So you made it in Silver with your level 1 cards and are getting crushed now?

You check the rental markets and you are getting a heart attack on how much it cost?
This post then might be for you then it will suggest strategies to build competitive decks, on a budget.

My name is acantoni and I have been playing since August 2021.

I immediately applied a strategy of playing efficiently from the very first season and I have been sitting in Gold ever since, always playing at a disadvantage with a Silver level deck and massively gaining every season.

Things to know before building the deck (skip if you read previous guides)

The first thing you need to understand is that every league has a maximum Summoner Cap which for Silver is 5-4-3-2.

This means your cards will at maximum be level 5 common, lvl 4 epic, lvl 3 rare, lvl 2 legendary.
This applies to all monsters and summoners as a maximum for the league.

The second is that your summoner will determine if your monster can reach that maximum for the league or not.

The rule of thumb is that if your summoner is 5-4-3-2 level in Silver you will have the ability to play monsters that are at a maximum of 5-4-3-2 and that is what you should strive to acquire/rent to play as efficiently as possible

If your summoner is a higher level than 5-4-3-2 it will be treated as a 5-4-3-2
If your summoner is a lower level than 5-4-3-2 then it will create a new lower cap for all your cards... you might not want that.

Examples!

Lets again imagine you are in silver so the level limits are 5-4-3-2
You want to play a rare summoner: Vera

Vera is a rare card so her limit, in Silver, is level 4 and you see it will allow monsters that are 5-4-3-2 exactly the limit cap.

If you have a Vera that is level 4 you will have in Silver the ability to play monsters that are 5-4-3-2
If your Vera is level 5, in Silver your monsters will still be at a maximum 5-4-3-2 because your Vera will be treated as a level 4
If your Vera is a level 2, in Silver your monsters will be at a maximum 3-2-2-1 which will give you a significant disadvantage as other players, in the same league, will field higher level monsters

CHEAP DECKBUILDING

The first thing you want to determine is what level you want your cards to be.
This example will be for a Silver level deck (5-4-3-2) that will be extremely competitive in Silver even if off-meta and will do okay also in Gold even though will be significantly underpowered (in Gold you can play 8-6-5-3)
We will use peakmonster.com and usually try this filter

Cheap Fire Melee Deck

We will work on obtaining a set of mostly melee cards, focusing on speed and raw attack, to kill opponents fast.
In Fire, Yodin decks are by far stronger but are also more expensive so we will try something different

Acantoni Deck Suitability Rating

• Mana Settings
  • Low Mana (<15) : 9/10
  • Medium Mana (15<x<30) : 8/10
  • High Mana (>30) : 6/10
• Good rulesets
  • Super Sneak
  • Equal Opportunity
  • Little League
  • Melee Mayhem
  • Normal

Summoner

Including also cheap dragon options we have, at today price, 6 possible summoners

• Malric is the summoner this deck is meant for.
• Qid is the cheaper option
• Pyre is the speed option. This is a great summoner and you can use it in this melee deck but would potentially allow you to have even more flexibility to be covered in another guide
• As dragon, Daria is also a very very good option for melee
• As dragon, Drake while not recommended can help on the defensive focus
• As dragon, Brighton while not recommended can help on the defensive focus

General Setup

Obviously different rules will mean different setups but in general, you can imagine a setup like this for most games

1. Tank - Soak Damage
2. Off-Tank/DPS - DPS oriented off-tank
3. DPS/Utility - This slot most of the time will be a utility pick like creeping ooze or Goblin Shaman. If not DPS
4. DPS - This is a protected DPS. In most cases, this will be a serpentine spy or Sand Worm
5. DPS/Utility - This is another flexible slot, usually with dps but sometimes can be also a utility like flame monkey
6. DPS/Off-Tank - This last slot main role is to protect from Sneak and ideally dish out damage. In low mana matches this will be a straight dps hoping in a miss for the high speed

Lets now look at great cheap troops for the different roles

Tank

In Fire, we have lots of good options.

