Hi everyone,

I know this is not the post that you expect from me. Well, maybe nobody expects me to write anything, if you know me well enough 😅. But well, I am supposed to share my vision of tournament rework. Don’t worry, that is coming, with potentially a couple of weeks delay. There are some reasons for that delay, and this is 1 of them.

I came to this concept when I was working with the tournament rework. I was trying to find a reward that will improve gameplay experience, building their collection and motivate players aside from direct monetary value.

We can consider this as part of the tournament rework I am working on. I expect this to be one of the rewards that players can work towards in the upcoming rework. For now, let’s stop for a moment regarding the tournament, and focus on this mechanic.

Splinterlands today has two core card types that define team-building:

1. Summoners / Archons
2. Monsters/Units

I want to propose a third card type that sits alongside Summoners and Units.

Champions (New Card Type)

Champions behave like units (they occupy a slot, participate in combat, etc.), but they introduce a new layer:

• Mission: an in-battle objective tracked during the fight
• Ultimate: a powerful effect that triggers immediately when the Mission is completed

Champion is simply a card type, so it can be a reward card, promo card, core card of any upcoming edition, and playable in any game format.
Champions power level is aimed to be somewhat close to our current summoner.

Currently we allow 1 summoner and 6 units. With this addition, I would like to limit the amount of champions one can play to the maximum of 2. So, it will be 1 summoner, 2 champions and 4 units. Unlike summoners, which is mandatory, champion is optional. So you can choose not to use them and use the standard units as before. More details regarding limit on the balancing section below.

Why add a third type?

Champions are meant to create:

• A payoff moment which is satisfaction and dopamine source when successfully executed
• New build-arounds (lineups designed to accelerate or deny Missions)
• More identity per card: each Champion can feel like a mini-story unfolding inside the match

How Missions Work

A Mission is a simple, countable condition that occurs naturally in a battle. Examples:

• “Get hit 5 times”
• “Absorb 20 damages”
• “Repair 20 total Armor”
• “Poisoned 3 units”
• “Hit the same target 3 times”
• “Enemy unit is healed 3 times”

Each Mission would be displayed as progress (e.g., 2/3, 12/20) so it remains readable in replays and easy to understand.
When the Mission hits its requirement, the Champion immediately triggers its Ultimate.

How Ultimates Work

An ultimate is a unique ability that fits the Champion’s identity and is unique to 1 card. No champion shares the same exact ultimate.
Ultimates allow us to create a stronger ability, to be creative and unique, and then we can balance it with the activation requirement, how often it can fire in battle.

Typically, ultimate will have a combination of these:

1. Burst - A powerful high output damage/heal
   “Deal 1 damage to all enemies”
   “Deal 5 damage to the unit with the highest power.”
   “Heal the ally with the lowest Health for 2× this unit’s power”
2. Buff
   “Gain +5 Attack for the rest of the battle”
   “Adjacent units gain repair”
3. Debuff:
   “Apply affliction and poison to certain unit”

The design intent is not “win instantly,” but “swing meaningfully” in a way that is:

• Readable (obvious what triggered and why)
• Interactable (there are counters and play-arounds)
• Balanced (strong payoff, but not guaranteed every match)

The Balance

Generally, a champion should have mana cost higher than the other card with similar ability, and that extra cost should be paid off when the champion successfully executes the ultimate.
For the balancing purpose, ultimate will have several type of cooldown:

• Once per battle
• Once every X turn

Based on the rating system that we have, we should limit the presence of Champion in a battle:

1. Bronze : 0
2. Silver : 1
3. Gold : 1
4. Diamond : 2
5. Champion : 2

Similar to all our cards, the ultimate should have progression tier, which can improve both the mission or the actual ultimate, examples for clarity:

Proof of Concept

In the writing above, I use mostly simple examples just so we can easily understand the concept, but for me personally, it is getting much more exciting once I start to design the actual cards, so here we go.

Just in case the icon of the ultimate ability is not clear enough, lv 1 and lv 2 have tier-1 ultimate ability, lv 3 has tier-2, and lv 4 has tier-3 ultimate. If you see something like 3/4/5. That just mean the value changes based on the tier of the ultimate

Kosen - The Asura (Mana cost : 8)

Intro:
Once a prominent mercenary that is often considered a demi god by the people, now he chooses to use his power to protect, however the demon inside him is very much alive—awakened only after repeated provocation.

