π΄πππππππππππ
While, in paper Splinterlands is an auto-battler type trading card game where you can earn while playing, I really don't see it like this. To me, Splinterlands is more like a manager simulation game where instead of managing a football team and watching them play, you manage a team of monsters with a trainer called summoner as form of cards, and watch them fight. However, this comes with a lot of benefit making it easier to understand how the game is played, especially when compared to other card games like Yugioh.
Getting Started
In order to play, just simply click the big Battle button on the middle of your screen.
You must have energy to play. You can have a maximum of 50 energy before the timer stops. Once consumed, your energy increases by 1.25 per hour. If you cannot wait, you can click the plus button to buy more energy in order to play. The price depends on the current league you are in. The higher the league, the more expensive it is.
Photo from Splinterlands.
Basically, you will first be given a set of rules to follow. This is composed of a Mana cap, rules of combat, and the available elements.
Mana Cap: Shows you the maximum mana you can use on the battle. The total mana cost of all of your summoenrs and monsters must not exceed the battle's mana cap.
Rules of combat: Specific rules that has certain effects on the board that affects you and your opponent's monsters and/or summoners. You can get a quick view of the available rules of combat in here:
https://support.splinterlands.com/hc/en-us/articles/9123215350548-List-of-Splinterlands-Rulesets
Available Elements: Shows what elements you are allowed and not allowed to use with the exception of Neutral element. Monsters and Summoners from the Neutral category can be played in combination with any of the available elements unless disabled by the rules of combat.
Using these rules, you draft a summoner and up to six monsters. The summoner and monsters comes in a pair. When using fire summoner, you can only draft fire monsters. When using water summoners, you can only draft water monsters, etc. The only exception for this is the Neutral elements which you can use in combination of any of the elements and the Dragon element. When you pick Dragon element, you will pick another available element (for example fire). In that battle, you can then use the Dragon and fire summoners and/or monsters and the neutral monsters in order to field your best team.
You can buy and/or rent in the marketplace for any summoners and monsters you want to play. Make sure to check it before the battle.
Strategy Tips for Beginners
Rules and Ability synergy is your best friend in Splinterlands. There are certain abilities that interact really well in the game.
For example, if you were playing on a rule of combat called "Up Close and Personal" which only allows you and your opponent to play melee monsters, playing monsters with Thorns ability can help you a lot. Thorns inflicts 2 damage to opponent's monsters if they attack your monster with Thorns ability.
Cards like Djinn Chwala have this ability.
Another strategy is using Djinn OShannus in Wands Out rules of combat. Wands out rules of combat disables fielding any monsters except for those with Magic Damage. Djinn Oshannus has magic damage. In addition to the fact that you can use him in this rule of combat, he also has the Void ability that halves all magic damage that gives you a good advantage in this rule of combat.
Community Welcome
One thing that separates Splinterlands with other games is that it is a community-driven game. I don't mean that you can post on twitter and hope for the devs to see your tweet and "maybe" they do something with their game along the lines of your request.
What I meant is that Splinterlands is literally run by the community. Each holder of Splintershards Token (SPS) has the power to vote for a change they wanted in the game.
Each SPS holder can propose something they wanted applied in the game, whether it's a new rule, nerf, something on the business side, a new proposal as a third party, anything under the sun. And then, the community itself will vote whether to pass or fail those proposals.
This is how the games revolve and will be revolving in the future. If you don't want to do a proposal, you can do posts articles, opinions and other stuff on social medias. You can even join Splinterlands' Social Media contest to do just that. However, the recent Social Media Contests have themes so you may not get an upvote if you post your own opinion unrelated to the theme but it certainly doesn't stop you from voicing out your opinion.
The proposals tab can be found as a tab after clicking on your SPS balance or by using this link: https://next.splinterlands.com/dashboard/proposals
My Early Experiences
When I started Splinterlands, I honestly did not have a bad experience. It was confusing manuevering the different tabs on the website. Even now, I still don't know everything in there because some of them, I don't use.
However, gameplay-wise, I didn't struggle. I played a lot of Dueling Book (an online Yugioh web site), played IRL Yugioh as well. I also play Heartstone and Slay the Spire. In short, I have a lot of card game experiences and in one way or the other, the mechanics and strategies would be the same, just a different card.
The only challenge I faced before is I wanted to dive in Brawls. I've been getting a lot of Merits in the rewards and don't have any way to do it. All of the available guilds require a DEC deposit per day or week which I did not understand at first, so I didn't join.
Then, Chaos Legion soulbound rewards came in. I got these summoners where you can summon gladiators (which you can only get through joining guilds). I thought they were useless.
After a while, fairly recent, I tried to look around the guild tab and found out about open guilds. These are guilds that doesn't need permission to join. I also managed to find some where you are not required to give or save DEC so I joined that and that's why I am in Splintersbane right now. I really just want to play and use my DEC not to my guild but for increasing my own deck.
The most memorable experience with me is before Modern Format was a thing. I remember just wrecking havoc with The Kraken. I fell in love with the card. He's just so strong and while he's not completely overpowered and can be overcome with specific combos, he's still really strong. I always lose against Yodin Zaku builds because all the healers I have die first which then make The Kraken useless but that in itself make it balanced.
With The Kraken, I first reached Gold and it was ecstatic. I had a lot of first and was really happy when I first earned a Chaos Legion pack from daily rewards. Although it didn't has any useful or pricey cards in there, it's still an accomplishment.
And the other thing that sticks in my mind is the first time I get a Djinn Oshannus reward in the daily rewards. I sold it for $60 or something which helped a lot because for the first time, I helped my parents settle the electric bill. I felt proud and that's probably the first time I thought to myself that, yes, this game is profitable and I am not wasting my time playing it all day.
I did a few beginner tips for Splinterlands before breaking down the complicated topics. While the articles found inside this post is more detailed, it's more chewable making you understand most, if not all, of the complicated topics in Splinterlands:
@konaqua/splinterlands-tips-and-tricks-for
- This post is an entry for Splinterlands Social Media Contest.
- Other sources that I do not own are cited under their respective photos. Photos and drawings without cited sources are mine and made for this post.
- Animated Banners and Dividers are edited in Canva Pro.
- Some of the fonts used are from instafonts.io
If you're interested in playing the game, support me by registering using my referral link here
βπΆπβ― πΆ πβ΄β΄πΉ πΉπΆπ!