$50/$150 Deck Build Challenge Part 2 - Earth Splinter!

Welcome to the half-way point in our deck building challenge! In my previous post I covered the Life Splinter and before that I've looked at the Water, but today we're taking on the new low=tier menace - the Earth Team! With Alric gone, today's Summoner has taken his throne as the Magic spammer of choice, so without further ado, let's introduce her!

Our Green Queen is great in these lower tier battles where Void and Silence are far less common, meaning Magic can run rampant. +1 Magic is an extremely strong Summoner ability because of this! Unsurprisingly, this makes Obsidian one of the more expensive Chaos Legion Summoners - but still not as much as Kelya! She's going to set us back $3.50 a copy, meaning we've spent $17.50 in Bronze and $87.50 in Silver.

The Roots of Our Team

Next up, as always, out Tanks! We're going to start with an ever-present in these posts so far: The Current Reward Set Common for the Splinter!

These Reward Commons are so good for challenges like these: Cheap and powerful, and this guy is no exception! Really solid HP and decent Damage, this guy will definitely soak up a lot of shots. Flying and average speed gives him a pretty good chance to doge a few too! And for the price this is easily the best Tank we have available to us - at $0.03 a copy we're paying just $0.42 in Bronze and $1.80 in Silver!

I like to have a Low-Mana Tank available as well though, for Little League and the like, and luckily there is an excellent one at Common in the Earth Splinter too - the Hill Giant:

For just 3 Mana, 8 HP is insanely high. While he won't be doing much else for you, as he doesn't gain his Stun until Gold, he will certainly take a lot of shots to protect your team. He's available for just under double the price of the Mercenary, $0.77 for Bronze and $3.30 for Silver.

Next up we have the return of another favourite for this series - the Fiend!

No need to explain this every time, he tanks a shot and doesn't waste any Mana, great! We're spending $6.20 on him. Alongside him we have the 1 Mana common for Earth, the Mycelic Morphoid!

Fills a similar role, costing 1 Mana but with Thorns as an upside! Even more powerful in the sneak and opportunity rulesets as they are very Melee heavy! We only need this guy at level 3 for both Tiers, coming in at $0.67.

Our final Tank is also the first of our real damage threats - the Mycelic Slipspawn!

Taunt is quickly becoming one of my favourite abilities in the game: I love being able to protect my damage dealers more! This card also packs Forcefield at level 4 - not the most relevant in Silver but occasionally comes up! Alongside these good defensive stat, the 2 Magic Damage going up to 3 with Obsidian is a solid hitter! While he might not be around for too many rounds - a shot or two being fired off isn't unlikely! This card is in my opinion underpriced at $0.38 a copy, as we're only spending $1.90 in Bronze and $9.50 in Silver!

At the end of our Tank section we have $22.54 left in our Bronze budget, and $41.03 in Silver. Still a fair amount to spend on our Damage Dealers, who are up next!

"I cast Fireball!"

To absolutely no one's surprise, this section is going to be dominated by Magic Monsters. However, I'm going to start on a Melee Monster, and one of my picks for most powerful single card in Chaos Legion: Grund!

6 Damage output a turn, a solid HP pool... What more can I ask for? This guys is amazing with a couple of good supports behind him - we'll get onto those later! - or in the right rulesets. This guy can single-handedly win a game, and we only need 1 BCX of him at both tiers, so we're only spending $4.00 here.

Now - onto the Mages! First up we have another extremely underpriced Reward card - Djinn Biljka!

Another insanely powerful ability is Camouflage! This guy can never be the target for an attack except when he makes it to the front - so even if your Taunt goes down he's free to drop his Magic bombs from complete safety from Sneak and Opportunity! In Bronze we can only use him at Level 1, setting us back $2.90. In Silver we get to level him up to 2, where he gains Void, and more importantly, an extra damage! That will cost us $8.70, but that's a bargain for both good CP and a powerful card!

Next up is the guy that will be hiding just behind your Tank in most games - the Regal Peryton!

6 Speed and 3 Damage in Silver? Yes please! A great damage dealer and between flying and high speed, a great off-tank too! In Bronze we don't get quite as much damage, but we do get the 6 Speed, making it worth the level up! At only $0.25 per copy, we're putting $1.25 into this guy from our Bronze budget, and $6.25 from the Silver.

Our final Damage Dealer is our first venture into the Neutrals in this Deck Build, showing just how powerful the Earth team is at the moment! We're going to be grabbing 1 BCX of Magi Of Chaos:

The 3 Damage alongside Obsidian alongside a decent HP pool makes this card great for Back to Basics games (Where Hill Giant and Magic Damage both really shine - a great ruleset for Earth!) and a powerful damage dealer when we have spare mana otherwise! Our one copy is going to set us back $1.45.

With just Supports to go, we're down to a remaining budget of $12.94 in Bronze and $20.63 in Silver - Just about enough to pick up a couple of really useful cards!

Clerical Magic

We're grabbing 2 Supports today, and they are both Healers for the Tanks and Grunds of this world! Our first Healer focuses on our frontline: The Goblin Psychic!

In an interesting turn, we're only levelling this card to level 4 in Silver! Paying double the price for just 1 extra HP isn't worth it in my opinion, and Level 4 is the important one to pick up Affliction. Not only is your Psychic keeping your Tanks alive, it's stopping them from doing the same thing! Another fantastic ability the Earth Splinter has access to early, and so we're dropping $3.08 in Bronze on this card and $6.60 on our Level 4 for Silver.

Our final card is a Healer for the other side of our party: Spirit Hoarder!

Magic Damage? Check
Heals our backline taunt? Check
Earth Splinter card? Che-wait what?

The Neutral airdrop Legendary may be universally powerful (Great in Water with Wave Brood for the same reasons it's strong here!), but it is definitely at it's strongest in the Obsidian Deck. The extra damage we can pump into it makes it twice as efficient there, so it can really throw in some useful chip damage as it keeps our Taunt alive! Unfortunately our budget doesn't allow for a Level 2 in Silver to pick up the Dispel ability too, but Level 1 has it's most important one in Triage. Our 1 copy is going to be our final purchase for $9.20.

Remaining Budget + Round Up

Turns out the decision not to max Goblin Psychic mattered - if we had we wouldn't have been able to afford the Spirit Hoarder in Silver! It's an important lesson in deckbuilding: Just because we can level up a card doesn't always mean it's efficient! We were able to give ourselves an extra powerful option in the deck over 1 HP - a great trade off in my opinion!

I'm loving making this series and I'm really enjoying the feedback I'm getting - thank you guys! With just 2 Splinters to go, we're coming to the end already though! If you have any ideas for what you'd like me to cover next - let me know! I love this sort of Deck Building challenge and I would be open to looking at higher budget bronze next, or trying to make an impactful $300 deck that covers 2-3 Splinters for Silver instead!

Tomorrow I'm going to take on the Fire Splinter, and then we'll wrap the series up with Death the day after. Hope to see you all there!