Hello everyone, it's time for the beginning of my new series, Battle Lab. In this series, I will be breaking down the niches of combat in Axies Infinity and sharing all the things I have learnt in my time on the battlefield.
First off, I will start with my philosophy on helping you all with your first team:
Never.Just.Follow.What.People.Say.Is.Popular.
Find.Your.Own.Playstyle.
There are so many players out there who don't explore their inner self and instead took whatever advice that came first to them, or the first video/article they read.
I am Asian so I know this shit, okay? There are a lot of Asian parents who just go "just be a doctor, or accountant, or lawyer, other jobs be damned" while their kids don't necessarily enjoy these jobs. So don't be launching your Axie journey this way -- unless becoming a doctor is truly your dream, don't follow what your parents said! Actually, figure out what you love as a player is very important as everyone has their own style. Still doubtful over my view? Here are some examples.
In any sport or e-sport, the top players or teams can have very varied playstyles, yet all be at the top of their profession. Manny Pacquiao is a Boxer-Puncher who is well-rounded and can do a lot of things very well. Floyd Maywather Jr. is a pure boxer with great counter punching. If we go back even further, we have Joe Frazier, a swarmer, Muhammad Ali, an outboxer, and George Foreman, a slugger, being at the peak of a heavyweight at the same time. It's even more obvious in MMA, where you can be champion with different skill sets, like Israel Adesanya is one heck of a striker, and Khabib Nurmagomedov is one of the best grapplers ever to step into the octagon.
This can go to e-sport as well. In MOBA like LoL or DotA, you can find players on all roles with different playstyle and best champions that fit into their own style. Even a single champion can be played differently by a different player, and that's really how it is in balanced, competitive games -- which I see Axie as one.
Or how about fashion style? Different kind of style suits different ladies. They are all beautiful (in their own way) but different. On one side, you have the Scarlett Johansson and Blake Lively, the smoking hot bombshells who exude sex appeal; on the other side, you have the elegantly beautiful like Emilia Clarke. There are too many styles to list, like we have girls next door in the likes of Rachel McAdams (who to me is elegant as well) and Emma Stone. How about the sporty and beautiful Gal Gadot? The list goes on and on but the idea is that they won't suit a single fashion or makeup style. Any makeup artist will approach them differently to make sure they are getting the style that suits them.
Axie Infinity is no different -- find your style and embrace that. The first team is only the beginning of your journey, but finding the team that matches you well will greatly enhance your performance, and more importantly, your experience in the game. After all, you want to enjoy the game while you earn, don't you?
Now I hope I have convinced you to find your own way and not blindly follow a build, so let's go over all the common builds as you decide which one is the best for yourself. But before that, here's the resistance and weakness chart.
https://axie.substack.com/p/axie-infinity-community-alpha-guide
The reason that I am showing this here is that you will need to take these into account when building a team. You want to have an idea of how to deal with various compositions and I will break them down in a simple way, but it's good to have this here for you to refer to whenever you need it.
Oh, by the way, this is unofficial but I am shortforming bird as "I" and bug as "U" as "B" is taken by beast.
Any Plant + Midline Aqua + Backline Aqua
"Screw fanciness, I am here for consistency and win, win, win."
We start it off with the ever-popular PAA. PAA is a very well-rounded lineup that is very easy to play. Aqua is fairly tanky, has the speed to move first in most situations, and possesses the damage to go through most lineups with ease. They are very honest with their approach yet it's very hard to stop them from executing their simple plan.
They come at you like a constant stream of water. The aquas have the lowest critical rate so it's not about one powerful attack or turn, but coming in non-stop, turn-by-turn with consistent waves of attacks.
Strength
Weakness
Pick this if you:
Any Plant + Any Beast + Any Aqua (Usually one of the AB have some utility skills)
OR
Any Plant + Any Aqua + Any Beast
[I am starting to see some people putting the beast at the back to accommodate a reptile heavy meta. Like you would rather let the beast go 1v1 vs the terminator instead of aqua.]
"You gotta have tools for everything."
