Documenting My Splinterlands Knowledge - Abilities, Interactions, and Strategies Part 1

Hello there.

In my last post I discussed some of the Battle Rulesets you can encounter, as well as strategies for them. For this post, I will be discussing card abilities, interactions, and common strategies.

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Affliction

Affliction	Weak Against	Good Against	Good With
			-

Monsters with the affliction ability have a 50% chance of applying Affliction to the target. Monsters affected by Affliction cannot heal/be healed. This makes Affliction a direct counter to Heal and Tank Heal abilities. Affliction can be Cleansed, and doesn't work on Immune monsters.

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Amplify

Amplify	Weak Against	Good Against	Good With
		-

Increases Magic Reflect, Return Fire, and Thorns damage by 1. This is a support ability that enhances the effects of the other abilities. It is countered by Reflection shield since it negates the damage of all the abilities being enhanced.

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Backfire

Backfire	Weak Against	Good Against	Good With
		Slow monsters

If an enemy misses this Monster with an attack, the attacker takes 2 physical damage. High Speed is one of the best partners of Backfire to make Melee and Ranged miss, so Swiftness and Enrage can be used for speed. Phase is a good ability with it to also make Magic attacks miss. Slow, Flying , Dodge, and Blind are also abilities to combo with Backfire to make the opponent miss more. Since Backfire activates only if the opponent misses, abilities that prevent miss like True Strike and Snare counter Backfire.

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Blast

Blast	Weak Against	Good Against	Good With

Monsters with Blast deal 50% of its damage to monsters adjacent to its target, rounded up. Blast is a good way to deal additional damage to the opponent. It is good with abilities that target the backline to help hit more units. Sneak, Snipe, Opportunity, and Scattershot are good options. Monsters with multiple attack types or has Double Strike or Trample are also good since each attack procs the Blast ability. Life Leech is a good ability to use since the additional damage also provide additional health. Blast is good against Taunt most of the time since you can still deal damage to the backline. Blast is also good against Divine Shield and Camouflage, since the additional damage triggers the Divine Shield, while damaging the Camouflaged unit that usually can't be hit. Bloodlust is also viable since any kills with the Blast damage still provide Bloodlust stacks. Blast is completely negated by Reflection shield, and can deal 0 if the damage is low and hitting a Shield/Void ability. Triage and Protect can reduce the effectivity of Blast since they can heal/block the damage dealt.

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Blind

Blind	Weak Against	Good Against	Good With
		Slow Opponents

All enemy Melee & Ranged attacks have a 15% chance of missing. Similar to Backfire above, with Blind, you want the opponents to miss. Backfire is the best beneficiary of Blind since you deal damage to the opponent's monster when they miss. Phase is also good since Blind will now affect Magic attacks as well. According to Splinterlands Support Staff miss chance is cumulative, and can even go above 100%. So all abilities that helps make the opponent miss are good with Blind. Speed modifiers like Enrage, Swiftness, and Slow, Abilities that increase miss like Dodge and Flying are all helpful with each other.

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Bloodlust

Bloodlust	Weak Against	Good Against	Good With
		-

Every time this Monster defeats an opponent, it gets +1 to all stats (in the Reverse Speed ruleset, -1 to Speed). Bloodlust activates on every kill of the monster. Currently, there is no Ruleset or Summoner that grants other monsters Bloodlust. Abilities that help the Bloodlust monster deal damage are perfect. These include Backfire, Thorns, Magic Reflect, Return Fire, and Blast. Since its stats will be increasing, abilities that support it are also ideal. Piercing helps get through armor, and will be more beneficial as the damage increases. Tank Heal and Triage get stronger as the HP increases. Summoners that grant Void Armor are also good since if the Bloodlust monster has armor, it will continue to increase. For Brawl, summoner with Last Stand can be an option. The only big weakness of Bloodlust is Forcefield which makes your monster's high damage work against it. Cripple and Halving are minor nuisances that slightly weaken the early game, but can't do anything once the monster starts stacking.

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There are a lot of card abilities so I'll stop here for now. I'll continue the topic in my next post. Feel free to inform me of any interactions or strategies that I might have overlooked.

And as always, these are Not Financial Advice, and Do Your Own Research.

If you want to start playing Splinterlands, you can use my link:
Splinterlands Referral Link