Learn the basic Tips, Strategies and Combos for the Fire Splinter, using only your free Starter Cards!
In the lower leagues, the Fire Splinter is mainly known for its hard-hitting Melee Monsters. You'll learn, in this guide, how to use the available Starter Cards (those ones that are available after buying the 10$ Summoner's Spellbook) to build a strong deck, enough to climb up to the Silver League.
Both Fire Summoners are strong, giving the player a lot of flexibility depending on the caracteristics of the match (maximum mana, special rulesets, etc).
Malric Inferno gives +1 Melee Attack for all your own Monsters. This is EXTREMELY powerful, considering that the Fire Splinter is full of strong Melee Monsters.
In the other hand, Pyre gives +1 Speed for all your team. Speed is an undervalued stats because it is not shiny as Health or Attack Points. But attacking first is also powerful, because killing an enemy monster first is very valuable: it reduces the damage/round the opponent can make, while you'll stay with the same damage/round as before.
My suggested basic strategy is using Pyre on low-mana matches, in which both players will end up playing low-health, low-attack Monsters. In this case, attacking first makes a whole difference, as you can usually kill the enemy Monster with just 1 or 2 attacks. If you attack first, you get the kill and then the game snowballs in your favour as you'll have an extra monster in play.
In the other hand, Malric Inferno is stronger on high-mana matches: as you'll be playing strong Monsters with high-health, attacking first won't make much difference as the monsters won't die easily anyway. An extra Melee Attack to all your monsters can almost double your firepower, and in longer matches it'll make a larger difference than just attacking first.
I love both Fire tanks: they're incredibly efficient for their mana cost, and are probably the best tanks available on the Starter Cards.
The Cerberus will be your main tank on low-mana matches, as it costs only 4 Mana and has very high stats: 2 Melee, 3 Speed and 5 Health. Not only that, but he also has the Heal ability: every Round, Cerberus will heal himself in 2 Health! Depending on the opponent's cards, he won't even be able to kill Cerberus!
When you compare Cerberus with other 4-mana Cards, you realize how strong he is: Earth Splinter has the Biceratops that has 2 Melee, 1 Speed, 1 Armor and 4 Health; Death Splinter has the Animated Corpse, with 2 Melee, 1 Speed, 6 Health. None of those creatures have special abilities.
The Living Lava, in the other hand, is an absolute beast with 3 Melee, 2 Armor, 6 Health, and the "Shield" ability. The Shield ability halves the incoming damage, rounded up. Also, an incoming damage of 1 just gets ignored, making this ability very strong in the lower leagues as the majority of the monsters deals just 1 damage per turn. Unfortunately,
he has a high cost of 7 mana, so you'll end up using him only on high-mana matches.
Unfortunately, your tanks aren't strong against magic creatures, and this will your weakness. The Earth Splinter, for example, has the Unicorn Mustang with 10-Health and the "Void" ability, reducing all the incoming Magic attacks.
Suggestion: I love Fineas Rage as a secondary tank. This monster has the Reach ability, so he can attack while on the 2nd place of your team. He has 2 Melee Attack, 5 Speed and 8 Health, so he'll attack fast and hard, and still has plenty of Health to sustain incoming damage if the main tank dies. He is a very budget card, costing around 6 USD at the time of writing, and he'll surely increase your win rate with the Fire Splinter.
I think I never played a game as the Fire Splinter without the Serpentine Spy. He's just obscenely strong, with 2 Melee Damage and the Opportunity ability that allows him to always attack the enemy Monster with lowest health. This basically means that the Serpentine Spy will kill one enemy Monster per round, as his target will usually have less than 2 Health left.
Play him and you'll win lots of games. I promise.
The Kobold Miner is also very nice due his Sneak ability (attacks the last Monster, and not the First one as usual). He also costs only 2 mana, allowing you to fit him in the team everytime.
These two Monsters get even stronger if you're playing with Malric Inferno, as Malric will increase the attack of the Spy in 50% (from 2 to 3) and of the Kobold in 100% (from 1 to 2).
The Fire Elemental is a great card to play due his Blast ability: each turn he'll deal 2 damage to the enemy Tank and 1 extra damage to the 2nd Monster. This extra damage makes a whole difference, specially if your opponent puts weaker cards on the 2nd place (which usually happens on low-mana matches).
One trick that I like with the Fire Elemental is playing him on matches with the "Holy Protection" Ruleset. With this Ruleset, all monsters have the "Divine Shield" ability, allowing them to ignore the first hit. The Fire Elemental is very powerful in this case because he damages 2 different Monsters at the same time, "burning" 2 different Divine Shields from the enemy.
Suggestion: there are 2 Monsters that I also recommend purchasing if you want a stronger Fire deck: the Pyromancer (12 USD) and the Lava Launcher (5 USD). The Pyromancer is basically a stronger Fire Elemental; the Lava Launcher is a "Ranged Tank" with 6 Armor and 5 Health, together with the "Close Range" ability allowing him to attack even from the first position. The Lava Launcher is almost a guaranteed win on high mana matches, as it's incredibly difficult to kill him.
The Goblin Shaman is a very nice card to play: he's mana-cheap (only 3 Mana), has a considerable high health (4) and has the powerful Weaken ability (-1 Health to all enemy Monsters).
He combos well with the Serpentine Spy and the Kobold Miner, as he'll reduce the enemy Health in order to allow both the Spy and the Kobold to rack in the kills.
Think about this: if you're playing the Serpentine Spy together with Malric Inferno and Goblin Shaman, the Spy will have 3 Melee Attack (2+1) and all enemy Monsters will have -1 Health. This means that the Spy will be able to kill, every round, Monsters up to 4 Health (4 - 1 = 3)!
12 Mana: Pyre + Cerberus + Serpentine Spy + Kobold Miner
15 Mana: Pyre + Cerberus + Goblin Shaman + Serpentine Spy + Kobold Miner
21 Mana: Malric Inferno + Living Lava + Goblin Shaman + Serpentine Spy + Fire Elemental
25 Mana: Malric Inferno + Living Lava + Serpentine Spy + Fire Elemental + Spark Pixies + Fire Beetle
The Fire Splinter is one of the most popular Splinters on the lower ranks due is strong Melee Monsters that can pack a punch and kill the enemy monsters before they can even attack.
After reading this guide, you have a basic understanding of the main synergies of this splinter and are already able to build your team correctly to win both Low-Mana and High-Mana Matches.
With this strategy and knowledge, you'll surely be able to climb ranks in no time! With only the free starter cards, you can reach Bronze I or Silver III by playing it smart with the Fire Splinter!
Thanks for reading this post, and until next time!
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