The basic idea of running a beast midlaner is to provide the necessary firepower to take down the plant tank faster and give the composition a higher chance against their archenemy -- reptiles. The beast allows for an easier finishing against the tanking plant and giving the aqua early access to the enemy backline. If there are reptiles back there, the beast can also threaten them much better than double aquas.
Depending on the kind of beast and aqua you choose, the playstyle might vary a bit. Personally, I am an advocate of a finisher aqua and a more utility beast. You really need the aqua to close the game and it's important for it to have all the offensive tools and damage output. Alternatively, both axies having energy generation so you can put out endless pressure is another philosophy one can consider.
Strength
Weakness
Pick this if you:
Any Plant + Any Beast + Backdoor Bird
"Offense is the best defense -- and I am here to knock you the fuck out."
This is the classic lineup that has everything in a team: tank, utility/damage, and an all-out attacker. To me, the identity of PBI is explosive damage. You are not looking to hit them 2-3 turns to finish them. You are looking to find an opening and BAM! You put them down with one hard combo. Sometimes you don't have the cards, and sometimes you might need to follow up with more cards on the next turn, but it's the looming threat of a knockout combo that keeps your opponent in check.
While you can use any sort of bird, I highly recommend the backdoor bird for a newcomer as it is a much better option in the MMR brackets that most players would be in. It sees less play in the high bracket, like above 1800, but it is a strong archetype on any bracket before that.
Strength
Weakness
Pick this if you:
Offensive Plant + Your Preferred Midliner + Terminator Reptile
OR
Offensive Plant + Your Preferred Midliner + Any Pure Reptile
OR
Offensive Plant + Backdoor Aqua + Terminator Reptile
"True warriors excel in solo duels."
You can indeed play reptile in a lot of styles, but I think the most common philosophy of a reptile team in the current meta is to force a duel. Reptile is the ultimate bruiser who excels in 1v1 due to its durable body, great shield count (especially for the pure reptile), and usually pack a move that hit like a truck in the late game.
The idea is simple, the team revolves around your lizard and the two other axies are there to set up the ideal situation for your lizard. This is why it's recommended to play aggressive with the plant and midliner, as you should be trying to take down 2 axies of the opponent at all cost to set up a 1v1 duel for your lizard. As your reptile is made to duel, you should be able to win more than you lose whenever you can force a 1v1.
For beginners, I highly recommend the Terminator as I find it harder for your opponents to play against in the middle MMR bracket.
Strength:
Weakness:
Pick this if you:
These are all the mainstream compositions that I consider as the safe picks for any newcomers. But if you want to explore other compositions for your own curiosity or you simply enjoy niche lineups for whatever reason, let's continue:
These are lineups less seen and less recommended to the newbies for a lot of reasons, but the idea is that they are built with a certain theme in mind and not just "pick class A and class B and mesh them together". I would only recommend these to the advanced gamers who are looking for something different, or something more challenging than just type pairing.
3 Plant/Reptile OR any high HP, high shield axie
"Trade punch for punch and you are gonna go down first."
The reptile lineup up there can easily be considered a bruiser lineup, but I want to discuss this separately to provide some extra insight into how a bruiser lineup works. The core idea is simple -- you want to trade blows and use your high HP to outlast your opponents.
Unlike the PXR above, you are not necessarily trying to force a 1v1 and you are happy to just find any way to outgrind your opponent.
This lineup can work, especially with a mix of 3 plants or reptiles, is because there are not a lot of teams running bugs now and all the aquas and birds out there make it near impossible to play double beasts.
For skills, you will need a good ratio of high attack and high shield cards. You want to be able to put up a solid shield count when you expect the opponent to attack and also be able to hit back with reasonable damage. Heal can also be considered.
Strength
Weakness
Pick this if you:
Can be anything, and probably 3 hybrids of some kind with a very specific control skill set.
"Limit their options and keep everything under control."
In typical card games, "control deck" tries to solve every threat from your opponents while staying alive till the very end where you have your best cards. In Axie, it's not a 1:1 replica of that, but the core idea is the same: you want to control and restrict the opponents, cut down their options, and force them to make bad plays. A control composition in Axie doesn't pack the best damage. Instead, they look to make the opponent unable to execute their game plan while chipping away at their life total bit by bit.
Bug skills are the prime example of control in Axie Infinity, having what I call the trinity of control in Axie: discard, debuff, and energy manipulation.
This playstyle is only recommended to the advanced players as you will need good game knowledge to be able to properly manipulate your opponent and understand how to properly control the opponent at any given turn.
Strength
Weakness
Pick this if you:
Can be anything, but usually has some plants and reptiles.
"Death by a thousand ticks."
Poison composition is a fun alternative playstyle to the regular damage-dealing approach. Instead of dealing raw damage, it's about putting many poison counters at the opponent and drag out the match long enough for the opponents' HP to tick to 0.
At some point in the game, you are not thinking about how much damage you want to attack into the opponent this turn, but how you survive as long as possible and how to efficiently create as many turns as possible so your opponents just keep ticking down in HP.
For skills, it's no shit that you will need cards that can poison the opponent. Besides that, you will be looking at (a) multi-hit cards because it's one tick per attack, so a Juggling Balls attack can trigger poison 3 times with just 1 energy (b) 0 cost card, so you can use them and tick down an opponent without needing energy -- and yes, you want to play a lot of cards just to tick them often (c) healing or high shield cards to help you sustain for the long game (d) support/debuff cards to disrupt your opponent.
Strength
Weakness
Pick this if you:
Can be anything. One example is Aqua + Aqua + Bird
"I am not here to plan and wait, I am here to take you down before turn 5 with the biggest smasher I can get my hand on."
Kamikaze is just my term to describe an all-out aggro team. You can play any composition for this as long as you are looking to close the game out as early as possible. The attacks are coming in hard and strong and you aren't thinking of holding back at any time.
As you draw more cards than you would have the energy to spend, a kamikaze team packs 0 cost cards that help an aggressive plan, like Tail Slap and All-Out Shot. You are happy to give up life to attack as that is the most Kamikaze thing in Axie -- and you don't care how much HP you have at the end as long as you have 1 or more and your opponents are at 0.
Kamikaze is a team that can not choose to not use a plant and instead use any of the sub-tank/bruiser archetype like a shield-packing aqua as the frontline with two attackers behind it.
Strength
Weakness
Pick this if you:
Now that you have decided on a team composition that you want to play, the next step is to pick up three axies to make up your team. Unlike simplistic, mindless "here's the three skill set you should use", I am sticking to helping you on making your own decision. I will break down all six classes - yes, I am not covering the three secret classes as to not overcomplicate things - and you can pick what you want and form your team.
I can give you an example later on but first, let's break down the classes and several popular newbie-friendly archetypes.
Plant is the go-to tank in Axie and almost every team has one at the front to soak up damage. They provide a lot of tank and support and not a lot of damage. There are some builds with solid damage but a plant's job in most cases is just to eat up damage and shielding up the backline.
An attack plant packs an attacking horn and tail to offer some extra damage to the team. It is an aggressive choice for people who just want to keep the opponent under pressure and do not really mind if the plant cannot live through turn 3 or 4.
October Feast and Vegetal Bite are two cards that I highly recommend to keep for any beginner. For horn and tail, you can choose any of the high attack skills. I think Carrot Hammer fares quite well in the average MMR even though I agree with Indes that it's not as good as people say. It will be too long to break down the details here so watch out for future lessons! You can just go for the high attack horn and tail you prefer.
The tankiest plant at all with all the highest shield cards you can find on all four parts. This plant is looking to soak up as much damage as possible at key turns and keeping your backline safe for as many turns as possible.
You can also use replace a part with a healing counterpart so you don't only have shields but also be able to generate some extra HP in the long run through healing.
If you want to have a lot of 1 energy cards on your other two axies, then you need a plant who can generate you a lot of energy and this is it. Do note that this plant usually goes first and has slightly lower HP and higher speed than 31 due to the bug part. In a turn where both plants try to steal energy, what you stole will be stolen back, so that's the slight disadvantage as the faster plant. On the other hand, you can generate more energy anyway. The main concern is that you are giving your opponent extra energy but it's a small con at best.
