Kelan Gaines: A great card for all levels of play.

👋🔥 Hello, Splinterlands Friends and Family!

For this week's Splinterlands Social Media Challenge, we're diving into a card review of the current star of the Voucher Shop: Kelan Gaines! 🧙‍♂️💥

You can currently grab this card from the voucher shop, and at first glance, it looks like a solid addition to your lineup. But is it really worth it? 🤔

Let’s explore its strengths and weaknesses together in this post! 🧩⚔️

🧩 Introduction:

🎟️ Voucher Shop

The exclusive "LYRA & LORN’S" Shop (aka the Voucher Shop) is one of the latest additions to the game, made possible through a DAO vote. 🗳️

It came as part of a compromise: instead of using Vouchers to get discounts when buying packs in the regular shop, players now get access to exclusive items, currently, that means new cards! 🃏✨

Here's how it works:

Every 4 to 5 months, the team releases a brand-new card for the current set at a fixed Voucher cost.
This gives Vouchers real utility 💰 and helps maintain their value over time 📈.

As part of the deal, Vouchers won’t be usable for bonus packs in the upcoming Conclave Arcana set sale.
This means players will need more DEC 💎 to buy the same amount of CA packs, removing some DEC selling pressure from the market. In exchange, we get new cards directly into the ecosystem.

👉 Personally, I think this is a fair trade. We lose a discount but gain cool new cards for Vouchers, basically the same idea, just in a different form! ⚖️🔥

Even though it might be interesting in this point I wont cover Kelan Gaines price point in Dollar terms since the card came out a week ago and its price is yet to settle. We can discuss that on a later post.

🔍 Kelan Gaines: Card Review Level by Level

As always, let's start with an analysis of the card league by league. 📊⚔️

🥉 A. Bronze Level

At Bronze level, Kelan Gaines is a very strong and unique option for 8 mana. At level 2, the card gains the Phase ability, allowing it to dodge Magic attacks like they were physical. Combined with its impressive 5 Speed, this makes it a great asset. It also comes with 6 Health and Snipe, which is always useful to surprise your enemy’s backline. Overall, this card makes for a great off-tank and can even hold the frontline if needed. 💪🧙‍♂️

🔹 Mana Cost: 8
🔮 Stats: 2 Magic Attack, 5 Speed, 6 Health
💥 Abilities: Snipe, Phase

💡 For Bronze, this card delivers excellent value for its cost. 🔥

🥈 B. Silver Level

At Level 4, the card becomes even stronger with the addition of the Backfire ability. 💥 Whenever an enemy misses Kelan Gaines, it returns 2 damage, which is huge given its high speed and Phase. Now Kelan not only dodges like a ninja but punishes those who fail! 🌀⚡

It still plays a similar role to the Bronze version but just way more effective.

🥇 C. Gold Level

At Gold level, Kelan gains +1 Magic Damage, taking it to 3. While this upgrade is helpful, it doesn’t unlock any new abilities. It's a modest but welcome boost to its overall performance.

The card was already solid at Silver, so this just keeps it relevant in the meta, although its relative strength compared to other high-level cards starts to level off here.

💎 D. Diamond / Champion Level

At Max Level, Kelan Gaines becomes a beast with the addition of Double Strike and +1 Speed. 🐉💨 This allows it to attack twice per turn with Magic Damage, which is no joke when paired with Backfire and Phase. It becomes an offensive AND defensive threat that’s hard to hit and punishes mistakes.

🧠 Final Stats at Max Level:

🧙 3 Magic Damage
⚡ 6 Speed
❤️ 9 Health
🎯 Snipe
🌪️ Phase
🔁 Backfire
💥 Double Strike

🔥 Overall, Kelan Gaines is a solid 8-mana card with great synergy, strong survivability, and *high damage potential, especially at higher levels.

🛡️ II. Card Strength Overall & the Current Meta

There’s one important point we haven’t covered yet: Kelan Gaines is quite unique in that it can be used in both the Dragon and Death Splinters. 🐉💀

This is significant because the Dragon Splinter usually requires another Splinter to be played. So, when used with a Dragon Summoner, Kelan becomes playable in nearly any team composition, greatly boosting its versatility and value.

🔍 Meta Analysis:

Kelan hits hard thanks to Double Strike, but like all magic damage dealers, it's vulnerable to Silence (which reduces Magic Damage by 1).
However, since it's also a Death card, it can be paired with Lorkus, who:
- 🧪 Boosts its Magic Damage by +1
- 🧛‍♂️ Grants Lifesteal, turning Kelan into a really high healthy powerhouse.
- With high Speed, Phase, and Backfire, this combo makes Kelan incredibly hard to take down, especially as its health grows each round.
But since the unit has no amor if you manage to hit him a few times he will die fast.

⚖️ Overall Verdict:

Kelan Gaines is a top-tier pick for the current meta.

✅ Versatile: Usable in multiple Splinters
✅ Scales well: Strong at all levels of play, but for different reasons
✅ Synergistic: Abilities like Phase, Backfire, and Double Strike work perfectly together
✅ Meta-compatible: Fits into a variety of rulesets and team comps

At lower levels, it stands out due to its Speed + Survivability, and at max level, it becomes a high-damage, evasive, and self-sustaining threat.

👀 Coming Up:

Let’s dive into a match where Kelan Gaines played a pivotal role in securing victory! 🏆💥 I played this match against my good friend @royaleagle and that's one of the reasons I decided to feature it!

