Splinterlands | New Player Deck Building Guide!

The Theme this week for the Splinterlands Social Media Challenge is to make a New Player guide so I broke down the proper way for new players to make basic decks to play the game.

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Basic Deck Building Rules

There are certain basic rules when it comes down to playing Splinterlands as a Collectible Card Games. These are:

• Melee Monsters only can attack from 1st Position. Unless they have
  Reach (They can attack from 2nd position)
  Sneak (They can attack the last monster from any position)
  Opportunity (They attack the monster with the lowest health from any position)

• Mafic Monsters can Attack From Any position and bypass Armor.

• Ranged Monsters Can not attack from 1st position Unless they have
  Close Range (They can Attack From 1st Position)

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Basic Deck Building Strategy

While a lot depends on the rulesets that are given especially in Gold League or higher, there is a basic strategy to build a balanced deck. It looks somewhat like this:

There is a 1st place Melee Tank that has good health or is at least hard to kill by having heal, Shield, enough life or Armor . This is Followed up by a Melee Monster with ranged or something else that won't have a disadvantage once it gets in 1st place. In the Midfield, you want to place Magic Monsters which will be able to also attack in case it gets in first position. The backline is most suited for Ranged Monsters preferably not more than 2 unless they can also attack from 1st position.

In most cases, these types of decks will be able to put up decent results mainly since they are hard to counter since they include different types of attack.

- The Importance of Focussing Attack: One of the mistakes that many players make is that they don't focus their attack which means that their deck has monsters that attack the 1st position, sneak monsters, snipe Monsters, Opportunity Monsters. This however scatters the damage and it allows the opponent most of the time to keep monsters alive longer making them do more attack. Instead, you want to focus your attack to a point where you are sure that monsters will get killed off.

- The Importance of Speed: Speed is a concept that is often misunderstood by new players as it doesn't only mean that a monster attacks first but it also means that when a monster is attacked, there is a higher chance that the opponent missis. The basic formula to calculate the odds of the opponent missing is Speed Attacked monsters - Speed attacking monster x 10%. So if a 1 speed monster attacks a 6 speed monster, without any abilities there is a 50% chance ( 6-1x10%) of the attack to miss if its a melee or ranged attack.

These odds can be increased more with abilities (Fly, Dodge, Blind, Phase) to a point where it's nearly impossible for the attack to actually hit.

Ambush is a newly introduced ability that came with the Rebellion set introducing a Round 0 where they get the first chance to attack. Note that these monsters attack first and they also are allowed to attack in round 1 based on their speed. So the 6 Speed Rush Townsend basically does a double attack right at the start of the match with Piercing so 10 Damage to the enemy Tank also having a good chance to poison it. As always, there are counters to this when your Tank has Shield (meaning it will only take 6 damage), Forcefield which will only take 2 damage (1 damage for each attack of 5 or higher) playing a 0 or 1 mana card in front of your main tank or a monster with Divine shield also counters this.

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Card Collection & Advanced Deck Buidling

Splinterlands is built in a way where each game is unique given that there are so many different game rule combinations. With many different cards available, some tend to get crazy overpowered on specific game rules which means players want to have an as wide of card collection as possible since almost every card has its use. It is also the reason why the most all-round and Neutral cards tend to be the most expensive since most players rely on fielding those in many different battles.

High Risk-Reward Strategy: It is possible to play very specific decks (only Magic / Melee Sneak / .. .). However, this is a dangerous strategy as this could make 1 counter ability from the opponent extremely efficient. The only matches where you go all out playing a risky all-in strategy is if you are up against an opponent that has far stronger cards then you. Otherwise, you want to have at least 1 card that counters your own vulnerability.

Example:

I always add a Magic Counter cards in a Melee-Centered Deck just on case the opponent goes for an all-out Magic Deck.

Conclusion

The basic strategy of making a splinterlands deck is fairly straight forward starting with a Melee Tank, followed by some Magic in the middle and Ranged in the back. There are endless ways to be creative and having more cards gives you a lot more options based on the game rules.

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