Because my Beginner’s Guide to Splinterlands was very popular, I wanted to continue this series. In this article I want to talk about the battle system and what general strategies are most effective. Furthermore, I will break down two Splinters, Life and Fire. I will show some example battles and what strategy I am favor when I am playing one of these elements. Keep in mind that I am using these strategies for Bronze and Silver Leagues, so this might be a good starting point for beginners.
Battle System
Let’s start with the basics first and work our way to the more complicated stuff. Like we all know from my first guide, there are three different attack methods in Splinterlands: Melee, Range and Magic. While in general Melee only can be used in the first position, Range attacks can be used everywhere but in the first position. Magic attacks can attack from any position. This Melee rule has some exceptions in the form of the Opportunity, Sneak and Reach abilities. These abilities allow melee attackers attack from any position on the field. (The reach ability only allows to attack from the second position). According to the melee exceptions there is also one exception to the range attackers. Here, the ability “Close Range” allows the attacker to operate from the first position as well. What’s more is that melee and range attackers are always attacking the armor first if the monster has armor, while the magic attacker always attack the health of a monster. This makes magic attacks very overpowered in my opinion. Keep in mind that range and Magic attackers also can have the Sneak Ability, this means that the abilities are not always bonded to one attacking type.
Now that we talked about the attacking styles, lets quickly go over some other useful abilities that are important to know. Here I am talking about the regenerative abilities. What do I mean by that? If you are able to deal damage you should also be able to repair the damage. That is why there are five abilities that restore, either Health or Armor. First up, is the Self Heal. In this case the monster heals itself when it is its turn to attack. Second is the Tank Heal. Like the name says, this ability allows you to heal your tank. The third healing ability is Triage where one of the backline monsters is getting healed. The fourth health ability is Life Leech where you can steal opponents monsters health. Last but not least we have Repair. This ability repairs the armor of the monster that lost the most armor in this round. Two other very important abilities worth to know is the Taunt ability which we will use to our advantage later on and the Thorns ability which allows you to deal damage without even attacking yourself. While there are many more abilities to discover, these are in my opinion some of the most powerful.
General Strategy
With some general knowledge out of the way, let’s think about how to approach a battle. The general goal is obviously to delete the opponents board while you still have your minions on the field. The most effective way to do so is to try and control the battle. What do I mean by that? With the above mentioned abilities it is possible to control what monster of yours will get hit and what monsters you will attack first. Now how we are going to achieve this control? The most important thing that I learned is that supporting monsters are the key to each battle. The more supporting monsters you have the more effects you have on the field. On the other hand, support monsters are not very durable and hence very easy defeated which makes you lose the effect on the battlefield. This means that a good mixture and balance is important.
Not only the balance is important but also the positioning of the units. Like I mentioned above, the attacking type determines very often where you put your monsters. The classic distribution is to have two melee monsters, then two magic monsters followed by two ranged attackers in the backline. This obviously can vary from ability and Splinter but in general this is a classic distribution. With that being said, lets think about how we can make sure to win a battle. My favorite approach is to target my opponents back line first. Like I mentioned above, the backline often contains the supporting units which are protected by a big tank in the front. If we can go around the tank and eliminate the supporting units first this gives us a big advantage in the long run. The other way is to endure your opponents tank with your own tank so that his backline has to move in the first position. In the following I will show you both ways with two different Splinter-Elements.
Strategy: 1 Sneak Fire
First up, we have the Fire Sneak strategy. Traditionally, the fire splinter is a very melee heavy element to play. This means that it has very good tanks and even better Sneak attackers. This means that for our strategy Tarsa is a very nice choice for a summoner as she gives our monsters additional melee attack and an additional health. The stars of this line up are without a doubt Uraeus and Tenyii Striker. Both these monsters have the Sneak ability and slice the opponents backline up like its nothing. To protect both of them, we are using big Tanks like Living Lava in the front and some filling monsters in the back. In both battle cases we managed to defeat our opponent due to this strategy.
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_303dc6b84ed9143021afb77d4ee0abe4&ref=ga38jem
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_0005a5a1f9e8a64ce4ac4b1a2ad82ac6&ref=ga38jem
Strategy 2: Life Taunt
The second strategy that I want to share is the Life Taunt Strategy. Taunt has the big advantage that it can control which monster is getting attacked by the enemy. With the Life element having the definition of a perfect Taunt monster it would be a waste not to use it. I am talking about the Shield Bearer. The key to this strategy is to keep this monster as long as possible alive so that the rest of your monsters can pick apart the opponent. But how are we planning to keep this monster alive? We are achiving this with monsters that have the healing and repair abilities. This way the taunt will always get restored and it gives the other monsters time to pick apart the opponents one by one. In both of the following cases this is achieved with Venari Crystalsmith and Adelade Brightwing.
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_62a737dad93b6a10a4e185e7acc3562f&ref=ga38jem
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_d3250df6b301e4e854c5e5cf19e025c1&ref=ga38jem
Conclusion
I hope I was able to give you some new ideas to approach your next battles if you are a new player to Splinterlands or even an experienced one but wanted to have some new input. With that being said, if you are not playing this game yet consider using following referral link to join the game:
https://splinterlands.com?ref=ga38jem
I am also planning on covering some more Splinters and my favorite strategies for Death and Earth, so stay tuned for that! 😊
Published by ga38jem on
LeoFinance
On 22nd February 2022