Splinterlands — Tournament Edition

Trying to redeem myself in the third PKM tournament of the month

Not My Strength

Tournaments are not my strength in Splinterlands. I've put a lot of focus lately on studying my losses in daily and Brawl battles, but the few tournaments I've entered I tend to set it and forget it, checking back in just to see my overall result. After two poor PKM tournament showings I was looking to bounce back during the last one of the month. I also made it a point to go back and study the battles to hopefully perform better in next month's PKM tournaments. I fight my Brawls and dailies in Modern so trying to perform my best in Wild is going to be a challenge 😀

First Battle

The first battle of the tournament ended up being a fun one to share.

Battle Link	Pre-Battle Screen Shot
Thaddius v Sloan

Set Up

The rulesets were Little League and Super Sneak. The Little League ruleset leads me to look for the highest health, low mana cards I can get. Decreasing my opponents health with Thaddius' debuff is a bonus. I also like to deploy cards with Shield in Little League matches as melee damage is tough to come by in the low mana cards. With only Life and Death Splinters available I was thinking my opponent would lean towards Thaddius or Lorna. Thaddius for the health debuff, or Lorna's Divine Shield which can be tough to concur in Little League.

Card	Strategy
	Beetle is a great tank in Little League rulesets. it is susceptible to magic attacks but hold up well to melee and range attacks.
	Some more melee damage, but the big play here is the six health
	Life Leech is a game changer in the Little League ruleset. The poison ability can help take out low health cards wuickly as well.
	More Life Leech, plus two magic attack
	If my opponent uses some heavy armor up front, hopefully Warrior can eliminate it quickly.
	With the super Sneak ruleset my hope is Monk's heal can keep it around as a secondary tank in the back.

A 64% chance of winning does not give me the warm and fuzzy feeling that this was a go to winning strategy. I'd be more comfortable with something over 75% knowing the RNG would have to really fall my opponent's way for a loss. Focusing a little less on the highest health and with hindsight that my opponent did not use a magic debuff, Revealer replacing Snith would have made this a slam dunk win. Obviously, I cannot know my opponents play beforehand, but I can study their last five matches and also use this learning to not always look for the highest health in a Little League Match. Damage, type of attack and health all need to be balanced.

Closer Look Pre-Battle

	ME	OPPONENT
	23	21
	5	1
	3	2
	2	6
	2	0

On paper my opponent had three healers, and a similar health total. My Life Leech and my opponents lack of armor were what put me over the top.

Tournament Results

I didn't tear up the field, but I'll take a winning record. I have a lot of work to do to get better at tournament battles, but having fun and learning is all a part of the journey. The 15 PKM payout is nice too 😀

🐲 START PLAYING SPLINTERLANDS 🐲

🐲 Splinterlands 🐲

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Credits:

Thumbnail created by me at Canva

Lineup screen shots from Splinter Share

Thanks for reading!