How to Make the Most of "Practice Mode" to Improve in Splinterlands? (Part 2)

Hi, Wizards! ⚔️

I'm @wizardwarrior, and I hope you're all doing great. I haven’t posted anything in a few days, but it’s been a busy week. However, I’ve found some free time, and today I want to bring you the continuation of my last post, where I talked about “Practice Mode.” In the first part, I covered some very basic aspects of it, such as: What is Practice Mode? How do you access it? And other details about why this mode is so important, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

That’s why in this second part we’ll go a step further and explore some strategies we can apply in this mode, such as how to handle and use “Splinters” and card positions. We’ll experiment with some fictional battle rules so you can get used to them, but most importantly, learn along the way, because this is all about playing, repeating, making mistakes, and continuing to learn until you become an expert—and this mode is incredible for achieving that.

Well, here we’ll look at some strategies you can use to learn in this mode and get off to a good start, but I want to break it down into several levels covering the concepts I mentioned earlier. These levels are:

Level 1: Get familiar with the Splinters

Something I highly recommend—and something we should learn right from the start—are the "Splinters," also known as "Elements." They're called that because they're like the elements of nature and actually follow those same colors, so you can learn about them just by associating the colors. But to give you more context, pay attention to the following:

• Fire: The Fire Splinter is one of the most aggressive, as it focuses on "melee" attacks; this is brute force at its finest.
• Water: I see this unit more as a control unit; it has good support and a magical attack that deals direct damage.
• Earth: This splinter specializes in withstanding attacks and healing allies, so if you want to hold out for several rounds, this is one of the options to consider.
• Life: One of the strongest teams in terms of protection and healing—I'd even say stronger than "Earth" itself.
• Death: This is one of my favorites because it focuses on weakening and poisoning the opponent; if you want to deal passive damage with certain abilities, this is the best choice.
• Dragon: The most powerful team of all, since it has a little bit of everything: synergy, brute force, support, and more.
• Neutral: It's really underrated, but it's one of the strongest; here you can get everything the other teams have.

To wrap things up, you need to play and practice with each one so you can identify their strengths and weaknesses. You need to play; that’s the most important thing.

In the game, I’d say the positions of your cards on the battlefield are the most important thing; that’s why, if you learn that each position has specific responsibilities, you’ll have an edge over newer players—but, again, let me give you some context so you can understand the point.

• Position 1 (Melee): Here are the tanks—the durable cards that last longer than the rest and pack a powerful punch.
• Positions 2-3 (Middle): Here, you should play "Help/Support" cards or certain abilities that can have an immediate effect on the field, or your opponent's cards that tip the battle in your favor.
• Positions 4-6 (Rear): Here are your snipers—those attackers who strike from a distance and can't be on the front lines. You can also experiment a bit with support units here, but it depends on the modifiers.

My recommendation here is that you should practice and play with cards in different positions to see how they work—of course, following the format I’ve described—so you can observe how a particular card performs in that position, or whether you can play it in another one. It’s basically all about practice.

Splinterlands has various battle rules and modifiers, and these are what dictate the strategies in the game. So, if you don’t take the rules into account, you won’t be able to create a winning combination. It’s like a law of nature: if you don’t know the rules, you won’t be able to come up with good strategies.

Here are some of the most common rules:

• Standard: The basic rules. Anything goes.
• Super Sneak: The cards gain Sneak and attack from the rear.
• Reverse Speed: The monsters that attack first are the ones with the lowest speed.
• Equalizer: Both players' cards have the same number of life points as the card with the most life points on our side of the field.

To wrap things up, Practice Mode lets you play with any active rule, so use it to get familiar with all of them and take the opportunity to learn as much as you can so you can advance to "Frontier." That will be the subject of the next post.