Mechanic:

• Mission: Get hit by enemy 6/5/4 times
• Ultimate - Asura Strike : Gain 3/4/5 Melee Attack and Spite for the rest of the battle. Immediately counterattack the enemy that triggered the Mission completion. This counterattack has relentless strike and true strike.
• Cooldown : Once per battle

Design concept:
Without his ultimate, he is a simple tank. Once his ultimate activates, he transform into demon fighter that can deliver a good amount of damage with additional 1 time burst on activation. Try to activate the ultimate before his resurgence, so he gets to spite 2 times. To counter him, shot him to death with magic damage before his ultimate activation.

Ripsaw - The Frenzied Maniac (Mana cost : 10)

Intro:*
A simpleton built for madness. Charge. Attack. Slash. Hack. He charge first, never backed off from combat.

Mechanic:

• Mission: Attack the same target 4/4/4 times. Mark of prey used as the counter, applied on every successful hit. Counter reset when he change target. The mark of prey can’t be applied during cooldown.

• Ultimate - Die Die Die! : Attack the target with the mark of prey. This attack has a double strike and true strike. Changing the target will reset the counter.

• Cooldown : 3/2/1 turns

Design concept:
This champion uses quantity instead of quality of attack. In my mind, he is just a mad creature that just know how to swing his weapon. That's also why I choose ambush and execute, it fits the identity. He can deliver 2 hits in 1 turn, and activate ultimate in 2 turns. Enemies without shield ability most likely will be melted. Enemies with shields provide a decent counter by halving his low attack, but his ultimate will gain him extra 2 attacks, which enable him to execute after his ultimate.

Corrosive ward and thorn will greatly counter him because he won’t be able to use armor strike which will slow down his ultimate activation which require multiple hits. Additionally thorn will make his multiple attacks kill himself. I am sure he is still happy even when he is dying, as long as he can swing his weapon around 😁.

Protect + armor in general will help him deliver massive damage, even to enemies with shields. Cryptic with retaliate as tactics choice also enable him to activate ultimate even faster. Deflection shroud is his ally.

Toxara - The Cursed Witch (Mana cost : 8)

Intro:
Toxara was once a healer who chose curses when mercy failed. She now spreads poison, hexes, and voodoo afflictions with cruel precision, savoring every moment of decay. Those who face her rarely die quickly—they are taught what suffering truly means.

Mechanic:

• Mission: Enemies’ health healed by 20/18/15

• Ultimate - Curse of Toxara :

  • Inflict the healed unit with the curse of toxara.
  • When the curse of toxara is being applied (every time, even when the unit already have the curse) or when a unit with the curse is attacked, inflict affliction to that unit. If the unit has affliction, inflict poison instead. If the unit has poison, inflict burning instead.
  • Curse of toxara can’t be cleansed.
  • When a unit with a curse of toxara is cleansed of any debuff, the unit who performs the cleanse will be inflicted with the curse of toxara.

• Cooldown : Once per turn

Design concept:
Anti sustain. Some sort of mimosa vibe, but as a champion instead of summoner.
When enemies try to sustain, toxara will try to block it with affliction, or even make it hurt themselves via poison and burning. Most of the time, heal will be paired with cleanse. With this champion, we will still allow the main target to be cleansed, but the support will be cursed after that. Therefore, the curse will be spread even further, and the sustain loop will eventually stopped, unless the sustain is paired with more rear cleanse as well.

Final Thought

Earlier in the post, I said that I plan this to be a reward card for tournament rework. However after exploring this, I think this is more than that. I’ll recap what I think of this :

• We can use this as the new mechanic for the next edition. Considering this is a new card type which nobody has, when designed correctly and if the community likes it, this could translate into more packs sold. Or imagine how much this will sell as promo card?
• This is paired well with tactics that have the possibility to accelerate or slow down ultimate activation. And eventually this should pair well with items and spells.
• Cards have diminishing returns, in terms of value provided. For example, mini sets tend to sell less than core sets due to the fact that most of the cards can be replaced somehow. A
  This is even more emphasized in the wild format where CL is still very heavily used. By introducing this new type, it gives a new layer of strategy that is built around champion at it’s core, as long as it is balanced well and gives entertainment value to the players. Hopefully we will also see more variation in the wild as the meta changes with this addition and people have to adapt to the new meta. For example, it is easy to replace a scarce Hydra with a Pelacor mercenary, but with this new addition, there is nothing to replace it with, yet.

Disclaimer :
All of this is simply my idea, splinterlands team has no obligation to follow whatever written in this post.

So, yay or nay?

Thanks for reading, Merry Christmas and happy holiday!