It is still calendar week 44, but next week I will be a bit busy and therefore took some time to enter Splinterlands' new share-your-battle-challenge today!
This week's challenge is about Temporal Master, a unit of Life Splinter. As you might have guessed looking at this post's topic I have mixed feelings towards this unit.
Times begin to change even faster, but these days my battles take place in bronze/silver league where you more often than not still encounter unleveled 1 bcx monsters.
So looking at Temporal Master's stats:
-First thought (+): Cost of 3 Mana points for one magic attack. This is good!
... now there is a lot of "hmmm" and "hmm" and mixed feelings...
-Second (o): "Recharge" ability. This ability is much different for me to judge in comparison to other abilities. On the one hand is has a big pro: Once fired it effectively raises the Master's magic attack to 1.5 "on average". On the other hand we all know initiative is often a very important factor in battles. Here it is even worse because the Master attacks only every second round.
-Third (-): 2 initiative, better than one, but as stated above it only counts each second round.
-Fourth (-): Availability. This is an unit of Epic rarity that is limited to a single splinter. I have seen units that are more versatile...
So my evaluation is still not very clear, is it?
Let's look at one of my battles:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_e957028d4aed2741528abb51cdedfd20&ref=jdike
Key facts: Modern format, 14 mana cap, Standard ruleset
My opponent in this battle has a clear focus on Deeplurker as damage dealer while hiding behind some cheap expendable units. I hide behind a lot of cheap units all the while hoping to give my Temporal Master time to fire.
For the records: Temporal Master had its first attack in the previous round 2 and took down the first enemy unit.
Otherwise both of us got first losses as our units were mainly saved in round 2 by our summoners. Temporal Master will not attack in this round 3.
Temporal Master attacked in round 4 and helped to take the next enemy unit of the board. Unfortunately for me it was only the Stonefish and the Deeplurker was wounded, but still active. My Temporal Master will not attack in round 5.
So the Deeplurker was active until the very end of a battle which I finally won by the finishing blow of my Temporal Master.
If anything what could we have learned from this battle? -Take a look above and try to remember which unit finished most of my opponent's monsters. YES, the Temporal Master!
So all in all I come to the conclusion that the Temporal Master might be an option in low mana matches in which you think he will be safe for some rounds. In this case the 1.5 magic damage per round (on average) can be quite powerful.
But considering all the "but" and "if" above I think it is a unit which is really, really hard to play!
I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on this unit. If you happen to not have signed up for Splinterlands, yet: Feel free to use my sign-up link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=jdike
