Introduction:
What’s up everyone!? So as you may remember, Bulldog1205 started his Splinterlands scholarship program and put a little twist on it… He’d be pitting me, a fellow influencer up against a bot on two brand new accounts with the same cards! The focus was to be on power allowing us to reach Gold, but not really anything usable beyond the starter cards… so let’s break down how Season 1 went! P.S. Bear with me as I learn how to format things on here!
Objective:
Outperform a bot using an account with Gold power at the cheapest cost, rather than specific, usable cards.
Season 1 Begins:
Now I’ll be honest, I’m a confident player. My own account easily makes it to Gold 2 or 1 rating every season without even maxed out Bronze decks. I don’t have the best cards but seem to consistently manage those 65-75%+ win rates (unless forcing a few quests when tired). So I was walking into this expecting to put a whooping on this bot. I mean my reputation is on the line here, I’m known for being good at these strategy sort of games haha!
What I’ve been handed to play with are the following;
- Fire – Exploding Rats, Lava Launcher, Tusk the Wide and Scorch Fiend
- Water – Wave Brood, Djinn Oshannus and Torrent Fiend
- Earth – Venari Seedsmith, Djinn Biljka and Fungus Fiend
- Life – Djinn Renova and Soul Fiend
- Death – Harklaw and Corpse Fiend
- Dragon – Twilight Basilisk and Djinn Chwala
- Neutral – Creeping Ooze, Gargoya Lion, Gargoya Devil and Uraeus
While these are all maxed out cards, my summoners are level 1 and therefore my cards are also downscaled to this level. Everything else is just a starter card... this should be easy right? Yeah, nah, not so much.
Novice League (Day 1):
So we kickstart in Novice. No rulesets, no banned splinters, easy! We go 3-0 and right into Bronze. I’m already feeling confident here. I didn’t even really use any of my cards. I just ran Tarsa, Living Lava, Serpentine Spy, Creeping Ooze, Uraeus and Scorch Fiend. Smashed it!
Bronze League (Day 1 – Final Day):
Ok Bronze 3 is basically Novice with a deeper pool of players so lets breeze through… Here is where the fun began. The player-base here have also been winning, they’re a bit more clued in. Everything is available, no rules and suddenly I remember how difficult it is to predict what my opponent is going to favour and play. I seem to win 5 and then lose 5, back and forth with no real consistency. A 50/50 record means I’m not climbing out of Bronze 3 and just going back and forth.
In this time I’m running my Fire sneak deck but it’s really hurt by some of the usual cards not being available. No Kobold Miner for a super cheap 2 Mana attack. No Battering Ram for Opportunity support for Spy. No Antoid Platoon at Level 3 if Mana available is too low to really use Lava without weakening the hand.
I see Cursed Windeku absolutely everywhere, Life Sapper in support and due to that the usual Living Lava, Harklaw or Mycelic Infantry counters keep failing me too. Frustration is really starting to kick in.
Day 2: I’m two days in and still stuck in Bronze 3. Several times I’ve been like 4-5 points from Bronze 2 and suddenly a wild losing streak appears. It’s nothing I can massively control either. I’m scouting my opponent, I’m keeping some variation, I’m playing experienced hands that work in higher leagues, I’m just guessing wrong and my opponent just happens to play a hard counter. These things happen but I know the Bot is already in Bronze 2 and I’m frustrated that the right battles just aren’t lining up for me.
Day 3: it’s more of the same and I’m becoming so frustrated at losses I never experience on my own account. Lack of a Level 2 Tarsa and Level 3 Antoid means those low mana Windeku battles keep hurting me as I lack the fire power to kill the magic cards and my tanks are missing crucial hits. Eventually I bite down on my mouthpiece and decide Bronze 3 is ending, I’m going to sit at the pc and fight all day if I have to, we’re getting to Bronze 2!
… After many battles reducing my 100% Capture Rate down to 46%, I’ve done it! Back and forth all day, I even fell back into Novice on a ridiculous 7 match losing streak! Finally I fell on the Obsidian, Unicorn, Peryton and Goblin Psychic spam and just repeated it endlessly until I finally got enough of a streak to get promoted.
I can’t explain how much Earth is hurt in low mana. Wood Nymph was sorely missed, Goblin Sorcerer too!
