One of the most dreaded moments of a Splinterlands battle is seeing that my opponent uses either of the Legendary Scarred Llama Mage (Llama) or Yodin Zaku summoners. They're both extremely powerful summoners who are nearly unstoppable if you aren't prepared for them.

In this post, I'll be focusing on my Silver I level lineups that I used to counter the Llama summoner including the Llama/Kron and Llama/Golem pairs that you commonly see. What I feel is unique or useful about this is that I only use Chaos Legion cards and un-leveled started cards!

So Who/What is a Llama and What Makes it so Great?

The "Llama" is a Legendary Untamed Earth summoner that grants the following 3 buffs to friendly monsters:

Icon	Buff	Description
	Health Boost	All friendly monsters have +2 Health
	Last Stand	All friendly monsters receive the Last Stand ability at the start of battle
	Tank Cleanse	This summoner will cleanse all debuffs from the friendly monster in the first position each round

Obviously, with this being a Legendary summoner, you can expect massive buffs (or debuffs). What makes Llama so great is that there are 2 amazing monsters that are typically used with this summoner to maximize their abilities. Those monsters are Flesh Golem and Kron the Undying.

These 2 particular cards have self healing abilities and a large life pool making them perfect for pairing with Llama.

With the Llama buffs, they both get 12 health right out of the gate. Self healing heals 1/3 of their health, rounded down, which equates to a massive +4 healing each round! That alone makes them nearly unstoppable especially at lower mana battles where they are heavily spammed. The combination of Llama/Golem costs 13 mana and Llama/Kron costs 17 mana to play.

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As Billy Mays would say, "But wait, there's more!" With the Last Stand ability, the last monster standing gets a 1.5 multiplier on all of their stats! That brings Llama/Golem up to 3 attack, 5 speed, and 18 health with the ability to heal +6 health each round! Llama/Kron gets buffed to 5 attack, 3 speed, and 18 health with the ability to heal +6 health as well.

Think about that for a second, how do you defeat something that can heal 6 damage while dishing out 3 or 5 attack?

It's nearly impossible and strikes fear in all Splinterlands players who do not own/rent a Llama of their own.

So What do I do Besides Immediately Clicking Surrender?

What's great about Splinterlands is that the game is generally pretty balanced with excellent counters to most cards. With the latest expansion pack, Chaos Legion, we get some very good cards for a reasonable price.

For reference, a Llama is $265/BCX, Kron is $160/BCX, and Flesh Golem (Level 3) is $22.

In the following breakdowns, I have only used Chaos Legion cards or Level 1 starter (aka ghost) cards. The Chaos Legion cards are maxed for Silver but even so, they are much cheaper than Llama. Also, the great thing about it is that although these lineups are great at countering Llama, you won't get wrecked if you opponent decides to play something else.

With enough mana, you could potentially use a heavy sneak lineup but I find it risky especially when your mana is on the lower end. Kron/Golem can still both heal for +4 each round so you'll need to do a massive amount of sneak damage to take them out.

Another option is to hit them with Affliction (stops the healing) or Poison (2 damage at the end of the round) but the Llama provides them with Cleanse so it isn't very reliable.

Key Cards to Buy/Rent

At the moment, my favorite 2 splinters are Death and Life so I'll be concentrating on those 2. Specifically the summoners Thaddius Brood and General Sloan. Although they provide different buffs/debuffs, they can both be used to counter either Llama/Kron or Llama/Golem.

Debuffs Kron's magic and reduces the healing of both Kron and Golem to +5	Buffs ranged attacks like Gargoya Devil. Gargoya Devil can then do 4 damage (8 with Death Blow)
May potentially allow for the use of Bone Golem if you're expecting Kron	Pelacor Arbalest hits HARD and can help take out any Llama buffed monsters

It's imperative that both of these summoners are leveled up to 4 which will require 25 copies of each one. At today's prices, this will cost about $60 for Thaddius Brood and $50 for General Sloan.

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Gargoya Devil

At Level 4, Gargoya Devil has 3 abilities, one of which is the most important one for Llama hunting.