🏆 Match Preparation

🎮 Watch the full battle here!

⚔️ The Ruleset

This was a 41-mana battle featuring three impactful rulesets:

🌀 What Doesn’t Kill You
All units gain Enrage, granting bonus Speed and Melee Attack when damaged.

💡 This favors high-speed units and makes battles even more unpredictable once damage is taken.

♻️ Even Stevens
Only monsters with even mana costs are allowed.

🔍 This restricts team composition and increases the value of versatile even-cost cards like Kelan Gaines.

🔥 Ferocity
All units gain Fury — double damage vs. units with Taunt.

🚫 This discourages use of Taunt monsters and pushes players toward alternate strategies.

🛡️ The Lineups

🟦 My Team

Summoner	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th

🧠 Strategy: A classic Death build focused on durability and synergy.

Skok powers up Will-o-Wisp and Riftwing.
Riftwing becomes dangerous when enraged, evading attacks and growing stronger via Scavenger.
Will-o-Wisp adds Silence support to reduce enemy Magic damage.

🟥 Opponent’s Team

Summoner	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th

🧠 Strategy: A similar Death team with **Skok buffing Ahna-Chei Botanist and Clockwork Aide.

Astral Entity adds Resurrect and Dodge, boosting evasiveness.
Kelan Gaines is the main carry, backed by buffs and positioned to deal massive, continuous magic damage with Double Strike.
The enemy team damage is all over the place which is most of the times not ideal.

🎬 The stage is set!
Both sides came prepared for a grueling standoff, now let’s see how Kelan Gaines performs under pressure! 🔥

🎬 Battle Breakdown

We’ve seen the lineups, now let’s dive into the key moments of the match.

🌀 Turn 1: Setting the Stage

turn 1.png

Right off the bat, things start getting spicy.
Every unit on my team gets Blinded, and all enemy monsters have Dodge. That’s a stacked evasion combo:

🔹 Blind = -15% accuracy
🔹 Dodge = +25% chance to avoid Melee & Ranged
🔹 And many enemies already have high speed...

🎯 Hitting anything becomes a challenge — a brutal situation in an Enrage ruleset where speed spikes are game-deciding.

❌ Critical Moment

This miss by Arkemis the Bear against a slower Cursed Windeku was the turning point.

One missed attack allowed Windeku to survive Turn 1.
That survival meant Windeku was alive in turn 2 even after other units managed to kill him because it was revived.
Result: even though the enemy frontline was weaker than mine it managed to survive longer.

This minor event snowballed into massive consequences 😩

⚔️ Turn 2: Momentum Shifts

turn 2.png

Damage flies from both teams, but history repeats itself...

🔁 Another key miss by Arkemis — AGAIN vs Windeku — seals my fate.
Eventually I get the kill, but it’s too late. And just then…

💥 Kelan Gaines steps up.

🧨 Turn 3: Kelan Dominates

turn 3.png

With Windeku finally down, Kelan takes the frontline.

Meanwhile:

My backline suffers from Night Stalker’s precision attacks.
Riftwing, though making itself quite strong thanks to Scavenger, starts taking heavy hits.

And then...

Kelan becomes untouchable:

11 Speed
Dodge
Blind
Phase

🤯 Even my fastest units can’t land a hit. Kelan not only soaks damage by being really hard to hit, he also he dishes it out a lot of damage with Double Strike magic that never misses.

By now, Riftwing's valiant efforts aren't enough. The enemy has momentum, and it snowballs fast.

💡 Final Thoughts

I'll admit, I don’t love sharing losses 😅
But this match was a masterclass in Kelan Gaines utility, and it deserves the spotlight.

Despite some bad RNG and crucial misses early on, I believe the enemy build had a consistent edge:

Great synergy with Astral Entity + Dodge
A tough frontline that survived just long enough
Kelan as both a carry and a tanky closer

🔥 Why Kelan Gaines Shined:

Reliable Magic damage that bypasses Armor
Double Strike = 2x consistency
Scales defensively thanks to speed-based evasion
Backfire synergy with Enrage and Blind

Even without a buffing summoner like Lorkus, Kelan held the line, closed the game, and looked stylish doing it.

📌 Takeaway:
If you're facing rulesets like Even Stevens + What Doesn’t Kill You, don’t overlook Gaines. He can carry games, especially when paired with evasive summoners like Astral Entity.

image by @javiss.gif

🧾 Final Conclusion

This battle was a tough loss, but also a great learning opportunity. It showcased just how impactful a few missed hits can be in a ruleset where speed and evasion reign supreme. Despite building a strong and well-balanced team, the early misses against Cursed Windeku defined the outcome of the fight and once Kelan Gaines stepped up, there was no coming back.

What truly stood out was how Kelan Gaines, even without being the centerpiece of a typical combo, became the MVP through sheer evasion and survivability. Backed by Astral Entity, he turned into an evasive monster that was nearly impossible to bring down.

💡 Lesson learned: In high-speed matchups with Blind and Dodge, reliability is everything, and Gaines is as reliable as it gets.

Win or lose, every match tells a story. And when looking at this one objectively, the enemy had the better chances to win. His team was solid all around, and while I could have snatched the victory with a bit more luck, he definitely deserved the W this time. 🎮🔥

Hope to meet you again on the battlefield, @royaleagle, things won’t go the same way next time 😏🔥

Also if you want to check out my latest post you can by clicking the images: