Introduction
Hi! @Saydie here, playing Splinterlands everyday.
Few days ago, Splinterfest, an event that is a celebration of everything that is related to Splinterlands took place at HyperX ESports Arena, Las Vegas and it also served as the very first face to face townhall where Aggroed, Yabapmatt and the rest of Splinterlands team gives us game updates as well as answer our questions or hear our suggestions about the game.
To mark this historical event for Splinterlands every participants have the opportunity to have the very first neutral summoner in the game and her name is Lux Vega. So here, I will examine how does this summoner perform and how it might affect the game overall but first lets know more about this card.
Lux Vega
| Edition | Promo Card |
|---|---|
| Mana Cost | 5 |
| Element |  Neutral |
| Rarity | Legendary |
| Card Type |  Summoner |
| Abilities | +1 Armor, +1 Speed, +1 Health |
| No. Copies to be Minted | 1000 Max |
| Price: Regular Foil | $ 1,000 USD |
| Price: Gold Foil | $ 5,000 USD |
Lux Vega is the first summoner for the Neutral Element and it will be of Legendary rarity with all cards at max level. This card will function like Dragon summoners that you can use in combination of other element with the exception of dragon monsters.
In order to get one of this summoners, you need to be a participant of Splinterfest and depending on the type of ticket that you bought, you will be given a discount if you want to buy the card. For General Admission tickets, the base price of the regular foil is $ 1,000 USD with $ 300 USD discount. Fr VIP ticket holder, they are eligible for gold foil with the base price of $ 5,000 USD and will be given a $ 2,000 USD discount. There will only be a maximum of 1000 copies for Lux Vega which is based on the number of tickets to be sold and upon checking on the shop, 333 general admission tickets were not sold which means that the number of this summoner further decreased to 777 copies which can further decrease if the participant decides not to buy the card. It is also said that the ticket owner needs to be on the event and I know of people that wasn't able to go to the event due to Covid restrictions. Each participant is also exclusive to only one card so it only means that it is an extremely exclusive card which can be sold at a much higher price.
Comparing Lux Vega to other Modern Summoners
On this corner, I will compare Lux Vega against some of the modern summoners with similar effects to know how it will fare against them.
Pyre
Pyre is a rare Fire summoner that gives +1 speed to all ally monsters so if it go against Lux Vega, it will be at an immediate disadvantage because not only that Lux Vega also provides +1 speed, it also provides +1 armor that gives protection to it's allies and +1 health for longer survivability. The only advantage of Pyre is that it only cost 3 mana while Lux Vega cost 5 so if it can use more cards when there is a low mana battle.
Conqueror Jacek
Conqueror Jacek is a legendary Fire summoner that gives +2 speed to all ally monsters as well as the Piercing that allows it to deal the excess damage form the opponents armor to its health and Scattershot that randomizes the attack of range and magic monsters. While Lux Vega was short by 1 speed and does not provide abilities to monsters, it adds +1 armor and health, making it harder for the opponent to deal damage to your monsters right away and you can provide focus attack to a specific monster with your range and magic monsters.
Kelya Frendul
Kelya Frendul is a rare Water summoner with the cost of 4 mana and it also gives +1 Speed and armor to all ally monsters like Lux Vega but since it doe not have additional stat boost for health, Lux Vega has a clear advantage when go against Kelya Frendul and there is not much difference on their mana cost so it is obvious which is to use between the two.
Lir Deepswimmer
Lir Deepswimmer is a legendary Water summoner that cost 7 mana that gives +2 armor and the Return Fire and Blind that causes the attack of range monsters to be returned to them and for melee and range monsters to miss their targets but it does not provide a speed boost like Lux Vega and the easiest way to avoid those abilities is to use a magic team.
Iltain
Iltain is an epic Life summoner that has +1 speed and the Return Fire so you will have a matching speed boost with Lux Vega and as long as you do not use any range monster, there is nothing to be afraid for the ability of this card and Lux Vega has an armor and health boost which will give more advantage against the opponent.
Drake of Arnak
Drake of Arnak is a rare Dragon summoner that gives +1 armor to all ally monsters and since this is a dragon summoner, it can be combined with all the other elements as long as the rule set permits it just like Lux Vega but has a clear stat advantage because it also has +1 armor and +1 health. However Lux Vega can also use other elements when building a line- up, it cannot use any Dragon monsters which gives Drake of Arnak more options on building it's team. In terms of usability, Lux Vega can be used more frequently than any dragon summoner since it will be available to almost all the rulesets where dragon is banned.
Byzantine Kitty
Byzantine Kitty is a legendary Dragon summoner that gives +2 speed as well as True Strike which makes attack from ally monster to never miss and Tank Heal that restores the health of the 1st position monster. This will be the toughest opponent for Lux Vega since it gives more speed and has the ability to heal it's allies and also every attack will be a sure hit.
Rulesets that Lux Vega Cannot or Difficult to be Used
| Ruleset Name | Description | Reason for Exclusion |
|---|---|---|
 Silent Summoner | Summoners do not give any stat buffs or debuffs or grant/use any abilities. | SInce the stat boost of Lux Vega does not work for this rule set, it is better to choose a summoner that has lower mana cost to give more emphasize on building your team. |
 Reverse Speed | Monsters with the lowest Speed attack first and have the highest chance of evading attacks. | Since the priority of attack on this rule set goes to the monster with the lowest speed, the speed boost of Lux Vega will only be a disadvantage on this rule set. |
 Little League | Only Monsters & Summoners that cost 4 Mana or less may be used in battles. | As Lux Vega cost 5- mana to use, it will be impossible to use her on battles. |
We have the Taking Sides rule set where neutral monsters cannot be used in battles bur since Lux Vega is a summoner, she was excepted to the rule set.
Final Thoughts
Lux Vega is a game changing card for the higher leagues and because of it's rarity, there will be a very small chance that I will be able to use this card and even if I can, it will sure take a fortune just to rent this card but since it is a max level summoner, there is also a very low chance that we can see this card at the lower leagues, maybe at briefly at gold after a season reset where we fall down 2 tiers from our current league but that's it. I'm sure that all the participants of Splinterfest will be able to enjoy this fantastic card after when it was finally available.
All the image that I edited here belongs to Splinterlands.
Footer image made by splintercell-01
Card abilities and rulesets from Splintercards
Thank you for reading my post. If you're interested to play Splinterlands, you can join by clicking this link.