Great usually cheap picks are:

• Cerberus - This is okay even at lvl1 but I would strongly suggest going for an lvl3/4. I use Cerberus in more than 50% of my fire games and always when there is low mana.
• Living Lava - Lvl1 for budget, Lvl4 is the cap for silver. Once again at lvl5 which we cant play would be even better. This is a very good but slow tank
• Serpentine Soldier - Lvl 4 is great for the dodge. this is also good in the last position in super sneak games.
• Magnor - Good taunt tank for high mana games

You can of course also use neutrals like Goblin Mech or Chain Golem
As mentioned we have plenty of options i would make sure you have at least the Cerberus and the Living Lava.

Off-Tank/DPS

• Fineas Rage - lvl 3 for the extra damage
• Magma Troll - lvl 4 makes it a good pick
• Giant Roc - lvl 4 makes it a good pick. Giant Roc becomes better than Magma troll at lvl6, until then Magma Troll is in my opinion better
• Grumpy Dwarfs - Very solid pick at lvl5 with enrage

DPS (can be used in slot 3-4-5-6)

• Serpentine Spy - Lvl 5 and you dominate low mana games
• Kobold Miner - Lvl 3 minimum
• Battering Ram - lvl 5 for the extra speed. if not possible this is becomes a filler
• Parasitic Growth - lvl 5 ideally, lvl3 is budget
• Sand Worm - lvl 5 is great. can work even at lvl1
• Uraeus - lvl 2 minimum
• Exploding Dwarf + Exploding Rats - When your melee can attack from anywhere, especially with health equalization you will play these and kill everyone.
• Not Melee picks like Pyromancer/Flame Elemental (they will be discussed more on the Fire Speed guide)

Utility

• Creeping Ooze - lvl 1 is okay. usually placed in position 3 with the sole objective of allowing your troops to attack first
• Goblin Shaman - it must be a level5 and can be used together with the creeping ooze to provide some magic damage and an additional slow
• Flame Monkey - lvl 5 minimum for the repair makes this a good utility if your tank has armor, like the Living Lava

Last Slot

• Any DPS with sneak/opportunity can fit
• Chicken!
• Cornealus/War Chaang - If you can afford them they are a good option to soak damage

Bringing it all together

https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sm_iJAk54KtisVHXDVEtbmT

This is an all-attack game where my play is focusing on my speed and attack to immediately kill my opponent DPS.
My opponent decided to use a balanced approach with the great mustang, a healing option, and two dps.

Lots of blows back and forth but my superior damage is wrecking the opponent team

In Round 3 the game is already over

---

https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sm_aym2gb69ELuMDu9gHygP

Mylor is Malric's worst nightmare but despite that, the offensive power of this deck can overcome even thorns

After the first round lots of damages on both sides, most of it self-inflicted over thorns. It is essential to kill the Golem fast or thorns will lose the match on its own. However, in this game, i was lucky enough to have 1 Non-Melee Option that can dish damage too with the help of the Close Range condition.

At beginning of round 3, there are very few survivors left. It was a carnage

And the game is now over

How much does all of this cost?

I do have a growing collection of cards but until recently the vast majority of my cards are rental.
All my fire cards rented cost me 80 dec/day and I compete in gold 2/3 using a silver level deck.
Cards price and rental price have increased significantly so is a good practice to find cheap cards to continue playing and winning

If you were to start from absolute nothing I reckon with just renting 10 cards you can have a competitive fire deck, in silver, costing you less than 50 DEC/Day with rewards of 10 DEC/day+ for each win that can become 30 DEC/day if you reach gold3

What can i do from here?

• If you find this content useful would appreciate you taking the time to vote on it below and if you do have any question feel free to leave comments! I will reply to all comments.
• If you liked this type of guide please check my blog for other guides you can find useful by clicking on my profile like the cheap water deck guide @acantoni/off-meta-cheap-water-deck-building-silver
• If you want to play with an amazing group of people feel free to drop in the Hybornian Dream Guild Family on Discord https://discord.gg/C5kpVttksy
• Experiment and have fun with Splinterlands finding your own cards that you like!