Pandemonium: My Least Favorite Ruleset So Far

One of the things that brings depth to the strategic gameplay of Splinterlands is its modifiers. They are a set of rules that change the winning condition of every battle. Sometimes, it will bring bonuses that could strengthen both teams, while on other occasions, it will bring debilitations that will weaken both of them. Under certain situations, it will even restrict what type of cards each player can use and will even disable some or all of the cards' abilities. So it is not an exaggeration to say that modifiers are sometimes something that a player should be more cautious of, rather than the opponent they were facing, and thus, it always needs to be considered when strategizing our lineups.

And as the new season starts, two new game modifiers have been added to the game. One is the Eggceleration ruleset, which is a limited-time ruleset part of the Eggstravaganza Season, while Pandemonium will be a casual ruleset, which by far is my least favorite ruleset, and I'll teel why in this post.

With Pandemonium as an active modifier, all units will start the battle in random order.

Unlike Aimless, which randomizes the attack of range and magic units, Pandemonium completely randomizes the position of all cards. This means that the melee unit that you place in the 1st position can be placed in the middle of your lineup, while the range unit that you are keeping at the back may be placed at the first position, where it cannot attack. That alone can ruin all of your strategies, but that is not all, because you can't even properly designate which units you want to place your tactics, since the tactics were applied based not on units, but based on the positioning. As a result, people may lose battles that they could have won, not because they were bested by their opponent, but because pandemonium has sabotaged their lineup. And that is not something that I want to see in a "Strategy Game".

The few ways that you can have a better chance in this ruleset are to use units with magic damage, as well as units with Charge, Opportunity, Sneak, or Close Range, so even if the card's position is changed, they can still most likely be able to attack. Still, it does not solve how tactics are not placed on units that we want to give tactics abilities.

Here, I will show you two battles. The first one is a battle that I would likely lose, since the opponent has got me with two units that have the Silence ability that reduces the magic damage of all of my cards. But since they were not able to properly place their Grimbardun Smith as its tank, it failed to capitalize on it while also failing to properly place their tactics. The same thing goes for me, but it did not matter much since all my units can fire magic regardless of their position.