This week, I stumbled upon a few notes I took when I was playing in Bronze. After the change in meta last year, I was getting beaten up by the highly optimized lineups run by my opponents. This was when I decided to rely on the old pen & paper method to get out of Bronze.
My simple way of doing it was to systematically write down the lineups I lost against for each mana cap. I ended up having a CheatSheet with, if not the most optimized lineups, the ones that could bring me enough wins to get out of Bronze. This was a bit time-consuming for me, but hopefully, it will help you save time!
Caveat:
I cannot guarantee that those lineups are the most optimized, however, I believe that they represent a good starting point for new players to improve on. In certain mana caps, there are actually several lineups that compete with each other. I only chose one to showcase per mana cap for the sake of simplicity. Wish you the best of luck!
By having this CheatSheet in front of me, it was way easier to rent a few cheap key cards that could give me an edge against those lineups often exclusively composed with monsters from the starter deck. The cards that come to mind are the low mana Neutrals or the Betas that we didn't have access to anymore.
Going through this tedious task was not completely a waste of time as I quickly learned which cards were the new carry cards, at least in lower leagues. I also learned about the synergies that worked the best with this new set of cards.
Tip:
What I used to do to climb faster to Silver was to purposefully stay in Bronze III by delegating my Power, even though I hadn't much. This allowed me to play exclusively Standard Ruleset battles, which might sound boring I concede, but with the below CheatSheet and a few rented cards, that was a sure way of getting out of Bronze relatively quickly on a budget.
12 MANA
Summoner: Kelya Frendul
1st position: Albatross
2nd position: Hardy Stonefish
3rd position: River Nymph
4th position: Ice Pixie
Possible counter: Djinn Oshannus
13 MANA
Summoner: Drake Of Arnak
1st position: Cursed Windeku
2nd position: Life Sapper
14 MANA
Summoner: Drake Of Arnak
1st position: Djinn Chwala
2nd position: Ice Pixie
Possible counter: Obsidian - Mycelic Morphoid, Failed Summoner, Regal Peryton, Khmer Princess
Counter to the counter: Wizard of Eastwood - Unicorn Mustang, Chaos Agent, Khmer Princess
15 MANA
Summoner: Drake Of Arnak
1st position: Cursed Windeku
2nd position: Life Sapper
3rd position: Undead Badger
Possible counter: Obsidian - Failed Summoner, Regal Peryton, Khmer Princess, Xenith Archer
16 MANA
Summoner: Thaddius Brood
1st position: Cursed Windeku
2nd position: Undead Badger
3rd position: Death Elemental
4th position: Carrion Shade
Possible counter: leveled-up Cursed Windeku & Silent Sha-vi
17 MANA
Summoner: Drake Of Arnak
1st position: Cursed Windeku
2nd position: Life Sapper
3rd position: Cursed Slimeball
4th position: Soul Strangler
18 MANA
Summoner: Drake Of Arnak
1st position: Cursed Windeku
2nd position: Soul Strangler
3rd position: Life Sapper
4th position: Undead Badger
19 MANA
Summoner: Tarsa
1st position: Living Lava
2nd position: Serpentine Spy
3rd position: Tenyii Striker
20 MANA
Summoner: Tarsa
1st position: Radiated Scorcher
2nd position: Living Lava
3rd position: Serpentine Spy
4th position: Tenyii Striker
21 MANA
Summoner: Thaddius Brood
1st position: Cursed Windeku
2nd position: Chaos Agent
3rd position: Life Sapper
4th position: Undead Badger
5th position: Silent Sha-vi
22 MANA
Summoner: Thaddius Brood
1st position: Cursed Windeku
2nd position: Cursed Slimeball
3rd position: Chaos Agent
4th position: Undead Badger
5th position: Death Elemental
6th position: Silent Sha-vi
23 MANA
Summoner: Kelya Frendul
1st position: Serpent of Eld
2nd position: Deeplurker
3rd position: Kulu Swimhunter
4th position: Ice Pixie
24 MANA
Summoner: Kelya Frendul
1st position: Serpent of Eld
2nd position: Albatross
3rd position: Merdaali Guardian
4th position: Scavo Hireling
5th position: Deeplurker
25 MANA
Summoner: Kelya Frendul
1st position: Serpent of Eld
2nd position: Albatross
3rd position: Hardy Stonefish
4th position: Merdaali Guardian
5th position: Scavo Hireling
6th position: Deeplurker
26 MANA
Summoner: Obsidian
1st position: Unicorn Mustang
2nd position: Chaos Agent
3rd position: Goblin Psychic
4th position: Khmer Princess
5th position: Regal Peryton
27 MANA
Summoner: Tarsa
1st position: Living Lava
2nd position: Djinn Apprentice
3rd position: Scavo Hireling
4th position: Serpentine Spy
5th position: Tenyii Striker
28 MANA
Summoner: Kelya Frendul
1st position: Serpent of Eld
2nd position: Cruel Sethropod
3rd position: Merdaali Guardian
4th position: Scavo Hireling
5th position: Ice Pixie
6th position: Deeplurker
29 MANA
Summoner: Obsidian
1st position: Unicorn Mustang
2nd position: Mycelic Slipspawn
3rd position: Khmer Princess
4th position: Goblin Psychic
30 MANA
Summoner: Obsidian
1st position: Unicorn Mustang
2nd position: Regal Peryton
3rd position: Goblin Psychic
4th position: Khmer Princess
5th position: Venari Spellsmith
6th position: Mycelic Morphoid
99 MANA
Summoner: Obsidian
1st position: Mycelic Infantry
2nd position: Unicorn Mustang
3rd position: Regal Peryton
4th position: Goblin Psychic
5th position: Goblin Tower
6th position: Mycelic Slipspawn
To wrap this up, I haven’t played in Bronze for a while, so hopefully, those lineups are still relevant. Moreover, because I didn’t know about splintertools.io at the time, I didn’t check the win rate of each lineup. Sometimes, a lineup might work once because we got lucky, but it doesn’t mean that it will work most of the time.
Finally, my hope is that players in Bronze will find this post somehow useful.
See you soon in Silver and above!
Thomas
For new players interested in joining this amazing game, you can support me by using the following referral link (at no extra cost to you!):
https://splinterlands.com?ref=tt88
Thank you.