Countdown to Untamed - Part 2
4 days left until Untamed and we're back with a new set of cards to whet your appetite! Additionally, we noticed that yesterday we forgot to add a Neutral card, so today we'll add two new Untamed Neutral cards to make up for it, giving a total of 7 new cards to be presented!
As always, please keep in mind that everything is still subject to change before the release. This includes the stats, abilities, names, and even the entire card itself.
Now that that's out of the way, we are excited to present the Coral Wraith, Crystal Jaguar, Living Lava, Orc Sergeant, Soulstorm, Tower Griffin, and Goblin Chariot cards!
Coral Wraith
The Coral Wraith is an Epic Water splinter card which sports a rare Magic attack on a monster with the Sneak ability. Combined with Alric as the Summoner the Wraith will wreak some havoc on your enemy's back line!
It also has the new Rust ability, which, if you don't remember from yesterday's post, reduces the Armor of all enemy monsters by 2 points.
Crystal Jaguar
The Crystal Jaguar is a fairly standard low mana Common rarity tank card for the Life splinter. It should be a good choice for the first position in low mana cap games and can even be put in the back to take advantage of the Thorns and Retaliate abilities in rulesets like Super Sneak.
Living Lava
Living Lava is a more beefy tank for the Fire splinter. With the Shield ability starting at level 1 we expect this will be a great card at low levels and also in the later levels with adding Rust and Thorns as it levels up.
With only 8 Health at 7 Mana it's definitely weak to Magic attack, so make sure you have a good idea what type of team you will likely go up against when you put him in.
Orc Sergeant
The Orc Sergeant is a strong second-position card for the Earth splinter with the Reach ability. With decent health and Inspire at level 6 he should be a shoe-in for any Earth team that wants to focus on Melee attack damage.
Soulstorm
Now we come to an interesting new Epic rarity card for the Death splinter - Soulstorm! In addition to Flying, Headwinds, and Stun it also has a new ability called Snare which means it will always hit targets that have the Flying ability, and those targets to become "Snared" which causes them to lose the benefits from the Flying ability for the rest of the battle (unless they are later Cleansed, of course).
We expect this to be a very strong card for the Death splinter, but with a high Ranged attack and low health you'll need to be careful going up against teams with the Return Fire ability which will feature more heavily in Untamed than it has in the past.
Tower Griffin
First up for the Neutral cards, which can be used along with any other Splinters, we have the Rare Tower Griffin card. The Tower Griffin is the first Neutral card to sport the Protect ability, which gives all friendly monsters +2 Armor.
We had used the Protect ability very sparingly in the past since it is quite powerful, however now with the addition of the Rust ability to counter it we can use it a little more often going forward.
Goblin Chariot
And last, but not least, to make up for leaving out the Neutral cards yesterday, we present the Rare Goblin Chariot card. If you ever need some additional Ranged attack fire power on your team, throw in this rowdy bunch of goblins throwing spears from the back of a chariot. Looks like that one poor goblin in the front is getting quite a workout...
Stay tuned for more updates from the Splinterlands!
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Not a fan of the Crystal Jaguars artwork, but still cool cards, cant wait to get them added to my deck :)
Crystal Jaguar look like Crystal Centipede 😂
Second that opinion
All those cards are awesome.
As I said in the last update topic.....
Your making it hard for me to keep my money.
Gogogoooooo
We need the Release of the Untamed Edition.
Continue to love the execution of this team! Good work guys!
Did you know that gold can never rust do to its inert natural properties? Would be cool if GF cards were resistant to ‘rust’, but that might be too geeky even for me.
Thanks for continuing to make this game exciting and a fun part of my day :)
I think it would really increase the worth of all goldfoil cards a lot !
No doubt :)
Soul Storm has no difference between level 1 and level 2. Cards are looking good though.
yes and it seems me that the Living Java has also no difference between Level 3 and 4, isn't it ?
yes that one needs some love also.
So if the target has Flying then speed difference and Dodge is ignored and target will always be hit?
