Splinterlands Social Media Challenge: Ranking all new 6 Riftwatchers Summoners!

I want to give something back to the hive community with my posts. Beneficiary for this post ist @jeanpi1908.

Note: I am currently a gold league player with mostly silver/gold league cards. My knowledge of higher leagues is thus limited and my opinion is based on my league experiences.

Intro

Yesterday in the Splinterlands Town Hall all six new summoners for the upcoming Riftwatchers expansion were revealed.
The new summoners seem to be very similar to the Dice summoners as they all give their minions one of the more exotic abilities. All of them are 4 mana epic cards and all the artworks are very well done.

6. Dallan

I think this card is a very clear last place. In my opinion, cripple is one of the worst abilities in the game, similar to dispel or snare. It is of course better for a minion to have some ability than to have none, but I never watch out for these abilities.

We all know that Waka Spiritblade is not that strong of a card, but that one costs 3 mana and gives every minion poison, a far better ability. If Waka is already struggling, we can imagine what a summoner with 4 mana and a worse ability will look like.
Additionally, compared to Thaddius Brood this card loses in every way. It is very clear who you will want to choose with both costing 4 mana.

I think Ben Brode (back then head of Hearthstone) once said that there have to be bad cards in order for players to understand what a good card is.
This is a true statement. Cards only exist in relation to each other, so inevitably some will suck, some will be op and most will have their place somewhere in the middle.

One positive thing to note though is that cripple will no longer be able to be cleansed in the future. This weakness crippled (😜) cripple in the past, so I am glad they are fixing it.

5. Aquatus

Aquatus is the new water summoner and also does not look very good to me. Backfire is not that bad of an ability, but it requieres a lot of speed and/or abilities like flying or dodge to work consistenly.

While I do think that the water splinter has to offer lots of fast minions and some with the correct abilities (Djinn Oshannus, Phantom of the Abyss, Pelacor Bandit), I think the biggest killer for this card is the fact that it is in direct competition with Kelya.
Whenever the water splinter is open, you run the risk of walking right into a Kelya, which means that all of your good cards may also appear on your opponents side, but with a +1 speed boost and +1 armor. That means that your minions are almost guaranteed to be worse off in terms of dodging an enemy attack.

It may have some usecases I am not seeing right now, and you probably can be successful playing this card, but I think you can always do better when picking Kelya. I do not dislike this card, I just think it will have a hard time given its competition.

4. Sthispa

Next up is Sthispa, the dragon summoner I dont know how to pronounce. Luckily this is a blog post and not a video, but I am really curious on how to say her name.

I think this summoner is only slightly better than the water summoner. Basicly it has the same potential and the same problems.
Phase is clearly a good ability and not a lot of minions have it, so by that metric it is not a bad summoner ability. But in order for phase to work you need fast minions with dodge or flying. Dragon has the advantage of not only having a lot of flying dragons, but also of being able to use cards from any open splinter.
That is why I am rating her slightly higher than Aquatus.

But the problems are similar. With 4 mana you could also play Quix the Devious, who will decrease the speed of your minions by 1. Then you run into similar problems as I described above, and then there still is Byzantine Kitty.

I am also not sure that counting on phase for your team is a game winning strategy. Yes, magic is the dominant damage type in the game, but phase only weakens one aspect of it. The ability to be able to dodge magic attacks is only the first step, it has to actually dodge it to bring value.
And if no magic minions are in the enemy team, the ability becomes pretty much useless.

I do think though that this card could help counter specific matchups, for example Obsidian. Earth has lots of strong magic minions with low speed, mostly just 1 (Mycelia, Goblin Psychic).

3. Skargore

Skargore is the new fire summoner that looks like a bearded dwarf woman, which could be a nod to Lord of the Rings (the dwarf women there supposedly had beards, which led to the believe that there are no dwarf women).

I think this is the first of these 6 summoners that could be actually playable. Except for Yodin Zaku, the fire splinter is dominated by melee summoners and the melee playstyle, so a summoner giving all minions enrage is further cementing that role. Still, it has some use for ranged and magic minions as well, at least enhancing their speed whilst damaged.

I see some potencial with cards big front line tanks like Grum, Forgotten One and Tusk the Wide, perhaps even smaller ones like Antoid Platoon. All of these could greatly benefit from enrage.
The main problem I am seeing though, is the fact that enrage will for sure be useful for the current frontline minion, but not for everyone behind it.
The minion last in line also has a fairly high chance of getting hit, because of all the (mostly melee) sneak cards. This could bring a huge benefit to Tenyii Striker, who is also a melee sneak card (so would benefit 100% from enrage) and already has dodge. He could become a beast after being hit.
For all the minions in between, enrage does not do much at all until they arrive at the front position, although there are lots of opportunity, snipe and blast minions, which could help overcome this supposed weakness.

