Welcome to the last preview day! Do you have your potions and packs ready?!?!?!

If we count todays cards, and the ones I posted in the spoiler preview yesterday, then we know the stats of 39 cards so far. That should leave us with around 30 +/- 5 left to be seen tomorrow!
We've only seen the neutral, dragon and fire legendary and only one summoner so far! So theres lots to be seen.

But todays theme is: OP cards & power creep

Our start is another one mana card! These are really rare, and often useful! This card is a bit weird before lvl six, its basicly just a meatshield / second chicken, but for one mana.
Starting at lvl six you get tank heal, and that for ONE MANA.
So if you have one mana and one spot left, put this in to get some heal, its good.

Having no attack is also a good think, it means you can play it in the "broken arrows" ruleset, where the Crustacean King cant be played.

The king still provides tank heal erlier than our birb, and he also comes with protect. So if you have the mana, use him instead.

I found my favorite artwork of this set so far. This Icy Pixie looks fricking amazing! And she also is amazing!
Beeing a low cost magic user in the water splinter is always useful, getting her to 2-3 magic dmg for two mana is really nice.
Flying combined with her speed, should let her dodge atacks from slower foes, the fact that she has shield also means that she will most likely survive at least one hit.
She does die to two magic refelcts tho, so be careful.
Having shatter on a magic unit might seem weird, but its actually great! Normaly the monster with shatter would still dmg the armor, and then destroy it completely, but this pixie attacks the HP directly, then destroys the whole armor, so your other creatures can go and finish the target of.

The stats close to both the neutral pixie and the wizard, but I decided to compare her to only thee wizard here. Having armor is really good, if you ever used the Dwarven Wizard you know this.
You can use her in the last spot and still take two attacks, or use her in the 2nd spot to take two melee hits after your tank dies.

I should also add, that 2 magic attack for two mana is REALLY GOOD in lower mana back to basic rulesets.

Anyone else has to think about world of warcraft when you see this card? This is a super good tank! Woah!!!!! I love the design of it. Its really slow, which might be bad in some cases, but super good in reverse speed.
So heres why this card is amazing: It has to be attacked by multiple physical units per turn to take any real dmg. It wont do anything to just break his armor, since he will just repair himself for two armor every turn, and armor absorbs the whole attack. (Unless attacked with pierce)
So the obvious counter to a card like this is magic attacks, BUT HE HAS VOID. So he takes less dmg from magic.
Im not sure about knockout, sure the dmg is fine, but on a tank unit? Then again giving him another tanky ability would have been too much.
I would say most people will do fine with a lvl seven version, if you aree on a budget you can even go with lvl six or five.

Heres the deal for the death splinter, in any higher mana games you will want to either use the bone golem, or the lord of darkness. The golem for magic and single big attacks, and the lord of darkness as an agressive physical tank.

Both of them work amazingly with the corrupted pegasus aswell!

Why is this card not called "purpeltest mage"?! Death can use more magic units that... how do you say, arent shit. And this is one of them!
As I said for the pixie above, getting two magic dmg for two mana is really good.
Death got so many low mana cards again, I expect them to be a popular choice in the new 12 manacap games.
So this mage has decent speed, hp and dmg, his abilites are also good. He is a card that you can toss in, even if you dont need rust, its a bonus if you want. Affliction is really good against heal obviously. But this is playable just for the stats.
If you use him together with the Undead Priest, then you will cover a lot of debuffs for only four mana!

This is a Centaur for one less mana that is better. Do I need to say more? This card is really good! Earth got some insane cards so far! Snare is not useful is every game, but what do we care? Look at this insane snipe unit for just three mana. Whats more, you can use him together with Sprit of the Forest or Centauer to use three really good snipe units.

Have you ever heard of the term "power creep"? That is used in games, when a new item/card/option becomes available, that is much better than previous options, making them obsolete.
And guess what, this card is stupidly good. Im not even sure how this can be two mana ever?
If we see a nerf of any cards after release, I expect this to be the first one.

How OP is this? This card would still be used for four mana, possibly even for five.

What card is this replacing in earth?

R.I.P. Wood Nymph

I guess she still has a use, since the princess only gets her tank heal at lvl four.

So for two less mana, you get one less magic dmg, one MORE HP, one less speed and triage instead of strenghten.

What does triage do? It heals one backline unit. So the princess will heal your tank and a backline unit every turn.
Why this is even better: often magic attack healer kill themselves on magic reflect, but due to triage, the princess will just heal herself.

Also, going by all the cards seen so far, earth has the biggest amount of tank healers from all splinters.

• Wood Nymph

• Khmer Princess

• Spirit of the Forest

• Tortisian Chef

Theres the magma troll that was showed a few days ago by @nateaguila. This card can finaly replace that stupid birb reach unit.

Okay, to be fair, the giant roc is a decent unit to use. Im just not a fan of it.
Magma troll also can be played in little league, which is great! Before fires only reach unit in little league has been grumpy dwarf, or manticore if you used the dragon splinter.

The troll also comes with affiction, anti heal is always useful. You also get more dmg for less mana!

MOAR PIXIES!

How do you hit lightning with a weapon or an arrow? You dont. This card has the highst possible speed aswell as flying & dodge. This card will evade so many attacks, its gonna be insane.

Just look at how hard it is to hit coctrice, and the pixie has one more speed!

Okay, thats her defense, but these pixies are stron attackers aswell, coming with three dmg and stun just adds to thee strenght of this card. Put this card in a spot where its protected from magic attacks and it should survive for really long.

WOW. Thats a lot of abilites for a common card, they usualy dont have that many haha.
You get snipe, repair and shatter, aswell as three dmg for five mana. That is a really solid deal, why use armorsmith, if you can use a ranged sniper instead? The only weakneess here is magic dmg, which could kill this card in 1-2 hits. The physical defense is really good, it can repair its own armor.

The boatman can either be played instead, or with the peacekeeper, depending on your goal. To keep the boatman alive for longer, I would probably put the peacekeeper behind him.

"I speak only the truth!" - said the Truthspeaker.
Little did the audience know, she was lying.

So this card provides some serious utility for just three mana, being a second tank heal options besides divine heal.
She only gets her heal at max level tho. She brings protect and cleanse, so you can use double protect if you bring her and defender of truth.
She also doesnt have any attack stats, which means she cant kill herself of reflect, thats nice.

Have you ever wondered how to make Lord Arianthus even more annoying? Well, here is your answer. Just use Lord A, and this eyeball god in the second slot, for some silly reflect action. While the eye takes full dmg, it comes with heal. It also has some nice attack stats.

There isnt much I can say about this card, except that it is really good! It your tank dies, this card will survive a few attacks in the tank slot and heal itself, or just use the eyeball-god in the last spot and kill all enemy sneakers via reflect.

Okay, my god, last card for today, why are there so many?!?!?!

We got our first dragon splinter card, and its a legendary!
Scale doctor is a super utility unit, it heals your backline via triage, repairs, gives you more HP, and has rust to deal with the armor of your foes. His only weakness is that he has one dmg. Thats just low, but you dont use this card to attack, its worth to use it just for the triage/repair combo. Thats really solid!

OMG, am I free? THIRTEEN cards, my god, that took a long time to write out ._.

But hey Im done, happy unpacking tomorrow!

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Check out some of my other guides!

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Splinterlands beginner overview! Video and Text version

Steem-Engine Overview & How to buy and sell DEC

Peakmonsters Overview & How to rent cards!

Strategy Guides / Splinter Reviews

Water Splinter Review

Death Splinter Review
Life Splinter Review

Talking Meta #1 - Lord Arianthus