All I hear about Axie Infinity is the money. You can make so much money OMG!! Whenever the main topic around a game is how easy it is to make money, I get very skeptical.
Am I Old-Fashoned?
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I still don't think it will be easy to make money playing video games. I consider "play-to-earn" to be the next step for esports culture. When you go into play-to-earn, I don't think you should see it as a casual thing, I think you should probably approach it more like a job/sport -- IF THE GOAL is to make money.
If the goal is just to chill, who cares? Have fun and play when you want.
Anyway, this is why I have been skeptical of Axie. All the financial mania. It is hard not to be skeptical when all you see is people freaking out about fast money.
Fast forward to today, ya boy flux has picked up an Axie scholarship. I stumbled into the opportunity via some connections from the Lost Relics scene and decided, why the hell not! This way I can get some actual personal experience on the game.
Axie: Somewhere Between a TCG and a Monster-Battler
I am very happily surprised with the format of Axie. Far from a bland creature-collector game, the format seems deep and with a lot of room for interesting decisions.
PvE mode is something like Slay The Spire, using your custom built "deck" (made of cards that are based off of your axie's attributes) to try and survive increasingly painful waves of enemies.
The adventures are "campaign" style, so you don't restart at level 1 each time you play. You can keep trying your most recent level until you beat it, gaining experience as you go.
In my first few days of Axie, I've mostly been playing PvE. This is because it's the safest way to get value out of my limited "Energy" points by using them to get more experience and level up my axies.
PvP Potential is Huge
My favorite part of the game is the PvP. You and your opponent make decisions, then the cards/decisions are revealed simultaneously. This is a lot like Pokemon, or my preferred poke-style game TemTem, where a certain "bluff" factor exists.
Will your opponent do the obvious move, so you can counter them? Or, do they know you think they'll do that and they have a secondary counter-plan ready? Maybe they'll just rest, not using any cards, and let you waste a bunch of your energy. Or maybe they will blitz attack!
I love games with bluffing, which makes Axie a big hit for me.
No photos of PvP in this post because I have to be careful -- if I do a PvP match right now for photos, I'll use up one of my valuable "energy" points. Pretty soon I'll use energy in PvP, but not yet -- for now I want to optimize my Adventure Mode PvE leveling up with all my energy points.
Just Getting Started
This post is more of a basic overview than I'd like -- I want to get deeper into the Axie experience, talk about gameplay, PvP strategy, look at the meta and see what teams are strong -- hopefully we'll get into all that good stuff soon in future posts.
For now tho I gotta get out of here - it's ranked challenge weekend in Gods Unchained, I have levels to grind in Lost Relics, and then my daily Axie grind is now part of every day's routine... oh yeah, I think I was trying to get top 20 bronze in Splinterlands too. INSANITY!! I'm outta here.
Are you playing Axie Infinity? What do you think?