Summoner Spotlight - THADDIUS BROOD

Chaos Legion is days away from launch and the official card list has been released. The list may be subject to balance adjustments and some of the cards may see changes before the final release, but it gives us an idea where the expansion is heading and what type of gameplay we can expect for each Splinter from now on, with the new Standard format. You can find the full list of cards here: https://www.splintertalk.io/@flauwy/splinterlands-chaos-legion-all-cards-revealed-on-testserver-names-artworks-stats-and-skills

New Summoner - THADDIUS BROOD

Today, I'm going to invite you to focus on Death and the new summoner. As of the time of this writing, you can see it's set to be a 4 Mana cost card that will debuff enemy monsters in both their magic attack AND health power. But what does this mean for Death?

Old boys rotating out

To understand Thaddius' possible strengths and weakness in what's to come forward, we first need to realize the other changes happening to Death, namely the fact that there are three other Summoners that are rotating out; Zintar Mortalis, Jarlax the Undead, and the Crypt Mancer.

First thing that comes to mind is that Death loses a lot of focus on debuffing the enemy melee units from now on without these summoners, which has been for some time one of Death's strengths coming from the earlier sets.

New Squad in Town

But, when we take a look at the Summoners that will be available from the most recent sets, we begin to understand there was already a heavy focus going towards countering Magic with Mimosa Nightshade and Owster Rotwell, and Archers with Contessa L'ament -- basically, a heavy focus on countering ranged units.

Thaddius adds to that, but also brings in a little health debuff that may be very useful when dealing with both the enemy's back line of attack and front line of defense.

Gameplay Utility

I foresee Thadius to be a card of reactive play, just like most of the other Death summoners. I will likely not use the card to play aggressively, but the opposite. Just like Owster, I anticipate it to be played to build a passive strategy that counters the opponent's strategy. One example I can give to illustrate what I am saying here is what happens with the way I play Owster in the current Bronze meta. It's about punishing Magic spam, really.

Believe it or not, it took me exactly one match to find the perfect setup for this example and that goes to show how much the meta is stuck in one place right now, and how desperately the game needs changes. This example is also perhaps one of the most viable strategies to climb out of Bronze, at least from what I've had the opportunity to test.

I hope this illustrates the point. Basically, you don't need that much damage, when you have good defenses, and a targeted offense -- notice how my Death Elemental wipes the backline shot by shot, on top of the first line tank reflecting damage to the opponent's monsters.
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_8029f6d2f6ccdd5d6bc339954526b535&ref=sp3ktraline

Final Words

Hopefully, Thaddius won't be the type of summoner you play as a targeted counter, like Owster. Instead, I am hoping it provides more utility on a broader scope and that it is able to provide value despite the enemy's strategy. Given that the meta will undoubtabely shift, it's hard to guess in what tier we can place Thaddius as of now. Personally, I am a sort of Death main so I will likely try to stack Thaddius from the go to, but there may be other better new summoners out there.
Rating 3.5 out of 5, as of now.

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