Remove rend 1 or a stealth option, and give him back surge spirit. Surge skeleton was OP on skeletons because of dark rising. They were never designed to have surge units, and dark rising gave too much burst. Spirits do not get burst from spells in terms of surge (spirits within and haunt are very telegraphed, and only give +3). Also, glimpse into utterdark + utterdark spectre already gives spirits invis surge, so it is literally no different than what they have now. The removal of surge on lerper did not make sense. The reason the surge nerf hit skeletons so hard, was because lerper was the only unit who could stealth shrine rush, with 2x dark rising , graveyard, bone mine, bone cloak combo. The trick worked, not always, but it did prevent some greedy players from overextending, and won me quite a few games where there were no other viable strategic options to win the game. Spirits could have technically done the same thing for a long time, but they don't, because it doesn't really work well. In fact, flanking might be better in a spirit bg, since they only get a good # of spirits at late game if they are lucky (VERY LUCKY or more skilled than me). However, it does offer more synergy with different deck combinations of spirits, and would overall fit the theme well.
I thought the arrayo can produce just as many spirits in burst as dark rising. I mean I use a lot of them in my KB deck also since you made the point that skeletons aren't meant to have surge why does tomb lord, and black blade baron have it? isn't it possible that the lerper is just too good with surge?
Surge skeleton was literally one of the first surge abilities ever. so yes they are meant to have surge. Spirits are able to rapidly produce summons just as much as skeletons are, hense why they lost half of their surge. You do not know what you're talking about please stop wasting everybodies time here.
I stop reading the OP at the point it states that skelly theme was never designed with surge in mind. Larper can still benefit from haunting vision, and I think it should be its only stat boost.
That is literally information from the developer. Skeletons produce surge much faster with dark rising
I don't even think surge lerper is that good with spirits, I just like the ability, and see no reason for it to be removed