We analyzed 30 000 matches with the ruleset Melee Mayhem. Here we take a closer look at the decks of players that win.
Table of contents
- What is Melee Mayhem
- Best Monsters
- How to Play Malric inferno, and how not to play Tyrus Palladium
- Closing remarks
This is the fourth post in our series on Splinterland strategies where we discuss how to deal with different rulesets. Previously we have focused on the best summoners. Here we will try to find the best monsters for the ruleset. You can find the previous posts in the links below
Strategycorner with Mammuter #1 - Ruleset Super Sneak
Strategycorner with Mammuter #2 - Ruleset Earthquake, and a GRADING SYSTEM for splinters
Strategycorner with Mammuter #3 - Ruleset Noxious Fumes
Here we will cover the rule Melee Mayhem. To describe how good a particular card is for the ruleset, we will look at the difference in card selection between winning and losing teams.
Melee Mayhem
In the Melee Mayhem ruleset, melee heroes gain the ability to attack from any position. This means that a lineup can use multiple melee monsters and they will able be able to attack each round. In a standard battle, the backline monsters would not be able to attack before they enter the first position.
The ability Reach:
is superfluous in this ruleset. Because all monster gains this ability from the ruleset. The greedy summoner might say that it is a waste of mana. If your melee monsters do not have abilities such as sneak or opportunity:
they will attack the tank (the monster in the first position of the opposing team).
Best Monsters
This ruleset is special. Melee monsters usually have high attack and health stats, and all of them attacking at the same time is what causes the Mayhem. We analyzed data from 30 000 matches with ruleset Melee Mayhem from players rated 1400-2200. Here are the 25 monsters that are played the most:
Figure 1: Most selected monsters
The chicken wears the crown in Melee Mayhem! The blue bars show how often a monster is selected by teams that win, and the pink bar how often they are selected in teams that lose. The numbers on top of the bars indicate the average level of the monster when it is played. When there is a big difference in height between the blue and pink bar, it indicates that the monsters are good (blue bar higher) or bad (pink bar higher) in the ruleset.
The Chicken and Ooze are both great cards here. At levels 3 and 4, respectively, they both gain one attack - the chicken at zero mana. Sand Worm sticks out as a poor card in this ruleset, which is probably because the sneak ability isn't as valuable as usual. Similarly, Shieldbearer, and surprisingly Haunted spirit, does not seem to handle the Mayhem.
However, the graph above only shows monsters that are played a lot!
If we sort results after win rate and remove the legendary monsters we obtain the following figure:
Figure 2: Best monsters sorted after win rate (excluding legendaries)
This figure shows a lot of great cards for Melee Mayhem. Brownie increases the speed of all your monsters, which can make a huge difference in a ruleset that is dominated by high damage monsters. There are a lot of fire cards that do very well. Also, some that do not immediately seem like they would fit in melee mayhem come out with good win rates, for example Javelin Thrower. In most cases, they have good synergy with other cards on the list, or have some ability that counter melee monsters well.
Next, we look at how to play the summoners Malric Inferno and Tyrus Paladium, two base cards that both centre around the melee playstyle.
How to play Malric Inferno and how not to play Tyrus Paladium
Malric Inferno feels like a natural pick for Melee Mayhem, and indeed his win rate is much higher here than his general win rate is. His win rate is still less than 50%, but with some minor tweaks, he can probably pop his fiery head above the 50% line. Here is what Malric plays:
Figure 3: Malric's most selected monsters
It is worth noting that Malric does pretty well with the current base set of cards. Obviously, levelled cards are helpful, but not absolutely required (this is less and less true the higher you climb).
Winning Malric players tend to favour Cerberus quite a bit more than losing players. Living Lava is used a lot by both kinds but tends to lose slightly more, so it might be worth spending another second on it in the card selection. The data indicate that the average player should use the following cards a bit more: Serpentine Spy, Cocatrice, Exploding Rats, Exploding Dwarf, Flame Monkey, Molten Ogre, and Ant Miners. They should use the following cards less: Pit Ogre, Goblin Shaman, Sand Worm, Fire Elemental, and Living Lava.
Tyrus Paladium
Tyrus Paladium is another summoner choice that makes sense in Melee Mayhem. However, he does pretty bad. While we see that Malric Inferno players's card selection is often sensible, there is a big difference in card selection for Tyrus Paladium. Their card choices look like this:
Figure 4: Tyrus's most selected monsters
There are some clearly bad choices going on with Tyrus. Shieldbearer seems to be overrated by players that lose, and so is the standard cards that go along with it: Venari Crystalsmith and Luminous Eagle. Divine healer is also overrated, but not as much. Sand Worm and Cave Slug also do not do very well.
Instead, Tyrus Paladium players might want to consider going for higher damage with Silvershield Knight, Feral Spirit, Silvershield Assasin. Armorsmith tends to do better than the healers, which makes sense since he will restore armour regardless of position, and is therefore much more reliable. Some other underrated cards are Silvershield Paladin, Creeping Ooze, Pelacor Conjurer, Crystal Werewolf, Peacebringer and Elven Cutthroat:
Tyrus Paladium also appears to be more dependent on levelled cards than Malric Inferno is. At the time of writing, it is quite affordable to rent a level 3 or 4 Tyrus and a few cards to go along with him.
Card selection
If you want to play Malric or Tyrus in Melee Mayhem you want these cards:
For Melee Mayhem you might let these guys wait on the bench (Think about it at least three more times before you use them):
Closing remarks
We hope this post gives you some new ideas on what to do and what not to do in Melee Mayhem. Next time you might be the one causing the Mayhem.
If you want more data-driven analyses on how to win in different leagues and in different rulesets, follow us 
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