Applying “Who’s The Beatdown?” to Splinterlands
This post will cover two things:
- How fundamental MTG concepts like Who’s The Beatdown and Inevitability apply to Splinterlands.
- Why Olivia is such a good card (and no, it’s not just Mimic OP).
While most posts on Splinterlands strategy cover specific rulesets, cards, or abilities, I thought it might be a good idea to discuss some fundamental concepts that will hopefully improve your play across various rulesets. I wanted to make some videos discussing these concepts a few years back, but I think it would do fine as a Hive post. Today, I want to discuss the assignment of beatdown/control roles in the context of Splinterlands.
I use the term effective HP or eHP for short to describe how much damage or health a unit has. For example, having both Shield and Void would double eHP. Having Healing and Repair increases eHP. Armor is a form of eHP, but only when it is blocking damage. eHP is dependent on the opponent’s team and damage composition. For example, forcefield can greatly increase eHP, but only when opponents’ attackers have 5+ attack.
Who’s The Beatdown?
Read the original Mike Flores article here: https://articles.starcitygames.com/articles/whos-the-beatdown.
In Magic: The Gathering, the concept of “Who’s The Beatdown?” is clearer because both players usually have access to different cards/decks. In Splinterlands, however, both players have access to the same cards. Inactive splinters are the same for both players, and rulesets are also the same. In practice, the only difference of available cards between two players is their card collection.
Beatdown is not a one-to-one translation between the games. The biggest difference between the concept of beatdown in Magic and Splinterlands is that you only have a fixed number of monsters in Splinterlands, no way to add more monsters, and there are no additional turns of play after the team selection phase. This means that the decision step when the assignment of control and beatdown usually happens during the team selection phase, when you don’t know what the opponent will play. This also means that you must commit to a role in this phase.
Hence, I will be using Beatdown and Control to explain team objectives:
- Beatdown wants Momentum. Beatdown wants to break through tanks while preventing that (but in Splinterlands, high effective HP [eHP] is also important).
- Control wants Inevitability. Control wants to drag out the game so they can win through win conditions like: Fatigue, Scattershot, Life Leech, Afflict, or Olivia Mimic.
If you want to know whether leaning more heavily to beatdown or control is correct in a given match, ask yourself:
“Can I out-heal, dodge, or block the amount of damage I think the opponent will deal until the FT when I gain Inevitability?”
- If yes, field a Control team.
- Otherwise, field a Beatdown team.
When exploring our options, it’s a matter of what game actions are available to us (selecting a Summoner, Unit, or Tactic). When predicting their team, it’s two-fold: first, what actions are available to them, and second, what they’re most likely to do.
These questions are easiest to answer in 12 mana standard. The answer to 2) is yes, with Avina granting Heal to Grimbardun Smith. The Win Condition is Fatigue. It gets much more challenging in higher mana caps because then you have to compare your possible eHP (effective HP) with what you guess they will do based on past games and ruleset/mana cap.
Unlike in Magic, misassignment of the roles does not necessarily translate to a game loss, because Beatdown vs. Beatdown can and must happen (particularly in rulesets that force it like no healing), and the winner is instead decided by which team is the most effective in gaining and preventing Momentum (see the earlier example of Beatdown vs. Beatdown).
Momentum and Inevitability
Momentum and Inevitability were originally popularized in a 2005 Magic article. You can read Kyle Boddy’s article here: https://articles.starcitygames.com/articles/this-fire-momentum-and-inevitability.
Once again, these concepts do not apply perfectly in Splinterlands, because once teams are submitted, there is no longer any additional decisions. So I would like to propose a slightly different way to use it in Splinterlands’ context.
- Momentum is gained when key support units like healers and tanks are killed.
- Inevitability is gained usually at the start of the game when the opposing team has no answers to healers/tanks, or later in the game when those threats are removed by your win condition.
Control
Control teams need to have inevitability, or games can turn into a coin flip or outright loss. Inevitability for control decks is being able to heal all damage while dealing some damage over time, whether to their tank or attack/support units
The control role is usually assigned to the player with the most Healing, Repair, Cleanse, Shield, Void, etc. I like to think of it as the player with the most eHP. Additionally, control usually works best when there is at least one unit that gives a win condition. A few win conditions off the top of my head: Fatigue, Affliction, Expose, Cripple, and Scattershot. Affliction is a win condition that can be countered by Cleanse/Immunity, while Cripple and Expose are countered by Immunity. Scattershot is countered by Triage unless you have Poison, Cripple, or Afflict on it (think Acid Shooter). Once a control player’s tank or healers go down, they’ve usually lost.
Another way to increase eHP is through speed bonuses, flying, phase, blind, and dodge. After all, if your unit can only be hit 20% of the time, it’s eHP increases by 400%. This is why Cryptic + Slade + Rune Arcanist is so good. Dodge + Blind is already a 40% dodge chance, and Slade’s high speed, health and armor further increases his eHP.
