Hello there.

Welcome to my Rentals post. I am structuring my post based on abilities, and looking at cards that have good value at Bronze levels to help newer players get started. I usually follow a personal filtering system in my rentals, where I look at the price, CP/DEC, abilities, and other things. I went through it in Part 1.

In my last post, I discussed about cards with the Camouflage ability, this time, I'll be discussing the cards with the Close Range ability.

Let's get to it.

Close Range

Close Range is an ability that lets monsters with Range attacks to be able to attack in the first position. I tend to ignore this ability since a lot of monsters with this ability have low HP. But, the Close Range ability is really good to use when the Ruleset is Going the Distance, where only Range monsters can be used. There are other much rarer ruleset combinations like Thorns + Magic Reflect, Lost Magic + Keep Your Distance. The cards below are the ones that fall within my level requirements of [3 2 2 1 Common Rare Epic Legendary]:

Fernheart is an Epic Summoner that grants all allies the Close Range ability. I don't rent him, but I felt like I needed to include him since he is a summoner that grants the ability I'm talking about. It's not that he is weak, it's just that in my playstyle I tend to favor Earth Magic instead of Earth Range. With that in mind, I will have to add that in most rulesets that Fernheart is good, he is easily countered by Ilthain who has Return Fire. So if Life is not available, and the rulesets I mentioned earlier appear, I would definitely use Fernheart.

Lava Launcher is an Epic Fire card that costs 9 mana with 3 Range Attack, 3 Speed, 6 Armor, and 6 HP. It gets the Close Range ability at level 1. Both the level 1 and level 2 cards of Lava Launcher are cheap to rent. The 1 additional HP is usually not that big of an upgrade especially with the high armor, but it can help in some scenarios. If magic is not available, the high stats of the Lava Launcher are really good.

Molten Ash Golem is a Rare Fire card that costs 6 mana with 1 Range Damage, 1 Speed, and 10 HP. It gets the Close Range ability at level 1. Similar to the Lava Launcher, the level 1 and level 2 cards of the Molten Ash Golem are cheap to rent. It goes below 1000 CP / DEC, but it is still really cheap at 0.11x DEC/day. The high HP is really good on Poison or Earthquake rulesets, and the 1 Speed can be good in the Reverse Speed ruleset. It is a very niche card, but it can be strong in those specific battles.

Tinderlock is a Rare Fire card that costs 10 mana with 3 Range damage, 2 Speed, and 9 HP. He gets the Close Range ability at level 1. He only gets 1 additional HP from level 1 to level 2, but the rental price increase is pretty big, and the level 2 actually goes way below my requirements. It is arguable though, that since he has the Last Stand ability, if that 1 additional HP is worth it. Tinderlock's Last Stand can be a win condition, and together with a good summoner, can become unstoppable.

Wave Brood is an Epic Water card that costs 8 mana, with 1 Range damage, 1 Speed, and 13 HP. It gets the Close Range ability at level 1. It gets 1 additional HP from level 1 to level 2, and is still within my rental requirements. I think the additional HP is only necessary when facing Thaddius or Weaken, that can lower the HP below 12, and reducing the Triage heal. I really like using Taunt monsters to split my opponent's damage, so I always try to rent this card when I can.

Queen of Crows is a Rare Death card that costs 9 mana, with 2 Range damage, 2 Speed, and 12 HP. She gets the Close Range ability at level 1. She gets 1 additional HP from level 1 to level 2, and is still within my rental requirements. The additional HP is very useful in the Thaddius mirror, since she can survive 1 more attack. Death already has a strong non Melee team, but Queen of Crows provides the much needed tanky Close Range monster that they are lacking.

Gargoya Devil is a Rare Neutral card that costs 7 mana, with 2 Range damage, 3 Speed, 1 Armor, and 3 HP. It gets the Close Range ability at level 1. It gets an additional 1 Speed from level 1 to level 2 and is very cheap to rent at both levels. Since it is a Neutral card, it can be used in almost all battles. The Flying ability comes in handy during the Earthquake ruleset. Unfortunately it has really low HP, and is very vulnerable to Magic attacks.

As seen from above, there are a lot of cheap and viable options for Bronze level cards with Close Range. Fire has a lot of these cards, which is why I tend to go Fire during Going the Distance.

Beatrix Ironhand and Hero of the Beyond are two Close Range monsters that I try to rent, but are usually below my rental requirements. Even their level 1 cards tend to cost more than I'm willing to pay for. Since I don't really prioritize Close Range a lot, I don't rent them unless I find a good deal.

That is it for my Close Range Rental post. I plan on making one for every ability, and the next one will be on Cleanse. Don't hesitate to let me know what you think, and if have suggestions for improvement.

And as always, these are Not Financial Advice, and Do Your Own Research.

If you want to start playing Splinterlands, you can use my link:
Splinterlands Referral Link