Rift Watcher EPIC summoners

At the latest Town Hall, there was a lot of news regarding Splinterlands and the new Tower Defense game. Rift Watchers are in the presale phase for 7 days so the Splinterlands team released all the new summoners we are getting.

There will be 3 million packs available and all the packs will require vouchers, not only in the presale phase but through the wholesale phase of the Rift Watchers. Each pack will be priced at 5 USD which is a slight increase from the Chaos Legion packs.

So now that we know the most important things regarding Rift Watchers, let's take a closer look at the upcoming summoners.

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STHISPA - DRAGON SUMMONER

The new Dragon summoner is coming with Phase ability. And right at the start, we are looking at the best summoner in the Rift Watchers expansion, of course, if you ask me. Phase ability is just amazing and it can work well with many monsters that are not weak to magic attacks.

On the top of my head, there are a few monsters that could hugely benefit from these summoners like Pelacor Bandit, Axemaster, Tide Biter, Pelacor Conjurer, Pelacor Deceiver, Riftwing, Regal Peryton, and more...

Overall it is an amazing card that I am certainly planning to level up for my Gold level team.

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ILTHAIN - LIFE SUMMONER

Life summoner is an interesting one as it provides exactly what the new Life splinter needs - SPEED. Yes, Life splinter monsters in the new Chaos Legion expansion are amazing but they all lack some speed. It is often the case that you end up dead before your monsters are even attacked and that is a big problem. Life splinter often orients around heal and repair but that is sometimes not enough, especially in low mana matches.

I often play Time Mage for that Slow and Supply Runner for Swiftness ability. Now with Ilthain and +1 speed, my teams will have a 3-speed difference which will help me to win some more matches. Return Fire is just a bonus on top of extra speed. It will work well with cards like Pelacor Conjurer, Xenith Monk, Chaos Knight, and Blinding Reflector.

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SKARGORE - FIRE SUMMONER

I am really hyped about this one as it looks amazing at first sight. But is it that amazing right now? Probably not! Why do you ask? Because in the modern format there is a lack of monsters that could use the Enrage ability from this card. Let me tell you why it isn't broken. Monsters that benefit the most from Enrage ability are melee monsters. Now, there are mostly two spots in every game where you can benefit from this ability and those are Tank and Off-tank.

For the tank, I would choose Forgotten One due to great health, armor, Retaliate, and Piercing. A perfect candidate! Grum Flamebade is not that good because of his Void Armor ability which means that one magic attack can't enrage him and you need to lose the whole armor first. For the second spot, I would choose Fineas Rage because Radiated Brute already has Enrage ability. Enrage ability could be also useful to Tenyii Striker in the last spot that could become more evasive and a real hard-hitter. Ranged and magic monsters also benefit from Enrage ability but not as much as melee monsters so that's why my focus is on melee.

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AQUATUS - WATER SUMMONER

Water summoner is really similar to Dragon summoner, Sthispa. They both have focused on speed meta or better to say dodge meta. Cards like Djinn Oshannus, Phantom of the Abyss and Pelacor Bandit will benefit a lot.

Also, cards with the Blind ability will become even more useful and there are quite a few of those: Flying Squid, Giant Squid, Spirit Hoarder and so on. Will it be worth it to rely on Backfire ability to deal some damage to your opponents? I don't know. Maybe. If nothing, we will get some cheap summoners to play in the higher leagues.

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DALLAN - DEATH SUMMONER

I would say that this one is not the best summoner but it is certainly an interesting one. Cripple ability is not used that much at the moment but it is not a weak ability. How does Cripple work? Well, it reduces the max health of a target by 1 each time enemy hits that target. It is a bit confusing as you don't see its effect if you are attacking health and not armor. When is this useful? When attacking monsters with a lot of armor and health. What kinds of monsters are often supported with Repair and Heal abilities so the bigger the health pool the bigger the heals from Tank heal and Triage abilities?

Is Dallan good with the Death team? I would say that is. Death splinter is weak against Kelya Frendul and Grandmaster Rathe, both summoners that provide armor buff to their monsters, and both splinters that have dangerous Taunt monsters and heal. I think that Cripple is well thought through and it could help Death splinter a lot as Thaddius Brood is weak in those matchups. Monsters that will most benefit from this are those with Double Strike and Retaliate. In death splinter, those are Pelacor Deceiver and Phantasm. There are also some monsters in the Wild format like: Undead Minotaur and Lord of Darkness.

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FERNHEART - EARTH SUMMONER

Interesting summoner that feels like the worst in this set but it also seems like the safest pick. So it may not be the worst/the weakest but it is really boring. Plus one health is something that we saw in Earth splinter with Lyanna Natura. More health is always a good thing, especially when you have monsters that have Heal ability like: Pelacor Mercenary, Goblin Psychic and Queen Mycelia.

Close Range ability is also interesting as Earth splinter has a lot of good ranged monsters. Venari Seedsmith is the first that comes to mind with his Scavenger and Poison abilities. Vampiric Blossom is another cheap card that will get a major boost with Fernheart and it will be able to counter some last stand cards. Child of the Forest and Mitica Headhunter could also be very good in this combination.

Summary

These Epic summoners are not jaw-dropping or anything similar but they are really interesting. I do have a feeling that we could get them for cheap since there will be a big influx of new summoners, Rare from Chaos Legion, Legendary Chaos Legion Airdrops, and now Epic summoners from Rift Watchers expansion. Don't be fooled, summoners will still be very valuable and scarce so get yours while you can. I am excited to see Ilthain and Fernheart in action but I will surely try to get all of them for Gold level at least.

It is the perfect time to buy some cards and rebuild your deck. Packs are not selling as fast as expected so prices are stable. I expect them to go down even more once we sell more packs. But there is always a possibility of new players joining and buying tons of cards, so be careful. If you are not playing #splinterlands yet, now is the perfect opportunity to join while you can get all those amazing cards at special prices. Come and join Splinterlands Discord and find out more.

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If you are new here

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Have fun and see you on the battlefield.