If you really, really hate aqua, then you need to pack some hate cards on your plant and they are super effective! A well-put Aqua Stock eating up 3 attacks should be able to win just by having too many energies to attack back on the next turn. It's that powerful.
The more advanced bruiser and not really recommended a lot to new players due to its price. Reptile is what I would call a half-tank. They are durable yet pack a serious punch. At the moment, it's a popular class at the mid-high end due to its tanky nature and anti-aqua body.
Do note that you can find any four skills you like and craft your own preferred pure reptile. The reptile skills are really great and I think there's no "perfect" skill set. There's no need to only follow what I have put up. I do recommend picking up one of either Surprise Invasion or Tiny Swing as the key attack of your reptile. They are the most likely to trigger a damage boost in most situations.
Any pure reptile is bruiser by default. This skill set is just a sample of what it will look like. Do note that you can go with all 1 energy cards and manage your energy well into the late game, or have a Vine Dagger for energy-efficient Chomp. The Vine Dagger also helps you break stun and so on. It's a trade-off between raw damage and utility. Both ways are absolutely fine.
The key card for a backdoor reptile is Spike Throw. While it doesn't guarantee you a backdoor attack like some other cards, you are putting pressure onto your opponent with the possibility of a Spike Throw combo at any time. Prediction is a big part of Axie and having this card makes your opponent having to account for more possibilities -- more about this in future lessons! If you can successfully hit a backline, then it's even better as a full combo is likely to kill off most targets. This reptile is usually put in the middle as it is not designed to be great in a 1v1 duel but to take out the enemy's backline before the potential 1v1.
Double reflect reptile is very rare and I don't necessarily recommend it to new players. It's also very expensive. I am putting it here to cover all bases. The idea of double reflect is that you can double down on your damage through the reflection. So your opponent has to eventually attack into you or you are going to take him out in time. At the same time, if they attack you, you are reflecting part of that back. It's the ultimate dueling machine if you can predict the attack types properly (and sometimes it's easy if your opponent is largely melee or ranged) and have the shield count to not die.
The ultimate aqua killer and the king of duels, the terminator reptile is perhaps the only one non-pure archetype I will cover in this beginner's guide. It's a very popular build nowadays and has a strong game against the aquas. A lot of players don't know how to play around and plan against the double stun of this reptile. The biggest difference between a pure reptile and this is the shield count. Terminator relies on stun to prevent the damage coming its way instead of extremely high shield count. If the opponent can play around the stun, or you are in a 1v2 situation, the terminator might not live as long as a pure reptile.
I would say this archetype has a high floor with the average players having a tough time playing around it, but pure reptile could be more powerful at the higher tier. This is solely my opinion though, as I have seen a lot of terminators up there as well.
The swiftest class in the Axie world, bird is all about being the first to move and taking down the enemies before they have a chance to touch their fragile body. It's a high octane class for those who enjoy the fast & furious.
A bird is an all-out attacker by default and you should be packing four attack cards. The one thing to avoid is Eggbomb without Blackmail. Eggbomb is a very versatile skill and has a lot of outplay potential if used well, but if you are just starting out, I wouldn't recommend it alone. With Blackmail, you can move the Aroma debuff away so the bird doesn't need to risk taking a lot of attacks and go down early. A lot of cheap birds on the market are Eggbomb only so stay away from them.
I highly recommend the All-Out Shot as you shouldn't care about your HP at all as a bird. You won't survive a lot of attacks anyway with full health or 70% health so it's the same in most situations. As such, you should be putting everything into attacking hard and fast. But it's also expensive, so if you are on a budget, go with 4 high attack cards and avoid the Eggbomb. That's the least you should look for.
The most popular bird archetype recommended by most starter's guides. If you have read the backdoor reptile entry above, you will know the pros of a backdoor attack. Even better, Dark Swoop is guaranteed to backdoor and attack the fastest enemy, so you know who you are attacking.
Any Dark Swoop + 3 attack cards will do. I am showing the Eggbomb + Blackmail combo and Early Bird as an example because of the synergy. The combo can move Aroma debuff into the enemy backline and your other teammates can attack into that even if your bird doesn't have the power to finish the job. Early Bird usually provides extra damage as you are very likely to move first unless your opponent runs a bird as well. You need every bit of damage as the opponent can predict a backdoor combo and shield up. You don't want to spend 4 cards and 4 energies to not take out an axie, so every bit of damage helps.
