To attract Gladiators and increase the effectiveness of their Battle Mages, the top Guilds of Praetoria have invested in the construction of sprawling Barracks compounds. These training facilities specialize in sophisticated Tactics for Brawling. Even a slight advantage in combat can often mean the difference between ignoble defeat or glorious victory!
In case you missed it, Brawls 2.0 testing is currently open to Mavericks. There's still time to join before the testing concludes! Details here: @cryptomancer/splinterlands-brawls-testing-20-now-open-to-the-mavs
In this post we explore more details about the upcoming Brawls 2.0 features (not yet released at the time of writing).
Introducing the Barracks
The Barracks is one of two new guild buildings added in the Brawls 2.0 update (the other being the Guild Store). Leveling it up will unlock Tactics, which are special abilities your team can use in battle:
You don't have to do anything else to use Tactics. They will be automatically unlocked and applied for all guild members when the Barracks levels up.
Tactics stack (with one caveat concerning Surge, we'll get to that below). So, for example, if your guild reaches Barracks level 6, then all 6 Tactics from levels 1-6 will apply at once.
Note: Tactics can only be used in Brawls. They do not apply to normal Ranked Battles or Tournament play.
Further note: the following Tactics give you an advantage in Home Arena battles: Advantage, Banish I, Banish II, and Ambush. These 4 will benefit the Home player and hurt the Away player. All other Tactics apply to both Home and Away battles.
Let's look at the implications of Tactics in more detail:
Advantage
Provides 2 benefits when fighting in your Home Arena:
1. If normally the battle would end in a draw, the Home player is given a win instead, with the loss going to the visiting team.
2. Normally, in a move-order tie (i.e. cards on both teams have same speed & attack stats, same rarity, and same level), attack order is chosen randomly. However, when the Advantage Tactic is active, the Home player will always be chosen to attack first.
Unleash I / II / III / IV
Unleash I - Bronze level cap
Unleash II - Silver level cap
Unleash III - Gold level cap
Unleash IV - Diamond level cap
So for example, if your guild Barracks is at level 5, with Unleash II unlocked, then for Gladiator cards your Summoner will act as if constrained by either Fray level limits or Silver level limits, whichever is lower.
With Unleash IV unlocked, you can use MAX level Gladiator cards (but they will still be subject to Fray level limits of course).
Note: Once Unleash I is active, Gladiators will always be available for use, regardless of any particular Fray edition restrictions.
Banish I / II
The Banish Tactics allow you to select one (or two for Banish II) card(s) to banish from opponent teams in your Home Arena. This means that enemy players will be unable to select these cards when fighting in your Home Arena. As the Home player, you are of course still free to use them.
Once unlocking these Tactics, a guild Officer (or higher rank) can set the banished card(s) by clicking on the Tactic graphic on the Barracks building page:
This will take you to the Banish Card Select screen where you can use the usual filters to find a card to banish. Clicking on a card will set or change the currently banished card. Note that you can banish any card, and a banishment applies to all editions of the card, both regular and gold foil. Currently banished cards will be shown locked in chains:
Pro Tip: If both Banish I and Banish II are active, you can set both banished cards quickly by toggling back & forth using the buttons in the upper right corner of the screen:
Banished cards are a guild-wide setting. That is to say, these settings apply for all guild members, and cannot be changed once Brawl combat begins. That means they apply for all Home Arena battles for a given Brawl.
Officer+ guild members are free to change the banished card settings once combat ends, during the Results Stage, or before combat begins, during the Prep Stage.
If you are fighting in an Enemy Arena, it will be obvious on the team select screen if any of your cards have been banished:
Surge I / II
The Surge Tactic is pretty simple. It adds either +1 (for Surge I) or +2 (for Surge II) Mana to the Mana Cap for all your Brawl battles, regardless of whether you are fighting in your Home Arena or an Enemy Arena.
For example, if a battle's normal Mana Cap is 46, and your guild has Surge I active, your Mana Cap will be 47 and your opponent's Mana Cap will still be 46 (assuming your opponent's guild doesn't also have Surge active). With Surge II, your Mana Cap would be 48.
Surge is the only Tactic that doesn't stack (depending on how you look at it). So Surge II doesn't combine with Surge I to give you +3 Mana. Rather, Surge I gives you +1 Mana and Surge II gives you an additional +1 Mana, for a total of +2.
Ambush
This Tactic slows down enemy guilds fighting in your Home Arena. It gives a -1 speed debuff to all Monsters on the enemy team. However, in Reverse Speed rulesets, it gives +1 speed to enemy Monsters instead. So regardless of ruleset, this Tactic is always a disadvantage for the visiting team!
For fun times, combine this Tactic with speed buffs for your team and Summoners like Pyre, Byzantine Kitty, or Valnamor. You'll be running circles around the enemy, striking them and killing Monsters before they can get in a blow!
Wow, should our guild level up the Guild Store or Barracks first? Decisions, decisions...
Each guild should craft its own strategy for building level-ups. Some guilds may want to concentrate on reaching Arena level 10 first, others may want to take a more balanced approach and level up Arena, Barracks, and Guild Store at the same rate. It depends on your goals for Brawls and whether you want to be the best, or play more casually.
Note that all 3 of the Brawl related buildings can level up independently (i.e. they do not constrain each other), but they are still subject to level limits set by the Guild Hall.
At a minimum, I'd recommend reaching the following levels as quickly as possible, so you can use Gladiators in battle:
Guild Store level 2 - so you can start collecting Gladiator cards (level 2 unlocks Gladius Cases for purchase).
Barracks level 2 - unlocks Unleash I, allowing you to use Gladiator cards.
Going forward, I'd suggest a balanced strategy of leveling up buildings at roughly the same rate. If you intend to compete in higher tier Frays, you'll want to reach Unleash II / III / IV as quickly as possible so you can use higher level Gladiators. But at the same time, you should keep leveling up the Guild Store, as that will result in more Merits to purchase Gladius Cases with, and hence you'll level up the Gladiators faster.
And the rest is up to you!
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