So far in this series I've looked at the Life, Death, and Fire splinters. Now it's time to look at the Earth Splinter and evaluate potential synergies between Untamed and Rebellion.
Untamed x Rebellion Synergies - Earth Splinter
No-attack cards
The Earth splinter in Untamed has 2 EXCELLENT no-attack cards.
These will both receive big synergies from the Weapons Trainers in Rebellion, specifically Moxian Rebel (which is neutral) as well as to a lesser extent Croire. I say "to a lesser extent" simply because Croire has less utility than Moxian Rebel. Furthermore, they'll get some utility from Dalthin ironhood when you use the fire/earth dual-summoner.
These are both excellent choices for WT because they are low mana, enabling you to get very strong teams with very little mana. You could stack attacks (melee+magic or magic+ranged) by sandwiching these between weapon trainers.
Epona gets additional utility with Grimbardun Smith and Mantaroth via her Repair, as well as Strengthen which gives extra survivability to the Smith. She remains one of the best cards in the game, and gets even more utility.
Melee cards
Earth Untamed has 7 cards. Let's check for synergies with Rebellion.
The Rebellion Earth set has a melee flank card - Croire. He could potentially pair well with squishy melee cards that you'd put in the second position, however the Earth melee cards aren't particularly squishy and are great in position 1, so I wouldn't say that works.
Goblin Thief, while not necessarily synergistic, is a great counter for Rebellion's Armor-prone set.
Harvester has Oppress, which theoretically could be good against Grim in some cases, but it's likely to be few and far between.
The dual-summoners let you bring some of these cards to the Fire and Life splinters, which could benefit from the extra Inspire (Orc Sergeant). I'm also thinking about Oaken Behemoth in the second position with Iziar behind him to boost that double attack. That could get terrifying.
All of these technically benefit from Fabino's potential +2 attack buff, though that's a bit circumstantial and I find myself more frequently using the poison. However, I think Goblin Thief (due to Sneak) and Orc Sergeant and Oaken Behemoth (due to Reach) benefit the most.
I would say Oaken Behemoth also gets a synergy with Akane as a big time hitter who would love to go in the Ambush round. Same goes for Goblin Thief.
Finally, I would say the big tanks (Nectar Queen and Unicorn Mustang) benefit from Satha's added Tank Heal.
Magic cards
We have 6 Magic cards (though we already covered Oaken Behemoth).
Khmer Princess stands out immediately as an additional Tank Heal for Grim Smith while also protecting the backline from Scattershot in Lily vs Lily matches.
Centauri Mage also adds some additional survivability to Grim and survivability+attack to Mantaroth, so she could be good.
I remain a fan (circumstantially) of Spirit Druid Grog due purely to his Resurrect (still the only one in Earth), however I can't find a very specific synergy with Rebellion. There is synergy with the martyr cards, but those are Chaos.
Kron doesn't get new utility w/ Rebellion in my opinion.
Ranged cards
In Ranged we have 5 cards to look at.
Goblin Dartling and Mitica Headhunter both get some value with Shatter as counters to Grim and Mantaroth among others.
You could also stack Child of the Forest with Gobson Sniper to snipe the first non-melee backline card. Bit circumstantial.
Mitica Headhunter, with her big 6-damage hitter, would be a nice pairing with Akane to go in the Ambush round. She'd likely even go again in Round 1 due to her speed, effectively giving her 2 attacks in a row. This could swing the battle. Still, why does she have Piercing AND Shatter...?
Summoners
The Earth splinter in Untamed has 2 unforgettable summoners, and 1 rather forgettable one...
Mylor is terrific and will continue to see utility with Rebellion, however I'm not sure he gets a lot of ADDED utility. He'll continue to feature prominantly in melee-only rulesets, though the increase in Reflection Shield will negate some of that dominance. He will, however, stack well with no-attack tanks like Grim Smith and to some degree with Lurking Puffer in a similar way as he does with Failed Summoner.
Scarred Llama could be quite interesting here in my opinion. Let's think about who in Earth & Neutral Rebellion could be good Last Stand candidates:
- Mantaroth is the obvious stand-out, and he'd get 5 melee and 6 armor, causing 11 damage out of the gate, with Blast to boot...
- Croire is a 6-mana card with self-Heal. It'd be a bit weird to put a weapon trainer alone with no-one to train, but it could work in 13-mana rulesets if you don't have a Flesh Golem. He'd do 1 less damage than Flesh Golem though, so even though he'd go faster he'd end up losing a 1 on 1.
- Grim Smith might be fun to play in a weak magic ruleset with a weapon trainer (e.g. Moxian Rebel) up front who you'd hope would die first.
- Satha Toledo could be used in 12-mana plays, particularly if there's a close-range ruleset, but would otherwise be too squishy to win by attrition.
- Lioceros could be interesting in a 14-mana ruleset. Up against Pelacor Mercenary he'd likely win due to the Thorns.
Conclusion
There are a few very interesting cards in Earth Untamed that synergize with Rebellion. The two no-attack cards, Failed Summoner and Epona, are both highly synergistic. Then we have Oaken Behemoth and Goblin Thief who I think have great synergies as well. Particularly interested in Oaken Behemoth myself. Khmer Princess also looks like a standout. Among the Summoners I would say Scarred Llama will be very interesting to use in combination with some Rebellion cards as well, though there are fewer pairings than I initially thought there might be.
What do you think? Did I forget any important synergies?
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@tipu curate
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