Break: So I take the next couple of days off to let the capture rate reset. I report my findings to Bulldog. Listing the obvious weak spots. It’s clear Windeku teams are proving a problem without cheap cards to help the tank but that’s the point of the experiment; An experienced, decent player being pushed to the limit without anything to fall back on.
Return to Bronze 2: So we’re back in business and I have a renewed focus. I’m still feeling the pressure though as I’m told the Bot is running off ahead of me right now! It’s in Bronze 1, it’s been earning DEC and here I am with nothing but 5 credits and a Venari Heatsmith to show for my first week. I really started questioning my ability, but at the same time I’m not really do anything different to my main? Is the bot just getting more favourable mana limits, am I facing deeper rosters? I don’t know. I’m purposely kept in the dark as to how much the Bot plays a day and I’m definitely concerned at how people will view me after this. Is this going to hurt my reputation in the community?
So over the next few days I begin adjusting to the rule sets arriving, splinter bans and such. This feels more natural to me now. I can adjust and use my knowledge to my advantage… The problem is that I don’t really have any cards to use to my advantage in these rulesets! No Forgotten One for poison rules. No Brighton Bloom for earthquake. No Level 2 Xenith Monk or Level 3 Antoid Platoon for little league. It’s eye opening how much I’ve become accustomed to specific strategies.
Several times I climb to the cusp of Bronze 1 and fall right back down. Once I went from 4 points away from Bronze 1 to falling back into Bronze 3 and then climbing back to close to Bronze 1 again. Things are erratic but at least I’m earning some DEC right now.
Mid Season Review:
So things haven’t exactly gone to plan. I found in Bronze 3 it was just impossible to ever predict the opponent and thus battles became a coin flip. Would their blind guess hard counter mine or would I smash them? This made win streaks and losing streaks irregular and frustrating until the Obsidian, Peryton, Psychic spam got me promoted. However that team began to fall off as I pushed on Bronze 1.
Bronze 2 hasn’t been much better. Yes it’s a little easier to predict some people now as sometimes there aren’t many Splinters available. It’s a little harder to be blindsided. The downside is many of my opponents have some cards tailored to rulesets and I have nothing but brute force.
The bot is well ahead of me, pushing on Silver 3 and I’m just climbing the ladder and falling off all day in Bronze 2. So many battles were won and lost by a random dodge from a 1 speed card from my 5 speed card, infuriating things like that preventing my promotion.
Decks I’m finding successful have to be Water; Kelya with Oshannus or Deeplurker/Seeweed configurations. The downside is they’re mana costly so not always practical. A Windeku hand puts a slapping if I play a lone Oshannus for example.
Earth’s Obsidian, Unicorn, Peryton and Psychic still serves me well, but people counter it a bit better here. It would be fine if I just want to stay in Bronze 2 but I’m trying to move up.
Fires’ Tarsa sneak also does ok. I definitely find it a lot weaker than my own as Lava takes up too much mana over my Antoid preference, but a Level 1 Antoid just doesn’t cut it. I also badly need Kobold Miner or at least Battering Ram to make those Windeku’s easy mode.
Pretty much everything else doesn’t work with any sort of consistency. Djinn Chwala has no support for Dragon and has proved utterly useless so far. With only Drake summoner (no Bloom, Camila or Delwyn), I get less benefit than playing Kelya, Tarsa or Obsidian. I have no Magic Dragons or anything, no real Magic cards in Water anyway and if I pair Chwala with Fire I’m losing the attack power. Chwala is getting wrecked by Windeku Magic teams
aswell, so he’s just serving zero purpose. This was a big surprise to me as a heavy Dragon player.
The weakest Splinter is hands down Life. It’s just terrible to use and so easy to beat. It needs enormous mana to stand any chance, but with enormous mana you’d easily shred it with Water, Earth or Fire anyway.
Second Half of the Season:
We’re back on the grind and I’m informed the bot has now made it to Silver 3… I’m still in Bronze 2 and I’m burned out to be honest. I don’t know what the bot is doing differently? How can I climb from Bronze 2 to Silver 2 in one sitting on my main account, losing just a few battles along the way… yet here I’m stuck? My main is mostly level 1 cards too! One positive is I was able to use this experience to help coach new affiliates of mine through the same problems and advise which of my main account cards are clearly crucial for an easier time.
