Edited in Canva Pro.
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I read before (but I was only able to find this article from Splinterlands.) and reacted to the same post that not having bot in Modern Format was a big mistake. I was against it thinking that the time it would take for games to start will be too long that it would be almost unplayable.
I was wrong.
Since they removed the bots, the time for the queue is almost the same. There are more rewards as well based on other player's posts that I saw and everything has been going well.
(not for me because of the SPS rewards reduction.)
HOWEVER
There seems to be a few unnoticed problems... There are still bots in Modern Format.
And yes, random person from the internet. I do have proofs. Either this is a bot or this is someone win-trading.
This was a game I had last week and I thought it was very... suspicious. Normal human players don't normally do this. Bots, on the other hand, if they cannot make the best team because of the rules, they either slap in whatever or surrender.
Guess what? Both of those, I got evidence of. Let's take a dive deeper on this account.
August 08, 2023
On the same day I did the battle, I've taken these other screenshots on their history.
As you can see, it's not the first time my opponent, Striker2416, did the "Place one summoner, place one monster and go." This is what convinced me that this account isn't as human as it should be.
On this screenshot, the sus meter increased but not because of what Striker 2416 did but rather his opponents. I have this theory that the only people bots would win is against other bots. This isn't because they are bad in particular but because of these instances.
Just think about it. This account is so lucky that he was able to get SIX STRAIGHT WINS through opponent's surrenders. Why he didn't get rating is something I don't know. Maybe it's a system thing.
I am not sure if Splinterlands have tools to allow them to check when an account is botting but in here, he did it again. Although, on the other ones, he played it properly. This makes me think that this account isn't fully botted but still can't deny that he uses bots.
August 09, 2023
The next day, I decided to check if there are any suspicious battles again on this lovely account. I was really hoping I was mistaken until I saw this.
While this doesn't look bad, the lineup is very convincing and it can do proper battle, I checked the rule of combat.
In this battle, it was a <b.Fog of War rule of combat. Guess what, Uraeus, the third monster, has Sneak, which is disabled in that rule of combat. So, I asked myself, "Why would a player who reached 1000+ rating won't know that Sneak doesn't work in Fog of War?"
While I do am guilty and do the same mistakes once in a while, the man just did a battle below. Scarred Llama Monk and Xenith Monk is a strong combination for low mana and he certainly has a mana for it in this battle. So, "Why use Uraeus over Xenith Monk in a battle where Uraeus's abilities wouldn't work?""
Calm down. I got you covered!
August 10, 2023
The next day, I did more snooping. I thought of look the battle more closely and found more suspicious battles.
Now, I don't want anyone thinking this is a set up or I'm photoshopping these screenshots (which isn't really hard to do), so here's a solid hard evidence that you cannot fake.
I realized that you can get a replay of the battles and took these before it gets covered by other battles.
Let's check these out:
Battle 1:
https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_45c0b23a41508ad4d4c98af911821d95
He's using Scarred Llama Mage Summoner but Fungus Fiend is the one at the back instead of Regal Peryton. When you play low mana battles with Scarred Llama Mage, you always put the best monster at the back since there's higher chance that your opponent will have melee monsters at the first position. Most of the monsters that have best protections are melee ones like Cursed Windeku in this battle.
Battle 2:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_11d6063260b968c85b908601f56214fa
The reason I added this one is to show that the owner of this account can think properly at times. This fight, he did the lineup properly. This makes me think that the account is semi-botted and at times, he actually personally play the game.
Battle 3:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_690d07fb8cc29d6566a7e62b4ce2a3f4
Another battle using the bot. The rule of combat is Noxious Fumes, which gives Poison to all monsters. In this battle, Striker2416 used a bunch of low health monsters with the last one as a passive monster. As if he "doesn't know" what Noxious Fumes does.
I also do use low mana monsters on the Noxious Fumes but when I do that, I always make sure there's at least a monster with Scavenger ability like Venari Seedsmith or Riftwing. The low mana monsters are just fodder for the Scavenger. But in this battle, there's none of that strat.
In addition to that, to make this worse, the last monster doesn't even have an attack. This would most likely end up with Failed Summoner with Last Stand. Yes, he would have high health but if he can't attack, then is it for what?
I've done the Last Monster Passive strat before with Cornealus, a range monster, with Scarred Llama Mage. To make that work, you MUST have a monster with Heal ability. So, what would happen is that with high health from Last Stand ability and Heal, you outsustain the damage up to turn 20. Starting turn 21, both of you would get 1 Fatigue damage per round increasing by 1 at the start of the next round. This makes Cornealus top other monsters because not only he has high health to allow him to survive maybe up to turn 30 or something but he also have Heal to outdo the damage from the opponents and the Fatigue damage. There's none of that complicated strat in this battle as well.
Battle 4:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_68b2692022620ef494e67b299c9a5720
For the last one, this guy used Possibilus Summoner but did almost full mage. Possibilus's abilities give your monster Reach ability and Trample ability in addition to +2 Max Health.
Reach allows your melee monsters to attack while in second position. Trample allows your MELEE monsters to do an extra attack to the next monster, if they did the last hit and kill an opponent.
Since most of his monsters are mage, Trample doesn't work. His opponent also used a Possibilus summoner and see the difference of the lineup for yourself.
Questions Before I End this Article
Are bots legal in Splinterlands?
Yes. But it was recently disabled and banned in Modern Format. You can still freely use bots in Wild Format.
Maybe the account is playing in Wild Format then?
No. If you re-check the screenshots and the replays, you cannot see a single Alpha or Beta monsters and summoners. Modern Format does not allow monsters on these series and even if the account can control what he uses, meaning playing in Wild Format without using Alpha or Beta monsters, you cannot control what your opponent will play.
Also, there are overpowered cards and combos that requires Alpha and Beta monsters so his opponents not using cards such as Wood Nymph is very not likely.
After these gathered evidences, I stopped. I, myself, am convinced that this is a bot account. It may not be a fully bot account or maybe it is. That part you cannot prove just by studying the battles. But even if it's not fully botted, using bots in Modern Format should've been disabled already.
If you're still not convinced, I'm not sure what you need more to prove that this bot account exist but if you need more proof, just visit Striker2416's account every few days and you should be able to see what you need.
The point of this article isn't to humiliate the account owner. It's to call out Splinterlands that their "No more bots in Modern Format" project seems have a loop hole somewhere. While I will admit that the number of bots clearly decreased, seeing this for my eyes made me believe that the bots in Modern Format isn't 100% extinguished yet. There might be a few more bots there that wasn't exposed yet. I don't have a problem with this but my problem is Splinterland's report is "Blocking bots from Modern format" and not "Reducing bots from Modern format."
Now, I won't held Striker2416 accountable for this or using the bot because bots are still legal. Splinterlands haven't issued anything that says bots are prohibited in any formats. What they did was to disable or ban the bots. It's not a rule, it's a feature. In other words, if you can find bots that can work in Modern Format, like this one, good for you. My question is:
- This post is an entry for Splinterlands Social Media Contest.
- Other sources that I do not own are cited under their respective photos. Photos and drawings without cited sources are mine and made for this post.
- I do not own the video nor the photos above the timestamps. All of those are credited to the creator who is mentioned throughout this article.
- Animated Banners and Dividers are edited in Canva Pro.
- Some of the fonts used are from instafonts.io
- Random gifs in between the articles are from Tenor.com
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