BEGINNER'S GUIDE: Essential Neutral Splinter Rentals for Bronze League

This guide is the sixth in a series I am writing to give beginners an easy way to reach 1000+ MMR and beyond. You can use these tips to either reach Silver I very quickly, or to compete for top 20 bronze to earn seasonal DEC rewards.

I will explain all of the cards that you should get to be fully equipped for 95+% of rulesets for neutral monsters. Every time you play any splinter, if you have level 2 or 3 of all these cards, you'll be able to build an S tier meta build in Bronze.

The idea is simple: Rent level 3 copies of all the common cards, level 2 of the rares/epics, and level 1 for the legendary cards. These are the highest levels for Bronze.

Summoners

There are no neutral summoners in Splinterlands... at least not yet!

Monsters

Creeping Ooze

Speed control is very powerful in Splinterlands, as with almost all monster battlers and card games that use speed as a stat. There are many matches where the first player to attack is the first one to get a kill, and then that first kill snowballs into a full win.

Considering Ooze is only one mana, I use it in a LOT of my teams. Maybe at least half of my teams use the ooze. This is absolutely essential for teambuilding with any splinter.

Dwarven Wizard

Whenever I get a daily quest requiring Snipe, I turn to the Dwarven Wizard. Magic attack is nice since it gets past armor, often allowing this card to kill an opponent's monster by turn two or three.

I would put this card in the "B Tier" of splinterlands cards -- good for some uses, but not strong enough to build around. Use it sparingly, it will be useful in small doses.

Elven Mystic

This card is only used with Alric Stormbringer for high damage magic aggro strategies. You won't use it often, but when you do need an extra 4-mana magic attacker for exactly the right mana curve, you'll want Elven Mystic available.

Enchanted Pixie

Similar to Elven Mystic, you are only going to use Enchanted Pixie for magic aggro strategies with Alric Stormbringer. The only difference is you might also use this card in certain "Earthquake" rulesets since flying monsters are immune to earthquake damage.

Furious Chicken

The best card. Zero mana means you can use this in all of your low mana ruleset builds. Put the chicken in front of your team to protect magic+ranged attackers for a fast paced battle, or put it in the back to defend against snipe monsters.

If you want to have a laugh, compare the price of gold foil chickens to other gold foil cards of similar circulation... people love the chicken! It's expensive. One day I will own one. :-P

Gelatinous Cube

This is one of the best purely defensive cards in the game alongside Lord Arianthius. Huge health and scavenge helps it to stay out of range as you pick off opposing monsters one-by-one.

Use this card in your ranged and magic based builds, primarily with water splinter or maybe nature splinter with Mylor Crowning for thorns synergy.

Goblin Mech

Honorary mention -- this card isn't that good, but it is one of the most common weapons that beginners want to use. Do NOT use this card. It isn't actually good. It only wins against really weak setups, which is why beginners love to spam it at the lowest ranks -- that's where it works best.

Lord Arianthus

This card is very strong and gets used a lot in higher leagues. Its level one form is still quite good and may be useful as a frontline tank while your magic attackers crush from the bench, or while you pull off some crazy synergy strategy using Nature or Life splinter.

This is a card I want to experiment a lot more with and learn how to use better.

Mantoid

This card is pretty good in terms of ranged damage + decent health for a midrange mana cost. It can be useful to help you finish Snipe quests as fast as possible.

Beyond snipe quests, I usually don't use Mantoid -- it's a little too weak for the mana cost. Still, I mention it since it may be useful now and then.

Parasitic Growth

Opportunity is strong, especially if you pair this card with something that boosts its melee attack like Malric Inferno or Silvershield Knight. This card will mostly be used in those two scenarios, especially with Marlic for low mana fire aggro strategies.

For example, I might use Malric Inferno (+1 melee attack summoner) with Living Lava (tanky bruiser) as the frontline tank, Serpentine Spy (the carry) as one opportunity attacker, and Parasitic Growth (secondary carry) as another. If I can afford to use Magma Troll in second position with reach, even better... That kind of build will DESTROY opponents unless they have a really solid strategy.

Prismatic Energy

This is the single best card I know of for countering high damage magic builds. Considering how strong, or even brokenly OP, most Alric Stormbringer strategies are, you will absolutely need Prismatic Energy to have some hope of counterplay.

Put this in front or second-to-front for your high mana rulesets so you can deal some magic damage and have a strong anti-magic tank to backup your main frontline tank/bruiser.

Sand Worm

INSANE. MELEE. AGGRO!!! Sand worm is my favorite neutral monster, it's just a huge carry that can take a few hits if it has to.

Avoid putting Sand Worm on the backline -- if you and your opponent are both running it, their worm might kill yours in one hit. Hide the sand worm in the middle of your team's bench, the opponent will not have a good way to kill it quickly. This way it can deal insane damage and hopefully 1-hit-KO some opposing monsters.

Spirit Miner

The best neutral magic attacker, this card is so good that it has better value than even some of the Water Splinter magic attackers. I use this card with Alric Stormbringer all the time for ridiculous aggro magic power, or use it with other splinters for still-reasonably-good magic power that can help to push through high-armor monsters.

Conclusion

The design of neutral monsters in Splinterlands is a strong suit of the game. These monsters are not too strong, yet many of them have utliity in a variety of team builds.

Make sure you've rented the appropriate level cards in the neutral category. Don't let your opponent win matches because they've got one more health or attack on a key monster. You might not use these cards as often as your main splinter cards, but it's the extra synergies and powers from the neutral class that can help you extend win streaks and reach higher ranks.

Happy days for Splinterlands as the broader cryptocurrency community takes notice of it -- DEC to the moon, SPS tokens climbing? I'm really excited for the future of this game. :-)