We get to about 3 days from the end of the season and yeah you guessed it... I’m still in Bronze 2!! I’ve come so close so many times that at this point I don’t even want to play anymore. I start just doing my Quests, play a few more battles and have considered leaving the experiment when this season ends, I’m that demoralized at how this bot is in Silver 3 and I’m utterly stuck.
But then something happens… I really sit down and study my cards. I start testing some new line ups, trying to figure what can replace the cards I’m so familiar with and wins start outweighing the losses! I all but dump Fire sneak that just isn’t working the way I’m used to and focus in on Water and Earth only unless both are banned and boom BRONZE 1 BABY!
I’m 2 days out from the end of the season and the grind is on. I pick Bulldog’s brain to see if perhaps I’m missing something, am I making a rookie error somewhere? Is it just some bad luck in how the Splinter/Mana/Rule and opponent line up? Nothing appears obviously wrong and anything Bulldog suggests has already been done. Maybe we play a different style? He’s a bit more of a jack of all trades, I’m more of an all out attack player, maybe our methods/cards don’t align?
Regardless I battle relentlessly in Bronze 1 and get close to Silver 3 a lot but seem to get stuck in that 80-20 points from promotion spot. I’m so close! I want to hit Silver for the season end so badly.
Final Day:
We’re here and the hours are ticking away. I need just one win to get to Silver 3… and I lose. This is happening to me all day. A nice streak and then suddenly “Hey, here is a 13 mana battle with poison and we’ll ban your only counter. P.s Your opponent has Forgotten One”. Just things like that happening to me. I feel like the entire universe is against me at this point lol.
I get down to my final hour before work! One win to go once again… and I lose! I won’t lie, I’ve gotten to the point I’m shouting at the monitor haha. My dog is watching this strange human getting angry at the pc and I’m running out of time. Last real shot now… and everything collapses! I suddenly get a huge losing streak due to a combination of bad luck, bad rules and definitely a misplay or two on my part due to trying to force this.
I’ve actually failed. I’ve got a few hours of the season left but I have to go to work now. I can’t even describe how disappointed I am. I let Bulldog know and head off to work. As I get home he informs me he took over and got us to Silver 3 at least but it’s still a personal failure for me. I went and analysis what Bulldog did differently… nothing. Very similar teams, lost to pretty much the same teams as I did too. Luck just wasn’t on my side.
End of Season Review:
So that was not the landslide victory I expected. Both Zaalbar and the Bot accounts finished in Silver 3 so next season we start in Bronze 2 where things were most difficult for me.
- Biggest Surprise – How much weaker Fire was without Kobold Miner or Battery Ram.
- Biggest Headache – 12/13 Mana match ups all the time when I have no decent low mana cards.
- Best Splinter – Water; Kelya, Serpent, Deeplurker, Seeweed + whatever
- Worst Splinter – Life
- Kryptonite Team – Death Windeku (Infantry and Lava would keep missing so lose anyway)
- Toughest Ruleset – Poison
- Favourite Card – Deeplurker
- Hated Card – Windeku
- Most Valuable Card – Unicorn Mustang
- Most Useless Card – Djinn Chwala
Hopefully this has given you some insight to the progress and struggles of a Starter Card account. It’s not easy and you really need a lot of luck and stars to align in the mana/rules/splinter combo of a battle, then to pray your opponent isn’t stacked with good cards. Bronze 3 in particular was a case of “Prepare for Earth Magic or Windeku and hope you pick right”. Bronze 2-1 just needed some fortune due to lack of flexibility in our cards.
Conclusion:
The bot seemed to prove more profitable than a scholar with these limited cards. Was it luckier? Who knows but it definitely had an easier time and made more DEC. That said I got quite fortunate in card pulls with a Djinn Renova and also had the ability to record a Weekly Challenge to earn 4 HIVE on PeakD.com. So including those revenues I still earned more, as honestly neither of us really made much in game anyway.
What’s Next?:
Season 2 I agreed to return for, I wanted redemption! Things are set to be a little different this time. Bulldog will be adding a few more cards to both accounts and a Level 2 Tarsa! This means Uraeus will be downscaled a little less and I’ve been asked if there any specific cards I’d like from the Modern format. In spirit of the challenge I only request a few cheap cards that fit my personal play style… so now the pressure is on. Was I making excuses? Will I perform better in Season 2? Will the bot be even better with these few additional cards?
Stay tuned!