Welcome to another article where I write about my journey playing Splinterlands! We're a bit past the halfway point of the first season with the new ranked rules, where there is no longer a cap on the level of Summoner cards - meaning you can play max level cards in any league. For those without max level cards it has been a rough week, at least if you are playing in the Modern format.
Welcome to the Bronze leagues.
The first few days were a bit of a bloodbath, as players with max level decks switched back to Modern and started trying to slug their way out of Bronze. Since there were so many higher level decks in Bronze, they kept knocking one another back down, keeping them in that league longer. As the week has progressed, it's become less awful at the lower end, but there are still a lot of max level decks not up to playing in Diamond yet.
Wild where I, and a lot of bots, play has been a much better experience. Due to the large number of accounts with mediocre card collections playing there, Wild has been a lot better place to find opponents with less optimized cards - at least in the Silver and Gold leagues. Suffice to say, there has been mixed reactions to the change from the community on the game's Discord chat server.
With this being an off week, there's no update or Town Hall news to report. The new reward system is said to be the next big thing that they'll be redoing in the game, but there's no hard date on that as of yet. I did open up another Rebellion pack from the few that I picked up:
An extra rare, so a little better than the minimum single rare pack.
Brawls
Guild Brawl #200 playing Bronze League Gold Foil Only. The guild came in 4th from last place, as one person forgot to submit any teams for a large number of battles.
Vs. ROCKETRJ20 of FREE TO PLAY
Vs. LYRICA of BLOODLUST GLADIATORS
Vs. HOLDECK2 of KILLERS OF THE DEPRAVED
Guild Brawl #201 playing Bronze League Gold Foil Only. The guild came in 4th place, doing much better when everyone gets their teams in.
Vs. ARUN21 of LEGENDS OF TOMORROW
Vs. QUEENOFMONSTERS of MERCENARIES
Vs. MACNAPAT43 of CABAL COFFERS
Vs. GEAR2LUFFY of MITRIIMAN SQUAD
I opened up a couple of Gladiator packs as well:
Speaking of getting the minimal single rare per pack, here are two prime examples. While some of these are great common cards, nothing gold foil for my brawl deck.
The Rest
With the inability to stay in a league, which is more or less removing leagues from Ranked play as this rework moves forward, both of my accounts have gotten around the middle of Gold league in Wild. I did play some Modern and got out of Bronze with my main account, but haven't quite gotten out with my alternate account that has the old Silver league set of cards. The competition at the top of Gold can be pretty tough, though I think I may hit Diamond before the end of season on my main account.
A handful of people have claimed that this change has ruined the game and we're all doomed, but I feel like this happens with every big change. The hope is that people with max level decks will bubble up to the top, so you'll eventually reach equilibrium where you are playing against appropriate opponents. There's no hard set time on when this will work out, but it feels reasonable to give it at least a season.
That's about it for this week so far. There should be some more news by the next article, covering the end of season, since there will be another town hall by then. Hopefully the gameplay will work itself out and people will stop running into opponents with vastly higher level cards by then.
Thank you for reading! If you have any question or comments let me know below. And, I'll be back in about a week with the season wrap up!