The Old Starter Cards You MUST RENT In Splinterlands!

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Moin, Kamusta, Namaste and Hello my friends! Hope you are well. This is Luke Plays To Earn here today to urge you to rent some of the old starter cards that we lost a couple weeks ago when the starter cards changed to add new Chaos Legion cards, and took away Beta and Alpha cards.

Renting old starter cards is actually really cheap right now and will boost your win percentage in bronze and silver leagues, and even in very low gold. One or two extra wins will cover your DEC cost per day. So let's look at each deck and I will give you my top picks...

Fire Deck

For the fire starter cards, we lost 8 cards containing 6 monsters and 2 summoners. In the pic below you can see the card, the immediate lowest rental DEC/day price, the low DEC price you can autobid on Peakmonsters, and a new starter card that could be it's replacement. The yellow highlighted cards are the ones I have chosen to rent.

My Thoughts

• Cerberus is a great cheap tank with self heal. Good for poison, little league, and low mana battles.
• Kobold Miner is great with Tarsa for more sneak attack damage at low mana. In high mana add it with Tenyii, Elven Cutthroat, and Sand worm for a nasty sneak combo.
• Goblin Shaman is another good cheap option to absorb a sneak or snipe attack and also weakens their team.
• Pit Ogre and Sepentine Soldier are tanks that seem redundant so I skip those 2.
• Tarsa is better in most all options than Pyre and Malric.
• Giant Roc I rarely used and would rather rent Fineaus for reach damage.
• Fire beetle is the same thing as Laval Spider

Water Deck

Water deck we lost 7 cards including 6 monsters and 1 really important summoner.

My Thoughts

• Spineback Turtle is a great low mana tank with lots of health and shield. Cruel Sethropod does an ok job replacing it but the extra health of the turtle can absorb more magic damage.
• Water Elemental is great in so many situations with the self-heal. It's good for absorbing sneak/snipe shots while dealing 2 damage, and is also great in poison battles.
• Crustacean King has been replaced by almost the same card in Merdaali Gaurdian, but you can run double heal now.
• Alric Stormbringer is actually a super important summoner, especially in Bronze/Silver. He isn't highlighted here because of the 26 DEC price tag. However if you are patient enough to use the Peakmonsters autobid system, sometimes it can fill an Alric bid as low as 3 DEC/day which is super worth it!
• Pirate Captain, Sabre Shark, and Frozen soldier are all kind of meh cards to me. They are cheap to rent though if you do like using them.

Earth Deck

I don't find most of the old starter Earth cards to be useful except in 1 or 2 rulesets here or there. We lose 8 cards but I find it useful only to rent 2 of them.

My Thoughts

• Goblin Sorcerer plus the new summoner Obsidian makes a 2 magic sneak attack. This can be insanely powerful in taking out the backline.
• Earth Elemental isn't for the damage but more so a cheap sneak/snipe tank.
• Most of the other cards are melee tanks but I'd typically rather use the unicorn or the new mycelic infantry as my tank. They can be good in melee can attack from anywhere or all melee monsters get sneak attack, but usually I use other decks in these rulesets anyways, unless you also have mylor.

Life Deck

Life deck desperately needs some of the old starter cards to be successful right now in bronze/silver. Out of the 8 lost cards, I am renting 6.

My Thoughts

• Divine Healer + Crystalsmith is a great double heal combo to keep your tank alive.
• Clay Golem is necessary because Life has no way to counter magic without it.
• Silvershield Knight inspire ability powers up your team for a lethal sneak attack.
• Feral Spirit adds a great fast quick attack to the silvershield knight strat.
• Tyrus Paladium is still a good summoner to use to run double heal or shielding combos. General Sloan is one of the weaker starter summoners so having Tyrus as well can be helpful.
• Peacebringer isn't fully necessary as there are lots of other range options in the new life starter cards, but having more options for General Sloan that have a little more health and speed can be helpful.

Death Deck

Death deck is another one that highly benefits from renting old starter cards. Currently I'm renting 6 of the 8 lost cards.

My Thoughts

• Zintar is a useful summoner, especially in high melee match rulesets.
• Haunted Spirit with self heal is a great cheap tank that is useful in a lot of situations, and is great for poison.
• Twisted Jester helps build a great snipe attack team with adding the death elemental and mantoid.
• Skeleton Assassin adds more cheap/quick sneak attack damage
• Undead Priest weakens the team and absorbs a snipe/sneak attack. It does a great job helping protect your life leech monsters.
• Animated Corpse isn't a great tank but in certain rulesets where melee monsters can attack from anywhere, or little league, it can be useful.

Neutrals

Renting a few neutrals can boost options for all your decks, even if they aren't super powerful cards, they can help you win in certain situations. There are five neutrals that I think are worth renting for cheap.

My Thoughts

• Peaceful Giant can be helpful in no-melee rulesets when you need a tank, or as a snipe attack protector.
• Elven Cutthroat is useful with other sneak combos I've already mentioned. Adding it to a Tarsa or life deck with Silvershield Assassin.
• Enchanted Pixie can be another useful magic damage dealer, especially with Obsidian, Delwyn, or if you can rent a cheap Alric.
• Cocatrice is situationally useful if you just have a couple mana leftover and need a little tank. However it can also be useful in equalizer battles as it's flying and 3 speed with more health can dodge a few attacks usually.
• Centaur can be useful in the life or death deck snipe strat teams.

Total Rental Cost

We just talked about renting a ton of cards but when realize how cheap they are, it is definitely worth it. Total if you try renting them immediately, it's around 9 DEC a day. If you use Peakmonsters and wait for autobids to fulfill, it can be as cheap as 3.3 DEC a day. Add a cheap autobid rental for an Alric and it's only 6.3 DEC a day for all those cards. Easily these cards and strategies should push you to a higher rating and more wins, earning back the DEC you are spending in rentals.

So which old starter cards are your favorites? Did I miss any important ones on the list?

Note - These old starter cards won't be allowed in the modern format when it is implemented. However they will still be useful in the wild format and renting them now and holding on to the rentals may still prove beneficial once the two formats are implemented.