Starting Rating: 1,082
Loading up Splinterlands for today's session, I have a plan.
If I have access to the nature splinter, I WILL USE IT. I'll use my Flesh Golem strategy (self-heal with strong stats), usually combined with Wood Nymph (tank heal & magic damage) to get a combined 6 heal per turn.
If nature is not available, my plan B is the high-speed aggro strategy using fire splinter. This is not as strong as my nature plan, but Living Lava (shield + stats) as a tank with Serpentine Spy (fast opportunist) and other high-damage creatures in the back can crush a lot of my bronze league competition.
If neither nature or fire are available... I will panic and do my best with whatever is available.
Consistent Archetypes vs. Starting from Scratch
When I first started playing Splinterlands, I would start over from the beginning with each new battle. I would look at the ruleset, the mana cost, and maybe my opponent's recent teams, then try to figure out an optimal win condition. Then I needed to build the team around that win condition... or realize I don't have the cards for it and start over.
In other words, way too much thinking for the three minutes available.
These days I am trying a very different approach. As outlined at the start of this post, I am using very specific archetypes. Even though there are six splinters, I have outlined a main strategy with nature and a secondary strategy with fire. That's pretty much it.
Sure, with an unlimited budget I would have a plan for all six splinters.... Even then, it would take a lot more work. Two splinters is simple and I get one of them almost every match.
Simpler is better. The more I play turn-based strategy games, the less I try to galaxy brain it and the more I try to keep it extremely simple.
Today's Session
It's one thing to have a plan... but will the plan work?
Going into my first game, I get nature splinter. BINGO! 21 Mana, no neutral creatures allowed. My strategies don't revolve around neutral creatures (do anybody's?) so I don't mind this ruleset.
The opponent's cerebrus melts on turn one, leaving no hope for all the support creatures on the bench.
Game two, nature splinter is not available. It's ok -- fire splinter is good! I do exactly as my backup plan indicates. Living Lava puts up a strong defense and my high-damage monsters attack from the back.
The opponent uses another cerebrus, and again I destroy it in one turn. The second monster for my opponent is a Naga Fire Wizard, a truly bad card from the looks of it as it offers 9 stats for 8 mana (though to be fair it does have shield).
And then to game three! I get nature splinter back in a ruleset that excludes all sneak and snipe minions. This leaves me feeling safe to go very greedy with my setup.
I decide to go lots of magic damage to melt through whatever defense my opponent has. As long as they don't go with an anti-magic void creature... please, no anti-magic setup!!
IT'S GOOD!! Even though my opponent has 8 magic damage on turn one, my heals are strong enough to survive the initial onslought and stabilize. That's a WIN
I decide to jump in one more time and then get some rest. Can I get a perfect session with four wins??
Long story short: Yes I can, with the same consistent nature splinter strategy :-)
Perfect round!! Four wins!
Current Rating: 1,130 -- That's 167th place in bronze league. Not bad. Next stop top 100??
It feels good to end it on a win, even though it tempting to keep playing. That's it for today.
