Pandemonium: The Ruleset that Silently Got Sunsetted
Hello, there! @saydie here, playing Splinterlands everyday!
Aside from the recently added battle mechanics, what brings another layer of depth to the Splinterlands gameplay are its Game Modifiers. They are the set of rules that change the winning conditions of every battle. Sometimes these rulesets give abilities that either benefit or harm both teams. Other times, they will restrict the type of Archons and units that we can use. Depending on the situation, these Modifiers can be your ally or be a far more difficult hurdle than your actual opponent.
Through time, Splinterlands has continued to add new Game Modifiers that make every battle more interesting. There were even seasonal modifiers that were only available during special events to make the events livelier. But in rare instances, Splinterlands will also sunset rulesets, meaning that they have been removed from circulating modifiers, and such is the case for Pandemonium.
Pandemonium
If we include all the rulesets that have ever come in Splinterlands, we now have a total of 80 different rulesets. These rulesets randomly rotate on every battle, with a maximum of three rulesets in a battle, and depending on the league that you were playing, you will get battles with more rulesets more often. However, it seems that for quite a while, Pandemonium has been removed from the ruleset rotation seemingly without any notice, and it must be because of what this ruleset does.
With Pandemonium as an active modifier, all units will start the battle in random order.
There are other rulesets that bring some RNG factor to each battle, and the closest one to Pandemonium was Aimless, which randomizes the attack or ranged and magic units. But with Pandemonium, it completely randomizes the position of all cards. That means that if you place a melee unit at the first position as your main tank, this ruleset may move that into the middle of your lineup, so not only will it not be able to serve its original purpose, it might also fail to perform any attack since most melee units can only attack at the first position, unless they do have certain abilities.
That alone was enough to break your intended strategy, but that is not all because with Pandemonium, you can't even properly place your Tactics on the unit that you want to put it in, since the Tactics were applied not based on the units but on the positioning. As a result, players may lose battles that they could have won, not because they were bested by their opponent but because Pandemonium has sabotaged their strategy.
Of course, there can still be some strategies that you can employ when this modifier is active, such as using an all-magic team, so that the units can still attack regardless of their placement. You can also use units with abilities like Apex Strike, Wingbreak, Sneak, Opportunity, or Charge, so they can still attack regardless of their position.
That said, the results of those battles will still come down to luck, and as a result, this ruleset turns out to be very unpopular with the players, which is why the team removed the ruleset from the game. And they do it so discreetly too that I do not even realize that it's been gone into my battles.
Battle Showcase
Here, I will show you two battles. The first one is a battle that I would likely lose, since the opponent has got me with two units that have the Silence ability that reduces the magic damage of all of my cards. But since they were not able to properly place their Grimbardun Smith as its tank, it failed to capitalize on it while also failing to properly place their tactics. The same thing goes for me, but it did not matter much since all my units can fire magic regardless of their position.
On the other hand, in the next battle, I had a better chance of winning if I had only had my healer not serve as the tank while my supposed tank was placed next to the last position.
Closing
And that was Pandemonium, which is probably the most hated ruleset in the game. It's not the only ruleset that was removed from the current battle rotation, but it certainly made sense that it was no longer available. Will the team return it at some point? I do not know, but I do now want to see it again in my battles.
Thank you, and see you on the next post!
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Well done! Honestly, I nearly forgot about this ruleset. It certainly was among the least predictable and hardest-to-play rulesets in Splinterlands because it could completely mess up your team formation even before the battle began. Although randomness is fun in games, this particular ruleset was sometimes unfair to players who built their teams depending on positioning, melee attackers, or other tactics.
The examples of battles you gave were very helpful in illustrating the problem. In the first battle, it was easy to see how the team that used magic cards was flexible enough, whereas in the second battle, it was clear how a wrong tank or healer could influence the whole game.
In my opinion, getting rid of Pandemonium was a good choice, because Splinterlands works best when rewarding its players for smart thinking and team formations, not luck. Thank you for reminding me about this forgotten ruleset!
Thanks for sharing! - @mango-juice