Beatdown
I personally struggle with Beatdown, so I’ll keep this brief. Beatdown teams need to kill the opponent’s support and tank units or significantly reduce their eHP with Expose or Afflict to gain Momentum. Beatdown in Splinterlands usually refers to the player with the highest damage output. So a Possibilius giving reach to a coastal sentry is almost always beatdown. The win conditions of control are also usually very useful to beatdown teams. For example, Jacek giving scattershot to the entire team allows them to kill support units regardless of Taunt and Camouflage. Expose can remove void, shield, and forcefield from tanks like Iziar and Arkemis.
The Fundamental Turn (FT)
For Beatdown teams, this is usually the round when you are able to kill a support unit, tank, or land an uncleansed Afflict to gain Momentum. For Control teams, the FT is usually the first round of the game, or the round when your Acid Shooter kills a scattershot or high damage unit. It can also be the turn you land an uncleanseable Afflict, particularly in the mirror. In general, it is usually the turn you gain Inevitability. The FT can also happen when your Olivia Mimics Tank Heal or Double Strike.
The Fundamental Turn is when a Team gains an overwhelming Momentum or Inevitability – the moment the outcome of a game becomes heavily one-sided.
This is more useful in understanding the critical point in each game on replay, but it should still be kept in mind when building a team. How quickly your team can reach the Fundamental Turn (while actually having one, of course) can sometimes decide the outcome of matches.
What makes Olivia so good?
- Olivia is able to contribute to Control archetypes as a win condition and a support unit as she can gain any ability, and will get stronger every round.
- Mimic is strong because it gives Olivia teams the chance to reach the FT quickly in terms of both Control and Beatdown. Mimicked abilities can give you both Inevitability and Momentum.
- Dual attack typing of melee and magic gives her another win condition through repeated Iziar martyrs and contributes to the Iziar Tofu Resurrect teams you see so often in Champ.
- Deflection Shield, prevents Blast, Thorns, and Magic Reflect from slowly chipping away at her health, giving her built-in inevitability.
- Scavenger and Triage from Tofu makes her unkillable.
If Olivia didn’t have Deflection Shield or dual attacks, I doubt she would be nearly as strong as she is right now. I don’t think Mimic is the only issue with Olivia; the combination of abilities and stats is what makes her so strong.
Putting it all together
Consider the following games:
Game 1 is Beatdown vs. Control.
- Team 1’s objective is to gain Momentum through a Venka kill + trample.
- Team 2 wants to gain Inevitability through Avina Heal + double Repair, and win over time through Inevitable’s (the card) attacks or Fatigue.
- In this game, the Beatdown has Inevitability, because they have more effective damage than the opponent’s per turn eHP gain and wins over multiple rounds. It would take some very bad Weary RNG for Team 1 to lose.
- The Fundamental Turn is the turn Inevitable dies.
Game 2 is Beatdown vs. Control.
- Team 1’s game plan is quite clear. Get Iziar martyr twice to give Rik +4 damage.
- Team 2 has some ideas on buffing Mantaroth, but the Renova placement confuses the role assignment of Beatdown or Control. His win condition is technically Iziar dying twice and Commander Goff dying, so Mantaroth has high health and high damage from Scavenge and Martyr.
- The Fundamental Turn for Team 1 is the round Mantaroth dies.
Game 3 is Beatdown vs. Beatdown.
Now to MTG veterans, this may seem strange. The original meaning of Who’s The Beatdown? allows Beatdown decks to take on the role of Control. I would like to remind you that Splinterlands is a single-turn game. Beatdown in this context refers more so to whether a team’s objective is Momentum or Inevitability.
- Team 1 wants to gain Momentum through a tank kill.
- Team 2 wants to gain Momentum through removing backline units.
- Whoever can land the first one or two kills will win. Team 1 is more effective at doing so quickly, and has very high eHP due to Astral Entity’s dodge.
- The Fundamental Turn is the round when all of Team 2’s units die.
Game 4 is Control vs. Control.
- Team 1 wants Inevitability, and their win condition is Olivia Mimic.
- Although the intention behind Team 2 may have been Inevitability, that does not materialize due to their win condition not breaking through Triage. Team 2 cannot reach their Fundamental Turn.
- The Fundamental Turn for Team 1 is the start of the game.
Conclusion
I hope that this exploration of applying foundational MTG concepts to Splinterlands was of value to you. After writing this post, I feel that there is likely a better way to frame this into Splinterlands. Maybe a new type of theory must be created for Splinterlands. A way to evaluate cards based on how they gain or prevent Momentum might be useful.
Two takeaways for your battles:
- Whether you’re playing Beatdown or Control, think about eHP and damage. Both strategies want to prevent the opponent from gaining Momentum and Inevitability while gaining their own.
- Consider whether you can guarantee Inevitability (Heal, Repair, Immunity, Cleanse, Life Leech) or gain/prevent Momentum (Expose, Venka, Double Strike)/(high eHP). Then choose cards that contribute to your objective.
If you have any questions or comments, please let me know!
If I have misunderstood any MTG concepts, or you think they should be applied differently to Splinterlands, also let me know. I’m still learning how to play Splinterlands again, and am by no means the best player (I lean far too heavily towards Control in most games).
Now, I’m going to rent myself a Coastal Sentry and Possibilius.
– DoloKnight