Splinterlands Sunday!: Back to Square One!

The incredible game of Splinterlands continues to evolve to new heights as a number of changes have continued to come to the community in the game. In addition to Guilds and teams that I had talked about last week, the new Season brought a new battle system that has surely impacted the leaderboards as it has become even more competitive these days. For battles that occur in Gold Division or higher, it is possible that in addition to Splinter limitations, we could also get not one but two rules per match. This makes the filtering process on team selection even more burdensome for players.

I have seen the impact myself as I had gotten to a point where after months of practicing a number of rules when battling, I could associate a particular ruleset to individual Splinters and even cards within them to gain an upper hand during the battle. However, it has now come back to square one as the strategies now shift and seem to have balanced it out even more. While it has frustrated me as it has been much more difficult to climb the leaderboards as in previous seasons, it has also added to the diversity and once again the thrill of experimenting and exploring strategies while playing the game.

The main way that I am approaching battles is to focus on the ruleset that is most limiting for setting up teams. After focusing on that, I would then choose a Splinter that is more in line with strategies according to that ruleset. For example, if Broken Arrows is one of the rules, I would immediately look towards the Life or Water Splinters as they have good options even though Fire could also be an option. Then, I layer in the second rule set and adjust accordingly. So if Legendary’s are not available for the battle, I would probably stick with the Life Splinter. This is one of the main reasons why I have slowly been upgrading the Life Splinter as it seems as if it is one of the most versatile although not always consistent.

Something else that this experience has taught me is that it is worth viewing each battle in detail to learn over time how our decisions between Splinters, cards, and even the placement of those have various implications in battle. In the past, I would normally skip the battle in order to efficiently play as many games as possible in order to climb in rank and on the leaderboards. However, watching the gameplay has helped me in these double rulesets scenarios to improve my ability to prepare and select good teams.

The changes has also impacted the results of the tournaments I participate in as it has been a while now that I have placed in the tournament. It has been somewhat unfortunate because now tournaments are increasingly paying out in Dark Energy Crystals (DEC) in order to distribute them more broadly. This has become important because now the DEC is an acceptable form of payment for the cards on the market; even on Hive account@peakmonsters! The development team continues to broaden the reach of their project and the liquidity of the in-game currency is proof that it is working.

I did play in multiple tournaments over the weekend and was happy with the result of one in particular for a number of reasons. On Saturday, I played in the Alpha card tournament which I always enjoy because there are less players in the brackets which gives me a better chance of placing. My core collection is also surrounded around Alpha cards which puts me someone at an advantage for the tournament. However, despite the continued wins, I landed playing against one of the top players in the community, Hive account@clove71. Most of the times I have met in battle with her in ranked play I have lost consistently. However, it seemed as if I was focused during this battle because I was able to win in straight battles which gave me first place for the overall tournament! Glad she made a great recap post as well!

Many of the battles in that tournament were very close and quite interesting. I enjoyed watching them very much as it showed me how to deal with the changes. It also got me thinking that a good idea would be to share some of these battles with the community to see if it helps in showing some strategies and enjoyment or entertainment. Therefore, I will start to share the link of a weekly epic battle on my splintered and Sundays post. I would love to see if sharing the battle brings some engagement to discuss strategies and reasoning behind selected teams in ultimate results. Let me know what you guys think in the comments below!