Aqua is like a slightly slower but tankier bird. Like bird, it has limited utility skills - it does have some good defensive cards though - but it has such versatility in stats that it is the ultimate do-it-all. It can hit like a truck, soak up damage, and possess the speed to go first against most classes.
If you are looking for a budget aqua, just go with 4x 110+ attack skills OR 3x 110+ attack skills and Tail Slap. That's the basic setup.
Energy aqua packs a Nimo tail for Tail Slap. It's a great skill to generate energy for you to keep up with the pressure turns after turns. There are a lot of ways to go with double aqua but I highly recommend one of these as the midlaner. Some teams do run double Nimo tail for a constant pressure playstyle.
This is your typical closer at the backline. The one to go into a 1v1 duel and the one packing the most firepower. Swift Escape and Upstream Swim are the two must-have skills for a closer. When you are against an aqua or a bird, you need to fight for speed as the one to go into the dueling round with the highest speed has the advantage.
For the other two, you can swap around for any high damage cards. The ultimate dueling setup is Hero's Bane + Angry Lam, which gives you enough shield most of the time to tank a 4 cards combo from your opponent's aqua, and attack back with boosted Angry Lam for the kill. Star Shuriken is a good card especially for beginners though. Its effect really helps the new players by not giving the opponent any chance of entering last stand.
If you want a tankier midlane, consider Shipwreck! This aqua is much harder to kill than the typical high attack aqua and can hit back hard with the attack+. If your opponent miscalculates or mispredicts a killing combo, you will punish them hard on your next turn.
This is easily one of the hardest archetypes to play against for a newcomer. A turn where this aqua play like three anemone cards at once make it super durable with a stack of shield and also heal back up by 300 HP. If your opponent cannot get this aqua down in one rotation before going back to its turn, then he is just wasting cards and energies as you heal back up.
Beast is the slowest among the attackers, yet the most explosive of all. You can think of it as a cannon. It will take time to load up a cannon between every firing but every hit seriously hurts. They also have the highest critical hit rate due to high morale and can sometimes pull you out of a losing game with a desperate critical hit.
The one archetype as famous as backdoor bird and one of the most recommended starting archetypes. They usually call it RIMP, but I like Ronimp better and this is my guide -- so suck it, RIMP. Anyway, Ronimp beast utilizes Single Combat and Ivory Stab (from the Ronin and Imp body part) to generate energies from attacking so you can go in again on the next round.
For the other two body parts, you can choose between more supportive skills or raw damage output. For beast, there are two sides of the spectrum: support vs damage. For damage, we have what is called a Squirrel with double Nuts skills for high damage output (as shown above). For support, we can go with energy disruption like Night Steal.
While highly recommended to beginners and fun to play with its combo playstyle, I do want to point out that Ronimp is not popular in the higher ends due to its need to assemble a combo. Single Combo and Ivory Stab are not good cards in a standalone situation and will affect your overall damage output at times.
This is an example of a no-nonsense beast that possesses all 4 skills with super high damage. The biggest difference between this and Ronimp is that - like an aqua - you can draw any card and just attack in at any time. You don't get the added bonus from combo synergy but you have huge damage no matter what your draw gives you.
A support beast is used mainly to control the energy of your opponent. You can go Ronimp with this or put up higher offensive skills. There's a lot of ways to adjust, but the core idea is that you would need Piercing Sound and/or Night Steal to mess with the opponent's energy tank. I put up this build as an example because I like the idea of using just 1 energy to combo out an energy steal or energy destroy.
This is a less offensive beast build so make sure your other axies can help with damage output.
The unloved child in the current meta. Bug skills are so great that they see plays in a lot of hybrid axies but a pure bug is just not really a thing right now.
I have only been playing for two months so I never really experienced a bug-heavy meta so I cannot say I know why, but the bug body just doesn't look appealing in the current landscape. It has low HP and low speed, which is a big no-no as of now when the birds and aquas are so popular and powerful against bugs.