Crystal Jaguar seems to replace Crystal Werewolf as a cheap tank in a lot of battles :)
Soulstorm + Fallen Specter + Zintar Mortalis / Crypt Mancer = -3 Melee :OYes
Soulstorm and Fallen Specter have Headwinds which reduces Ranged attack, not Melee.
By the way, I think Fallen Specter should have Void ability (which could replace any of it's other abilities), otherwise it always kills itself immediately if the opponent (as always) uses Lord Arianthus with Magic Reflect.
would be nice, any anti Lord A would be nice. Fallen Specter is a nice card and there are some rulesets where Lord A is not allowed, hint :-)
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Some ... few ... :-) ... OK, there are some use cases ...
I think Fallen Specter is a card for the little league.
Maybe, but I think, a real legendary card shouldn't be kicked out of the match after the first round in most other cases ... :)
Hm - till now I cannot remember any legendary card who cost only 2 Mana but maybe I oversee something.
Yes, maybe just the fact, that even non-legendary 2 mana monsters normally survive longer than a single round only? :)
No I really has overseen one monster: The ShinLo cost only 1 Mana and if he meet f.e. the Findish Harpey he can also die in the first round.
Yes, yes, if one seldom used and owned monster met another seldom used monster, yes, then it could happen, if Shin Lo had no armor ... :)
Let's say I had already battles with the Exploding Dwarf at the front where I could destry the whole team of my opponent in the first round, so It's not impossible.
Of course not ... but, that was not really my point (which is that it happens to the Fallen Specter most of the time), right?
OK if you use him in "normal" battle chances are high. so - as I told before - I think the Fallen Specter is designed as card for the little league and their he is in my opinion really strong.
Forget it: in the near future the Failed Summoner will kill him in round one there, too! :)
OK this is a good point !
But this would mean to use always earth in the future in little league, isn't it ?
You expect that with this Failed Summoner earth will be the choise for the little league in the future ?
I expect nothing ... but the introduction of the Failed Summoner is just another little step towards restricting possible use cases of the Failed ehm Fallen Specter. :)
OK, so it's maybe a weapon of surprise, cause not in every battle players put monster with magic reflect at first position. I expect that now many player use the chain golem who has f.e. no magic reflect.
Their is even another monster we don't thought till now: The cursed slimeball - If you put him in front he will die in first round and probably also the Fallen Specter with him :-)
Totally agree on that. Even a no attack Fallen specter is fine, it's sad to see such a beautiful card never getting into play cause of LA. There's a tweak that's needed to be done, it's such a subpar rare at current state @yabapmatt
Wow, not much else to say other than that-killer additions I love how this will make the game even more dynamic and far less predictable. Stellar job splinterlands team!
very cool and great look, now new summoners please
If you have time, you may consider to fix blue/green colours of the (water/nature) cards, both look almost the same. @yabapmatt
Not to mention black and dragon
That Coral Wraith is pretty wicked! I can't wait to use it in battle!!
Anyone else feel the price of Selenia about to skyrocket? I mean so much ranged and dragon goodness in untamed.
True, but i also expect that at least one new summoner will have a +1 Ranged Attack :)
Their would be also some other possibilities than just to change a little bit the buffs from one summoner to another … what f.e. with a summoner who had just the ability "blind" ?
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Here are the graphics of the new cards:
Goblin Chariot should have Double Strike since there are multiple goblins in the chariot chucking spears.
Tower Griffin so good
I feel like lord Arianthus will still be OP card of the overall game. We definitely need an ability where an attack causes to lose all abilities from its target.
But still great card designs and new abilities so far...I'm very excited to see them live on the Battlefield!!!
Excelent!!!!
Wanna read some thoughts about these cards? Head over here: click me!
OP.
Okay, you guys are making me think way too much for this game. I took this season off in rank play and looks like I will be coming back to a whole different way of playing. Grrr! I have to wrap my brain around all these new cards and abilities. The new set is definitely a game-changer!
I love this cards, so exited about the which will I get.
Interesting, looks like we will have to rethink everything, can't wait to try some stuff out
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I do mistake by looking for the cards or the stats of the living Java are at Level 3 and Level 4 exactly the same ?