Symbol	Name	Description
	Flying	Has an increased chance of evading Melee or Ranged attacks from Monsters who do not have the Flying ability (+25% chance of evading)
	Close Range	Can perform ranged attacks from the first position
	Death Blow	This Monster does 2x damage if their target is the only Monster left on the enemy team

Since this is a Neutral card, it can be used with both Thaddius Brood and General Sloan for a total of 11 mana spent. This leaves you a bit to play with to put in a tank in order to protect it against either Kron or Golem depending on the mana limits of the battle.

Since the Llama lineups rely heavily on having either Kron/Golem being the last monster standing, you usually get pretty "soft" monsters up front especially if you're up against what I call a "Lazy Llama." It's such a great summoner that for most battles, you could literally put in just Kron or Golem have a decent win rate.

The Gargoya Devil's Death Blow ability allows it to do double damage against the last monster which equates to 6 damage (8 if using General Sloan)! Additionally, it can attack from the first position just in case your tank dies. With decent support, this massive amount of damage should take out either of the Llama combos.

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Supply Runner

At Level 5, Supply Runner has the Swiftness ability which provides all friendly monsters with increased speed.

This card is extremely versatile and can be used nearly anywhere since it is a common Neutral card. A Level 5 will cost you about $8 which is a steal for something that buffs your entire lineup while also being able to attack. This monster is an absolute MUST HAVE if you plan on running a General Sloan deck.

Battle Analysis with Thaddius Brood

Battle Highlights

• Equalizer
  • This ruleset definitely boosted the utility of my Gargoya Devil. It's a little squishy at only 3 health but the armor and flying ability gives it a little bit of survivability
  • With Death, I like to use the two Life Leecher monsters, Venari Bonesmith and Life Sapper, because they will provide a nice buffer between my Gargoya Devil and their last standing monster. This combination only requires 18 mana
  • General Sloan would've been great here as well but Life was not available

• Rise of the Commons
  • Since Kron is a Legendary card, I was expecting my opponent to use the Golem who has a melee attack
  • My crypt beetle was perfect here to help stave off some attacks while my backline did the heavy lifting

As you can see, it was an easy battle for me because of the massive damage that Gargoya Devil can dish out. Without Death Blow, their Golem would've eventually worked his work through my lineup.

Battle Analysis with General Sloan

Battle Highlights

• Lost Magic
  • No Magic monsters meant Kron was not going to be an option so I was again expecting Golem
  • I was able to use General Sloan here with the Shieldbearer as my tank
  • Following him up with shield repair is a major bonus since there is no Magic
  • Speed is extremely important since Melee and Ranged attacks can miss

• 38 Mana
  • This is a decently large mana pool so I was expecting some heavy hitters
  • However, since Golem is always placed in the back, he can't do anything from there other than absorb sneak damage
  • With General Sloan, I put in my heavy hitters with support for my Shieldbearer and hope he doesn't die

This is one of those "Lazy Llamas" that I mentioned previously. The synergy just isn't there but Llama is so powerful that it may not have mattered.

In this case, the Gargoya Devil wasn't even necessary but it definitely provides an advantage over the Llama lineup when 1/3 of their mana is spent on 2 cards (Llama/Golem) and one of those cards can't even attack from the backline.

Other Random Llama Battles

For whatever reason, I ran into a bunch of Llama users within an hour of playing which actually inspired this post. What I find most interesting is that I mainly use Chaos Legion cards which are cheap to level up (relatively) since they are so widely available. Additionally, these aren't hard counters to Llama lineups so they can perform well in other scenarios as well.

Final Thoughts

There's no doubt that Llama is one of the best summoners in the game. Even though I won these battles, there are definitely rulesets where any Llama combination will absolutely destroy everything else but that's what's fun about the game. Every battle is different and it's important to have a varied set of cards in order to stay competitive.

My goal of this post was to showcase the potential of some of the Chaos Legion cards in a meaningful way and I hope I was able to achieve that. Thank you for reading!

Referral link : https://splinterlands.com?ref=at.bui89

If you decide to use my referral link, I'll happily send you a few cards to help you get started!