If you play Splinterlands, you already own a Splinterlanes collection. Splinterlanes is a three-lane way to play Splinterlands: two players battle across three Lanes at once, with Decks built from their real Splinterlands cards, and a battle for Tickets pays the winner a real card.
Nothing to buy, nothing to transfer, nothing to import. Sign in with Hive Keychain and your collection is there. This post covers what comes with you from Splinterlands, what is new, and the cheapest way to try it.
What comes with you
- Every card you own. The format is Wild, so every edition is legal. Each card plays at the level of your best copy.
- Rentals and delegations. A card rented or delegated to your account counts as yours for as long as you hold it. Renting a few cheap cards is the fastest way to fill out a Deck.
- Your foils. Gold Foil, Black Foil and Arcane copies are fully playable and show their foil art. In battle they are cosmetic, with one bonus: when a win for Tickets pays out a Talisman, every Black Foil or Black Arcane card in your Deck lifts the odds of a higher tier by 2%, and every Gold Foil or Gold Arcane card by 1%.
- Your card skins. The skin you have equipped on a card in Splinterlands shows on that card here, on the board and in the Deck Builder.
- Your avatar and title. Both show beside your name. A title even breaks the rare exact tie at the end of a match in your favour.
- Your music. If you own Splinterlands music, a player button appears in the top bar and plays it while you battle (more on that here).
- The rules you know. Combat is Splinterlands combat. Abilities, speed, armor, the Archon's buffs (Archons are what Summoners are called now), and the familiar ability interactions all work the way you expect.
- The Season clock. Splinterlanes Seasons are Splinterlands Seasons, with the same start and end.
- Your cards stay in your account. Splinterlanes reads your collection and never takes custody of it. Battle in Splinterlands, sell or rent out on the market at any time. Prizes are delivered on-chain straight to your Splinterlands collection. More on that in how true card ownership works on Splinterlanes.
What is new
Three Lanes. The board has a Friendly Lane on your left, the Command Lane in the middle and a Hostile Lane on your right. It is mirrored, so your Friendly Lane is your opponent's Hostile Lane. Each Lane has its own Archon and its own Mana, and holds up to six of your Monsters.
A bigger Deck, every card unique. A Deck is 3 Archons and 50 Monsters, singleton: no card twice. Every Monster must share a colour with one of your Archons, and Neutral Monsters fit anywhere. Each Archon caps the levels of the Monsters in its own Lane, by the same chart Splinterlands uses.
You build the battle as it happens. There is no team to set up before the fight. You hold a Hand of five cards, and each round you and your opponent each place one card into a Lane, blind, on a five-second clock. The Monsters fight round by round while you keep placing. After 25 placement rounds, whatever is left on the board fights to the end.
Lanes reach across. When a Lane runs out of enemies, its Monsters attack into another Lane instead. An empty Command Lane lets the enemy's Command Lane strike twice a round.
Second Wind. Lose every Monster on the board during the placement rounds and the fighting pauses while you rebuild, while your opponent's board holds, and your re-entering Monsters arrive with Divine Shield and Thorns, with more abilities if it happens again.
Talismans. Splinterlanes' own collectible. Each one carries a Rules Mod, a Splinterlands ruleset you choose to put on your own Friendly Lane. You win them, trade them on the Talisman Market, and can Engrave them on the Hive blockchain.
The full rules of Splinterlanes cover all of it in order.
The cheapest way to try it
- Take the Guided first battle. It hands you a starter Deck and walks you through one match with no clock, explaining each rule as it comes up. It costs nothing and needs none of your cards.
- Build a Deck. The Deck Builder reads your collection, tells you whether you can field 3 Archons and 50 different Monsters, and fills a Deck for you to adjust. Short a few cards? Rent cheap ones.
- Practice for free. Practice against an Easy, Medium or Hard AI with your own Deck, as often as you like.
- Play for a cent. A Ranked match costs each player 1 🎟, which is $0.01. Ranked play and player-vs-player rooms need a Splinterlands Spellbook on your account. The winner rolls a prize: usually a Splinterlands card, sometimes a Talisman, and 98% of all ticket revenue goes into the prize pool.
Questions about cards, Tickets or prizes? The Splinterlanes FAQ has quick answers, and you can always ask in the comments below. We read them.