Just one advice: In the game FAQ stand that their are 10 reward edition cards (What are the different card editions) - as we are now by 34 would be good to change this.
Will there be a second skin pack??... or will that take some time or are you giving up on Skins?
Some of the art is awesome in the new batch and others the style just hasn't grown on me I guess or maybe we were just spoiled by a better artist for the first set. Maybe better artist isn't the correct term just that beta and alpha had a STYLE that really worked for cards. And some of the decisions of the art seemed so much more deliberate.
BETA vs UNTAMED ART REVIEW
Beta/Alpha were more vibrant with crisp lines and just popped out a bit better. They were perhaps more cartoony but they really stood out. It takes so long to really take in these new cards and they mesh with their backgrounds too much so they have trouble standing out because of that. Maybe because it seems like Every background is a dark background and most characters all have a dark contrast to them.
Even the white splinter seems to avoid typical white colors and go from muddy or grays immediately into a blown out highlight sort of white. Where as the original beta/alpha had a very consistent branded sort of white on the characters that gave them a distinctive look... you could tell it was a white splinter card.
Beta and alpha cards may have appeared more simplistic in design but they did much better at branding their splinters and being easier for the eyes to easily consume and the card standing out against their backgrounds.
But you know what's awesome about cards on blockchain... you can do skins!
It's definitely a process.
I suspect that by the time we release the next set, we'll end up somewhere in the middle between Beta and Untamed in terms of style.
The intention is to elevate the overall maturity and depth of the game with a style that can compete at a mainstream level. Not to say that "cartoony" can't be a viable style...There's plenty of examples of games that are "cartoony" and do well.
However the future road map of the game, the lore, and the world-building would suggest that anything that resembles "kid-like" is not the ideal fit for telling the stories we want to tell. But like everything else we do, it's all subject to change, haha. Maybe we'll end up super-cartoony on the next set!
Bottomline: With the pending release of Untamed and the Mobile app soon after, we expect to soon have a lot more eyeballs looking at the game. We thought it would be the ideal time to improve the quality of the art to be more dramatic, expressive, and immersive. I was hoping for people to look at the cards less as "cards" and more as mini-portals into another world, where they catch a glimpse of a monstrous creature in its native habitat.
The great thing about Splinterlands is that the community is such a big part of development. Maybe we'll ditch the background art and put back the colored gradient. Or maybe instead of a dark background, I'll lighten it up and use a blur to contrast with the characters instead.
We'll continue to tweak and adjust.
And when we have time to take a breath, I'm sure we'll have additions and improvements to the Skins aspect of the game. I think it's cool to have different versions and styles of the same character.
I can appreciate the desire to go for the more mature looking art that's a decent objectiv. And untamed does strike me as more talented or sophisticated drawings. Still the first set (alpha-beta) just seemed to have a sort of cohesiveness that i may miss... it had a per splinter sort of branding. Obviously untamed has a very unique style but seems more branded all together.
And that brand seems to be dark on dark because of background. In my world of photography that would lend toward the subject / the art getting lost to the eyeball.
Also very excited about the mobile stuff... loved seeing you at steemfest and getting a glance at some of the design for that! Great job.
And with all this said what's really cool is that we always have skins!!
I think you have a good point re: the dark backgrounds.
I did go fiddle with the card files to compare, and I do think that less shading for the environment backgrounds may be a better way to go. So at this point, it's a question of whether we have time to re-tweak all the cards and still meet deadline, haha.
Guess we'll see. Maybe it will be a change we make after the release.
o.O Very nice.
have a coffee on me this morning :)
c[_]
Finally melee tank with thorns in fire splinter!
Serpentine Soldier? :P
Aa fakt, zapomniałem o nim, ale to pewnie dlatego, że mój nie ma jeszcze Thorns (4 lvl) :D
Congratulations @steemmonsters!
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New borders look absolutely gorgeous!
And this is Part 2 in German https://steemit.com/splinterlands/@anjanida/countdown-to-untamed-part-2