The Importance of Speed in Winning Battles

I only started playing Splinterlands in January of this year, so for a litte less than four months. However, even with very little investment from personal funds, I have enough collection power for Silver league, and consistently rank up to Gold. I have been studying the game dynamics, and reading up on every article that comes out on strategy and gameplay by some of the game's best.

One thing that has recently become crystal clear to me is the importance of speed, for winning battles. I'm not talking about who can pick their cards fast, but instead the stats that those cards have.

The speed stat, which is the number in the bottom left corner of your cards, is used to determine if the card will dodge an attack while on defense, and also whether it will hit an enemy while on offense.

For each number of speed your card is higher than the attacking card, there is a 10% chance, per number that the attack will miss (as long as it is a melee or ranged attack, as magic always hits unless you have the phase ability.) For example:

Your card has 2 speed and is attacked by a melee monster with 1 speed. There is a 10% chance the attack will miss.

Your card has 6 speed (Regal Peryton lvl2) and is attacked by a melee monster with 1 speed (Living Lava). There is a 50% chance the attack will miss (6-1=5). I won't even get into the bonus that flying and dodge give to evading attacks.

The second huge advantage that speed gives you is the order of attack each round. Each monster has a chance to attack each round, but the monsters with the highest speed will attack first. If you have all high speed monsters, sometimes you can wipe out an enemy before he even gets a chance to hit back.

Take a look at this battle which perfectly sums up this very important, and often overlooked quality of the speed stat.

On the surface the teams look very evenly matched. This is a high level silver match, both summoners chosen were General Sloan level 2. We both are counting on the taunt ability of the Shieldbearer to give our archers time to inflict maximum damage. But there is one huge difference that will make or break this battle....and you probably already guessed it, SPEED!
But did you see it yet? Instead of adding a fourth archer like my opponent, I added Time Mage, which has 1 magic attack and the Slow ability, which reduces the speed of all my enemies by 1. This guarantees that my cards will not only have a chance of dodging their mirror images, but also they will get to go first each round. That one ability really shines here as the other team is not just beaten, but thoroughly demolished.

Watch the entire battle with the link below:

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_eecbaac2d0a9df330ce0f22e50f34ca5&ref=dtam

Because of the importance of speed, cards with the Slow ability, and the Swiftness ability tend to be highly coveted by the those in the know. Only a few cards like Time Mage and Creeping Ooze have the slow ability at Level 1, and they are still pretty cheap. In fact, while writing this I finally bought myself a shiny new Creeping Ooze.

As you get higher in ranks, and play against better and better players, you will have to use speed to your advantage if you want to win consistently. Or if you are in the bronze league and fighting to get past all the bots, a $1 investment into Creeping Ooze could make all the difference. Head over to peakmosters.com and pick up an Ooze for yourself.

I hope you enjoyed the info. I'll see you on the battlefield.

-Dtam