I've been playing Splinterlanes lately, the new three-lane take on Splinterlands, and I'm really enjoying it. That said, the learning curve is steep. A few things took me far longer to work out than they should have, so here are my quick tips for anyone just starting out.
Order matters
Where you place your monsters is everything, much like a traditional battle game. Melee monsters can only attack from the front position, unless they have an ability that lets them strike from further back. Archers are the opposite. They can only shoot when they are not in the front spot.
It sounds obvious written down, but I didn't realise this for quite a while. Maybe that's a bit silly of me, but the instructions and tutorials never really spell it out. Once it clicked, my results improved straight away.
Don't stress about the mana warning
When you build a deck, the game tells you your total mana is more than you can actually play, so the whole deck won't make it onto the board. Don't let that put you off. You only get to play around 25 of your 50 cards in a match anyway, so it isn't really an issue. Throw in a few big guys. When they do land, they can swing a lane.
High health, low mana
Cheap cards with plenty of health are great value. Put them out front to soak up the hits while you build up your attack behind them.
Last Stand isn't what it used to be
In regular Splinterlands, Last Stand could win you a game. In Splinterlanes it's not nearly as strong, because once a lane empties your last monster can be attacked from the other lanes. Being the last one standing often just means being overwhelmed.
Play on a computer if you can
You can run Splinterlanes through the Hive Keychain app on your phone, but it's not ideal. Desktop mode squashes everything onto the small screen, and mobile mode makes it fiddly to Mulligan your opening hand. With only a few seconds to make each move, that matters. A computer runs it much better.
Play for fun, not profit
Every win earns a prize, and it might be a card worth a cent or something much bigger. I'm winning roughly every second game, and each game costs about a cent for a prize card usually worth one or two cents, so it more or less balances out.
Don't go in expecting to make money. Play it for the fun of it, with a little lotto thrill each time you see what you've won.
Give it a go
If you've got a Splinterlands collection sitting around, Splinterlanes is a fresh way to use it. Just remember: melee up front, archers behind, don't sweat the mana warning, and grab a computer if you have one handy.