Hey everyone, this is just a quick post from me about my favorite game but this time it's about the free version Frontier Mode and in case you didn't know: YES you can now play Splinterlands totally for free to see if it's something for you which has been a great improvement and something we needed for so long, better late than never!
In games likes these there's always a meta - a certain strategy that works but when you're new to the game it can be hard to discover it, and when you get beaten over and over it's not fun and you might end of quitting the game, so while playing some Frontier matches for fun myself I decided to make a little post about this fun little mode because there's a really strong meta currently and once you understand it, it's pretty easy to beat - don't get too excited though because when too many players discover it, the meta gets countered just like I do and something new gets played a lot.
Death, it is!
Currently the Death splinter surely is the dominating team, it's not said it can't be beaten with other teams but in most matches, players go with Death, it's the only splinter with a tank with the Void ability, able to halve incoming magic damage and if the magic damage is only 1, it doesn't do any damage so that's pretty nice, especially in matches at 30 mana or below it's the obvious choice, when you look at the five matches I recently played, 7 out of the 10 teams were Death teams.
Go trough the Campaign Mode first
When you're totally new to the game, play trough the Campaign Mode first, it explains everything in a great way when you read carefully and not just click trough to get to the playing part.. that's important: read carefully! 😉
When you understand the basics and are still losing, it's important to watch the battles to see why you're losing because there are some strong counters, even in this limited Frontier Mode with only a limited amount of cards compared to the full game.
When we look at this card for example, it's a really good card, because it's Neutral it can be played together with any Splinter, it does good damage - yeah maybe the speed isn't too great but we can't have it all...
The Opportunity ability makes it that it targets the enemy unit with the lowest amount of Health Points on the other team, so it's great!
Right!?
Well it IS a great card... but is has a really easy counter so I basically stopped playing him at this point 😅
Putting this card in the second (or third when you're using a unit with the Reach ability) combined with the Death Archon taking 1 Health Point from all the enemy cards PLUS using the Epic 7 mana magic attacker Sorrow Harvester with the Weaken ability, taking away another Health Point from all enemy units, makes the nice card that hunts other small cards only have TWO Healh Points at the start of the battle...
The Spellmonger has the THORNS ability, doing two damage against any melee attacker when it's hit
So when it attacks the Spellmonger, because it has the lowest amount of Health Points on your team (I don't think upgrading this card makes sense because it increases the Health Points, making it less likely to get targeted by enemy Opportunity units) it instantly kills itself in the first round.
Many players still DO play the Vengeful Monk, because.. well it's a good card! And by the looks of it, the enemy team is doing more damage with better cards than my team, also true... but my opponent still loses!
Watch the battle unfold for yourself here.
Playing the meta
So, try to make this your basic team and build from there
I'm not the only one understanding this, and this liquidity bot played exactly the same team, so it was a draw.
Depending on the amount of mana we can use, we can insert more cards and when it's too obvious we both play the same teams and keep getting draws 😅
When your rating goes up
When you're kicked ass and doing really well you're going to meet more skilled players and by grinding your daily battles with some effort, earning cards every day we can eventually level up our cards and improve so we can go even more up in rating, with higher rating comes more limited availability in the splinters we can choose for every battle, so that's more fun, and sometimes also more challenging!
Speed wins!
In this battle, Death wasn't available and I could see my opponent liked to play the Earth splinter, Earth is good, it has a nice self healing tank with two strong archers, and you see the Opportunity guy is there again? it's going to kill himself on the Thorns pretty fast!
So, yes Earth has some nice cards but they all have one drawback... they're pretty slow!
It took me months playing Splinterlands before I understood the importance of Speed, it not only determines the attack order; simply explained, the higher the number the higher it's speed, fast cards attack first - higher rarity cards can attack before lower rarity when the speed it the same (there's more to it but let's not over complicate things), but is also determines if attacks will hit or miss!
So, magic attacks can't miss unless the targeted monster has the Phase ability, and that's only something for the full game, melee and ranged units however have an increasing chance to miss if their speed is much lower than the unit they are trying to attack.
So, in this battle I made use of the speed and although I used a tank that couldn't attack, it only was there to dodge the enemy attacks while my team kills off the enemy cards.
Watch the battle unfold for yourself here.
Higher mana battles
So, with battles above 30 mana you can play around a little and see if you can beat the Death team with for example the Earth team, because it has some really strong archers they're helpful in getting trough the front of the enemy team, just experiment and play around with it, it's not a bad thing if you lose, it's a game so have fun seeing what works and what doesn't.
Making use of magic
So, for battle when the Death splinter is not available, it may be a nice play to go for the Water team that increases our magic damage, without Death there to counter our magic attacks with the Void tank, the magic can't be countered very effectively.
In this battle, I easily won against a higher level opponent.
When you're having a hard time understanding things, let me know and I'll try to help you, also when you're new to the game and think this is something for you, it's a good idea to join a guild - we have two guilds so let me know and maybe there's a spot for you, have fun - see what works and what doesn't and grind on!
And like Splinterlands players like to shout our battle cry: VONAK!
it means: 'Together - We Rise'.
Thank you for reading!!!
If you haven't made an account already, please consider using my referral link to sign up, I'll happily send the amount I get for your signup back to you in DEC or SPS to help you start.
Also, when you require any help to get you started,let me know, I'm here to advice and guide new players and maybe I can help you with card delegations too!
Have a great day!
