Evaluating Riklauniman & Rune Arcanist | Splinterlands

In this post I review the 2 upcoming prmo cards from the Hall of Legends, Riklauniman and Rune Arcanist, to look for synergies and counters (focusing on Modern) and let you know my personal plans when it comes to buying the cards. Let's dive in.

Riklauniman

Riklauniman's (Rik) skills:

• Kindred Will is a new ability that grants Ambush to adjacent units with Kindred Spirit, which in this case will be Pallus. Pallus will return the favor by giving Rik True Strike. I would call this a good (but not great) ability to be honest. Giving Pallus Ambush will means 5 damage in the Ambush round, which could theoretically be paired with other Ambush units to try to get a big early advantage. Meanwhile giving Rik True Strike is nice as it removes RNG. It does require them to be adjacent however, which means you'll be forced to put Rik in 3rd or 2nd position in most cases if you want Pallus to attack. There may be more units in the future with Kindred Spirit, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
• Charge lets Rik attack the tank from any position. This is nice as it means his Melee will attack no matter what, including in Fog of War rulesets.
• Expose gives Rik 80% chance to remove Forcefield, Reflection Shield, Immunity, and other defensive abilities. Other than his dual attack, I would say Expose is Rik's greatest asset.
• Stun...stuns a unit. Not bad given he has dual attacks, but kind of a "meh" ability overall. However, paired with Expose, this means he stands a chance to stun immune units like Inevitable and Grim Smith, so slightly better than your typical Stun.

Strengths/Synergies

• The first obvious synergy is with Pallus thanks to the Kindred Will/Spirit combo. Giving Rik True Strike is great and guarantees he'll land up to 6 damage and 2 attacks to expose/stun the enemy. This will be very powerful against the likes of Djinn Oshannus, Grimbardun Smith, and Inevitable, where he'll tear through their defenses.
• Pairing with Iziar will be a strong option, with each Martyr giving Rik 2 extra damage across his duals attacks.
• To avoid being overly susceptible to Tofu's Thorns, Rik will benefit from having Triage from his own Tofu, getting triaged by Lily, or having other Triage monsters in the fray.
• Akane could be a good pairing with Rik. He'll give Ambush to Pallus, and you can give Ambush to two other units, namely Rik himself. He'll hit before Pallus, all but guaranteeing that the unit in the front won't have forcefield anymore (if it's Oshannus) and potentially removing Shield from a Grim or Inevitable.
• EMP could be an interesting combo with Rik, giving him an extra attack with armored strike and piercing to boot. Problem there will be Tofu's Thorns & Corrosive Ward.
• Drath could also be an interesting option, where you could either give Rik True Strike (in the absence of Pallus) or potentially taunt a Marksrat behind Rik to give him a boost. Again you're always going to have the issue of Tofu however, but you might be able to get enough Firepower out there to out-muscle a Tofu/Grim lineup before it kills you. The Expose in particular will increase the speed at which you can tear apart the enemy team.

Weaknesses/Counters

• Since Rik is Earth/Life, he'll always have the risk of going up against Tofu's Thorns. This is a problem, particularly given that Rik has melee+charge. It's not ideal to be honest, and I kind of wish they'd given Rik Reflection Shield, though he might've been overpowered in that case.
• 11 Mana is a lot of mana. This hinders Rik's versatility. It's also quite expensive when you take into account his health, which is rather low. He can be sniped (since he has Ranged damage), can get targeted by Taunt if the opponent uses Drath, or could die from a couple of well placed scattershots.
• 4 Speed isn't a weakness, but it's also not a massive strength. With True Strike the speed won't matter too much, but without it Rik may have issues hitting his opponents. E.g. in your common Tofu vs Cryptic battles where Oshannus is in the front, Rik can be tremendous as long as he doesn't miss. Add in that against Oshannus Pallus is underwhelming due to his 5 attack against Forcefield (better to have him at level 7 for that purpose).
• Rik is purely offensive, so he doesn't have obvious synergies with too many other cards.

Non-factors

• Theoretically Rik could go in the 1st position and still attack with his Ranged with Fernheart at the helm, but given his mediocre survivability I don't see this being a factor.
• Similarly, Sloan doesn't really offer enough to warrant a pairing besides the +1 Ranged.
• Underboss Fabino can give Rik +2 Melee but, again, I don't see this being a major factor with Tofu out there.

