Beginner's Guide: Get to Bronze 3 with ZERO RENTALS!

Hi again! So I have recently made an alt account that is not gonna benefit from any DEC or any delegated cards my main account, just to kinda compete with the bots in getting one extra loot chest a day. It's basically my account that allows me to experiment with different strategies at the entry-level to research new meta possibilities, especially for the inevitable Chaos Legion rotation.

The highest rank you'll be able to get with just the spellbook purchase would be Bronze 3, which awards 1 Daily Quest Reward every 23 hours (provided you finish it) and 5 Season Chest Rewards every ~15 days.

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At the very low levels, it's pretty much a rock-paper-scissors battle since the players (bots?) here are going based on mana cap instead of splinter, but the easiest splinters to use IMO at the lower levels (with absolutely ZERO rental cards) are Fire and Death. I think they are the most cost-efficient starter decks when comparing stats (power, health, speed) vs mana cost

• both splinters have solid low-mana tanks that have self-heal
  Fire: Cerberus
  Death: Haunted Spirit
• both splinters have solid high-mana tanks that have armor + shield
  Fire: Living Lava
  Death: Bone Golem
• both splinters have (2) Ranged Damage
  Fire: Spark Pixies, Fire Elemental
  Death: Haunted Spider, Dark Astronomer, Twisted Jester
• both splinters have ~cheap Sneak / Snipe / Opportunity monsters
  Fire: Serpentine Spy, Kobold Miner, Fire Beetle
  Death: Maggots, Skeleton Assassin, Undead Badger, Death Elemental, Twisted Jester
• both splinters have monsters that reduce enemy health by 1
  Fire: Goblin Shaman
  Death: Undead Priest
• Fire splinter summoners boost attack (Malric Inferno) or speed (Pyre)
• Death splinter summoners debuff opponent's melee attack (Zintar Mortalis) or ranged attack (Contessa L'ament).

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So the general strategy for either Fire or Death is to have 1 tank and then fill the rest with the health reduction + DPS. Priority would be placed on DPS over the health reduction. Summoner choice, team composition + team position are the most important things to learn and abuse at the lower levels.

I. Summoner
I tend to rely more on Pyre (+1 speed) or Zintar (-1 melee) as most Bronze 3 decks can be beaten with speed or survivability. Use Malric if the opponent tends to use high-HP monsters (Earth) or Contessa if the opponent tends to use ranged monsters (though not too significant at lower levels).

II. Composition
My bread and butter at these levels is always Tank + Health Reduction + DPS. The mana cap will dictate which tanks you use and which DPS you can fit, but I generally prioritize Cerberus and Haunted Spirit as they can heal themselves, which usually make the winning difference.

III. Position
P1 - Tank
P2 - meat shield
P3 - DPS
P4 - DPS / support
P5 - DPS / support
P6 - meat shield

P2 meat shield should protect against blast and snipe (if non-melee)
P6 meat shield should protect against sneak

Of course, most of the time you're not gonna be able to fill in these spots at the lower levels (due to lower mana caps) but the general idea is that you should sandwich your DPS in order to deliver the most damage possible while receiving the least amount.

For Fire and Death, you would usually do
1 - tank
2 - health reduction
3 - sneak/snipe
4 - opportunity
5 - sneak/snipe
6 - sneak/snipe

I find it more effective to focus on one type of attack (all sneak or all snipe) rather than a mixture of both.

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That being said, the other splinters do have their own strengths and weaknesses, and the great thing about Splinterlands is that there is no real "hard counter" to a specific deck (except Owster Rotwell vs a magic user deck or Mylor Crowning vs a melee deck but I digress).

I'll be writing (sooner rather than later, I hope) a per-splinter strategy for Bronze / Silver, so that you can make the most of your rentals. Give me a follow and an upvote if you like what I have written and want some more!

I sincerely hope all of these help you enjoy the game more and appreciate its depth and strategy. :)

Good luck, and may your rewards chests always contain gold foil legendaries.

@cutedawako