Lastly, Skargore doesn't do much for cards that already have enrage, such as Magnor and Radiated Brute. Although, in lower leagues, when the ability is not unlocked yet, it is still useful.

I do really like this summoner, I just dont know for sure how strong she will be, but my guess is that she is a viable alternative to Tarsa (who is not that great either) and probably will be stronger in lower leagues (up to silver league).

2. Fernheart

Fernheart to me is the most interesting card, because I am a huge fan of ranged attack minions.
Fernheart of the earth splinter is one of two summoners who is getting two abilities instead of one, the other one being life. This is probably due to the fact that the chaos summoners (Obsidian and General Sloan) of these splinters had only one ability, while all the others got two. So this time it is in reverse, and in my opinion this alone lets these two summoners stand out from the rest.

Compared to other earth summoners, Fernheart is in no direct competition to Obsidian, the most commonly used summoner in Earth, or to Mylor Crowling, who I see sometimes. They are just focusing on completly different team building strategies, which is very good, because you get more choices on what team to build with, rather then letting your summoners compete for the same spot.
Compared to Lyanna, for one more mana he gives the same +1 HP and close range, which lets ranged minions attack at the front position. This is the single biggest weakness of ranged minions and one of the reasons why magic is so powerful in this game.

Several good synergy cards come to my mind: First, there are Iza the Fanged and Venari Seedsmith, who both share the ability scavenger. Usually they are both able to build up a lot of HP over the course of the game, but when its finally time to move to the front position, they can no longer attack.
I used to combine them with Djinn Biljka or Dr. Blight and their camouflage ability (which sometimes works really good), but the possibility to them becoming a tank that can attack in the later half of the battle is quite exciting.
Cornealus is also a very interesting card to consider here, as he is just a big ranged tank that usually cant attack when he is up front. With Fernheart, you can decide to put him either in the back or in the front, and the synergy with Queen Mycelias amplify is great.
Mitica Headhunter is another strong card, which would just get a nice bonus with close range.
Same goes for Hunter Jarx, who I dont really use, but maybe will with this summoner.
It may even be viable to play War Chaang in the front position with this summoner, since it will be able to attack twice then.

I am very excited for this one. Can't wait to try it out.

1. Ilthain

Ilthain is the new life summoner and the strongest of the new summoners in my opinion. For 4 mana you get +1 speed and return fire.

There is a saying in splinterlands that speed is king, and that has a reason. High speed and magic damage are probably the best basic stats a minion can have.
This is due to the fact that speed

1. determines who attacks first and
2. high speed increases the chance of dodging any attack (magic only with phase).

No good card is of any use if it is killed before it can do anything. Minions with high speed, flying, dodge or phase profit even more from +1 speed given by summoners, and minions with low speed become at least viable.
Lastly, it is always better for a card to give +1 of anything than -1, because a minion cannot go below 1 speed or 1 HP.
The speed buff alone makes this a good card.
Return fire is a very good bonus on top that will help in any matchup where at least one ranged minion is in the opponents team and completly counter your opponent if he built his whole team around it.
Ilthain therefore is a direct counter to Yodin, General Sloan, Fernheart and Prince Rennyn (but I am not focusing on wild cards here).

I see potential synergies with all cards that increase or decrease speed, have flying, dodge, blind or amplify.
That includes: Time Mage, Pelacor Conjurer, Uriel, Kralus, Spirit Hoarder, Supply Runner, Chaos Agent, Dax Paragon and Venari Spellsmith.

Especially Pelacor Conjurer in synergy with Dax Paragon could be used in low mana games to reflect magic and ranged damage.
With Time Mage and Spirit Hoarder, the Conjurer could also become a dodge champion (at max lvl it even gets phase).

Cards like Stitch Leetch, Uraeus and Celestial Harpy could also profit from the speed.

As a closing comment I must admit, that even though I love this card and think that life really deserves to get the strongest summoner for once, but I also think this will be the final nail in the coffin for General Sloan.
As said above, I am a huge fan of ranged decks. I managed to play General Sloan with success in certain matchups, but with one of her biggest counter in the same splinter, I dont think it will make sense to ever really play Sloan again. You just always risk to get completly wiped out. Maybe you can risk it when enough splinters are open, but then again in the end she is just not that strong.

R.I.P. General Sloan, you had to die so that life can LIVE.

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