Overall I would rate Rik a B+. I think he's a solid card who will in some cases take over the battle, but his lack of versatility, slightly underwhelming synergy from Pallus, and weakness to Tofu make him miss the A mark in my opinion.

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Rune Arcanist

Rune Arcanist's (RA) skills:

• Weaken reduces opponents' max health by 1. Decent ability overall.
• Phase Ward is a new ability that grants phase to the unit ahead of the Rune Arcanist. This is a very powerful ability, and there are many units it can synergize with as we'll see below.
• Cripple reduces the max health of the unit RA attacks by 1.
• Scavenge increase RA's max health by 1 every time a unit dies; also a very powerful ability.

Strengths/Synergies

• Phase Ward gives RA tons of versatility. It'll work particularly well on units with high speed or with dodge or flying. Commander Slade is an immediate beneficiary with his 6 speed, Dodge, and Backfire to boot. Captain Fellblade, who has 6 speed, would also be a great option. Theoretically Delya, in a close range ruleset (or with Fernheart) could benefit. You could even consider putting Pelacor Bandit in the front as a very tough-to-hit mini-tank. Noah The Just, with his Dodge and Backfire, is another good option. Oh and Vampire Bat, which has Dodge and Flying and 5 speed. Only issue with that one is the flying against Tofu's Snare.
• In reverse speed rulesets you could stick Phase on a super slow tank like Terraceous Hulk, Wave Brood, Grim Smith, or Chaos Rear Guard. Combined with Blind, you'll have a good chance of dodging many enemy attacks this way. Could even stick it on Mantaroth. Some of these units are particularly vulnerable to Magic, and this makes them stand a chance even if your opponent magic spams.
• Pairing RA with a Blind card (e.g. Spirit Hoarder) will grant an additional 15% dodge chance to the Phase Warded unit.
• Pairing with Cryptic will give the necessary Blind, and will give you the ability to pick an alternative to Oshannus in the front. Specifically I'm thinking Arkemis the Bear, who still has Forcefield, and will get enraged after a first hit making his speed go up to 6 (not including all the other swiftness boosts), making him an absolute menace to take down. In addition, he only has Forcefield to lose from the enemy's expose, which can be fully cleansed by Anasth Soothsayer, so I suspect putting Ark followed by RA may be the new meta...
• Putting other cards with Swiftness in the lineup, such as the Supply Runner and Daarg, as well as units with Slow, will give a further boost for the Phase Warded unit.
• In Magic-only rulesets, you can stick Rune Arcanist in the second position behind a card like Ujurak Mystic, who already has Void and has 6 speed (!) to make it very, very hard to kill (and also good at dodging Doctor Blight, which is typically its biggest weakness in those rulesets).
• Scavenger really feels like just a big bonus in RA's kit. I don't really feel it synergizes that much with the rest of the kit, but it just gives her that much more survivability, especially given she starts with 2 armor and 8 health already.
• Cripple gives her utility against Oshannus/Baakjira/Rage heal teams, and against any unkillable team (such as with Grim) if paired with Expose from Cryptic (or maybe even Rik!).

Weaknesses/Counters

• For 7 mana, RA's 2 magic damage is very low. In general 7 mana is also fairly expensive, particularly if a unit's neither healing your team nor killing the enemy.
• 3 speed is arguably one of the worse speeds in the game, as it's too low to be interesting in any speed meta and too high to be powerful in reverse speed. Not a huge downside in her case though.
• 90% of RA's utility is Phase Ward, so if it ends up not playing (e.g. your opponent goes with no-magic) then you've kind of wasted 7 mana. It will help whittle down the enemy with cripple and it'll serve as a good tank thanks to Scavenger, though normally will be backline or secondary since it needs to stand behind another unit to provide the ward.

Rune Arcanist feels like a slam dunk to me - A bordering on A+. The only issue is the 7 mana moderately high cost and the limited utility beyond Phase Ward. Just the pairing of RA with Ark the Bear or Commander Slade is enough for me to feel she'll be a regular in the next meta.

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I'll be buying both of these cards. I will get Rune Arcanist in Gold Foil and Rik in Regular Foil.