 2 things, first this cards would be fitter to face against melee and ranged cards; second the availability of armor would most likely offset other parameter of the cards. This theory was somehow true. The fact is Life Splinter health-mana ratio averaging quite sparsely around 0.50 up to 1.25 tick; this is almost similar with Water Splinter (which half of its collection are armored cards), but lower than Earth Splinter which health-mana ratio averaging around 0.75 up to 1.25 tick (yet it only have 5 armored cards).

Suprisingly the health-mana ratio are are very indifference between low mana and high mana cards. Take for example Vulguine (No.2) and Sunkai Harvester (No.6) which have health-mana ratio lower than the high mana cards like Shieldbearer (No.15) or Drybone Barbarian (No.16).

Damage-mana ratio and speed level seemed normal compared to other splinter. Damage-mana ratio gathered around 0.25 to 0.50 tick, while speed mostly are still on red nodes. Number of abilities looks exception having 4 cards started with dual abilities.

The large number of normal type cards should helped push the collection to growth far beyond expectation, but the fact is not entirely true. The low and mid mana cards (No.1 to No.7) have turn into yellow nodes and entered into the CENTER and even EAST quadrant. The high and high-end mana cards grow less significantly, as they only reached the left side of SOUTH quadrant; and yet there are only few growth on their armor traits.

Even the damage-mana ratio and speed grow only decently. Other than the low mana cards, most of the cards only managed to barely reached 0.75 tick. Jared Scar (No.14) are the exception, having 1.0 damage-mana ratio as a 7 mana card is extraordinarily powerful. Speed are limited to yellow nodes, with only Dumacke Exile (No.10) barely reached blue nodes with 5 speed. This was in fact the slowest melee collection compared to Fire, Water, or Earth Splinter.

From all the downside, we have no doubt that the number of abilities of each cards are plentiful. There are 9 cards with triple abilities and 2 cards with quad abilities. We just have to turn to the next section to see what combination these cards provide.

Abilities Mapping

Typical to other splinters, the melee cards of Life Splinter abilities also possessing mostly Tanker Abilities, followed by Striker Abilities, and only handful of Support Abilities.

Target Altering Abilities, which lead by Reach then Opportunity and Sneak, still become the most favorite abilities for melee cards. It spread less evenly, as only low to mid mana cards possessed those abilities. True Strike appear twice, one of them possessed by Jared Scar (No.14). And then seeing this card had Piercing, I guess this card is a perfect anti-tank battering ram. Knock Out also appear twice, but unfortunately there are no cards possessing Stun.

Tanker Abilities are dominated by Flying and then followed by a couple of Defensive Abilities (Shield, Void, and Void Shield). Its quite rare to have Retaliate come up twice, but they looks menacing. Crystal Jaguar although only costing 4 mana is a tough card with 4 armor and 7 health, and decorated with Thorns + Retaliate would send front row Striker of opponent into nightmare. Drybone Barbarian seemed more like a berserker cards. The 12 health might looks huge, and 6 damage on Retaliate is painful. But risking 9 mana to maximize this card in the front-row would be a strategy more suitable for high-roller.

Heal should also be credited. Both are owned by huge Tanker cards, Imperial Knight (No.13) and Uriel The Purifier (No.18); both of which will generate 3 and 4 health each round.

Personal Thought

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

'1. Crystal Jaguar & Grandmaster Rathe

As I've mentioned previously Crystal Jaguar is unique for it had the dual melee counters, Thorns and Retaliate. Fortunately having 4 armor and 7 health for just 4 mana is just the mix you needed to utilize these abilities. I also find that this card matched very much with Grandmaster Rathe as the summoner. The +1 armor buff won't be hurt, and the Void Shield would be a guarantee in the face of magic cards, and lastly Amplify just suit very well with Thorns.

'2. Luminous Eagle

Luminous Eagle in my opinion had some of the best combination to be follow-up Striker. The 4 speed could earn it earlier order to strike with Shatter, and then open chances for the slower front-row Tanker to deal the grand damage. Flying could protect against ranged card with Snipe. And lastly Knock Out would be an optional addition if your front-row Tanker possess Stun.

'3.

Shieldbearer have been some of the most favorite Tanker card for Life Splinter, even after the coming of Chaos Legion edition. The main reason might be the large initial armor and health combined with the Taunt ability. I think the two additional abilities are very relevant for Shieldbearer. Its become a total bastion not only against mele but also ranged cards.