The only pure bug I see nowadays is a discard bug. It is usually put on the middle with stuns to buy extra time for your backline finisher while giving itself plenty of chances to disrupt the enemy with discards. Some compositions run two discard bugs to constantly disrupt the enemy's hands, but I don't think this approach works very well right now. If you are looking for a high disruption deck, it probably works better to use more than just discard, so find a non-bug partner for your bug.
Now that you have a basic understanding of the popular team composition and the class and archetypes, it's time to put all you have learnt into making your first team. Don't overthink too much, look at it like you are making a Subway sandwich. Pick the things you like and run with them.
Here are some things you want to consider for basic teambuilding:
(1) Unless you just love the idea of an all-out attack, some utility cards like energy generation and 0 cost cards are highly recommended.
(2) In most compositions, you will pack your utility cards on the tank and the midlane. The finisher is usually an axie with all attack cards. Of course, there are exceptions like two aquas with Nimo tails.
(3) Always balance between utility and damage. You don't want to have no energy to attack but you also don't want to have too many utility cards and no damage.
Here is my way of doing it in SOP:
(1) Understanding yourself, discover your preferred style
(2) Pick the team composition
(3) Pick the 3 members
(4) Analyze the team, its price, and your budget
(5) Buy & Play!
(1) Bob is a player who enjoys being on the offense all the time, be the one to pressure the opponent, and loves dominating with skills. He doesn't really care about fancy playstyle, he just wants to go in and hit for a ton of damage.
(2) So, Bob wants something that can attack into the opponent. He ponders between PAA, PAB, and PBI. He thought about kamikaze, but decided he's not that extreme. He eventually figures he likes the idea of three different classes so he cut out PAA. He likes the idea of a backdoor bird due to the possibility of an alternate target so he locks in PBI.
(3) He cares more about the attackers than the tank, so he checks out beast and bird first. He knows he wants backdoor bird 100%. He locks in an extremely offensive bird and doesn't care about any potential shielding at5 all. This means that in a backdoor bird duel, he cannot shield up to survive a greedy 3 card backdoor. At the same time, it also means he has the highest damage count to kill even a shielded non-lizard/plant target with a 4 card backdoor combo.
He also likes the idea of an all-out beast. His opponent will have a hard time figure out whether it's the bird or the beast coming in with a four cards combo and that's very fun for Bob.
He knows he will have an energy issue with this team so he is looking for an energy beast. He doesn't care about survivability that much. To him, the plant is there to eat some attacks and give energies, that's it.
(4) So, the team looks like this:
It is a very aggressive team with some of the most damaging 4 cards combo you can ever find. Depending on the plant for all the support duty can be problematic sometimes but every team has its weakness. Bob accepts his team's weakness and believes that he can use his damage to win matches.
And that is how you build your own team by yourself! I hope you enjoy this lesson and look forward to future lessons where we break down more things about Axie PVP.
Follow me on Twitter if you enjoy the article!
The banners and misc. graphics are done by HippoL. All rights reserved. If you like it, you can find her shop on Etsy!
All screenshots are taken from the official Axie marketplace.
And thanks for reading!
Interested in crypto gaming? Here's the list of games I have dabbled in:
Axie Infinity
(ETH - Get a little bit of Pokemon and Monster Rancher in this pet breeding and battling game)
Neon District
(ETH - Can you thrive in a dystopian cyberpunk world in this turn-based RPG?)
Splinterland
(HIVE - Collect monster cards and duke it out in this fantasy card battler.)
Rabona
(HIVE - Hattrick in cryptospace? You got it, Football Manager!)
Exode
(HIVE - Ambitious space colonization simulation game, a game for the gamers with indepth gameplay.)
Rising Star
(HIVE - An idle game where you try to become the brightest star in the music world. Don't miss it if you are an indie musician looking for exposure!)
Holybread
(HIVE - A casual idle RPG to scratch your fantasy itch with minimal time investment)
Alien World
(WAX - It's now just a mining simulator, but mores are coming in this sci-fi universe)
RPlanets
(WAX - Stake your WAX NFTs for rewards and invent new elements!)
