I think could be interesting to have all the articles I wrote in a single post and for this reason I stick all this articles in a single one.

SPLINTERLAND STRATEGY I

In the school of experience the lessons cost expensive, but only in them the insane ones are corrected (Benjamin Franklin)

As the sage Benjamin Franklin says, experience is acquired many times thanks to our mistakes, and these cost us dearly. So that they are less expensive to you, I tell you my experiences with steem monsters so you do not make the same mistakes that I have made.

For that I am going to give you small tips, which I will encapsulate in this type of strategy posts, things that I have been gradually realizing. In the same way if you see that I am wrong or you want to improve any of the tips, of course all collaboration is welcome, after all, I've only been playing for a couple of months.

The beginnings are always hard

Splinterlands portal

The first step to be able to start playing in splinterlands is to get a deck of cards. For this the simplest option is to pay 10 dollars and buy a starter pack. This is the cheapest way to get the first beta packs because for the 10 dollars you buy 30 beta packs of 5 cards each, a total of 150 cards to start. The account that you create can also be used for the rest of the applications and pages of the steem network, as you already know.

With this deck of cards is with which you will start playing initially to win your first DEC and climb a bit in the ranking. You know that at the beginning it will be difficult to climb, and the rewards are small, but you will have to be patient and enjoy the journey.

Interface

The interface is quite simple and intuitive, but we are just going to explain a bit where everything is.

1 Main menu

These are the main options available at the application level, you can access to buy packs, open them, a card store, see your own collection of cards, the battle page and the tournament page as well as a page of frequently asked questions.

2 Battle menu

Once inside the battle page, there will be a submenu like the one shown in the figure, with different options for combat. You can access a practice battle to try new combinations of cards and then battles with ranking, whose wins and losses will make us advance by ranking. You can also challenge a friend and cast him directly through the challenge option.

3 DEC

In this small marker you can see the DEC crystals that we can change by SteemP in the Steem Engine or by orbs with Alpha type cards. If we click on it we can see the% capture of crystals that we have in the victories, the more you play the less capture of crystals.

4 daily rewards

In this box daily missions are shown, if you complete them you will be given a number of cards proportional to the level in which you are. Normally it is about winning 5 battles with a certain deck. If the deck that you propose does not like you can change it, but only once of each mission.

SPLINTERLAND STRATEGY II

What we know is a drop of water; what we ignore is the ocean. (Isaac Newton)

Always starting from the ignorance of a rookie, I will go to discuss some things that I have been realizing in these two months of gaming experience in Splinterlands. The normal thing is that at the beginning the games you play a bit like crazy and little by little you will realize the restrictions and advantages that each of the cards have according to their type of attack, defense, initiative etc., so I think that to go in order, the first thing would be to talk about the letters themselves.

I think it would be good to follow the guide in the game itself as there is a complete section of "how to play" that I recommend reading carefully, although it is also true that there are things that do not explain well and that I will try to complete myself in this revision.

Types of letters

For the game there are basically two types of different cards with totally different functions. We have on the one hand the letters of "Summoners" and those of "Monsters". The summoner is the one that invokes the monsters, so that they fight and decide the battle, that is, the summoner invokes, casts his spells, but the ones that fight are the monsters.

What remains to be explained here is how the levels of the cards work and how those of one type are limiting with those of the other. Let's see it now ...

The summoner card, is the one that marks the cards of monsters that we will be able to use in the battle, there are two types of restrictions, by the splinter or type of magic and by the level. The levels are marked by the table shown above, depending on the power of the monster card. If your summoner is level 2, for example, he can only summon monsters of level 3 common, level 2 rare and level 1 epics. The levels of the cards are achieved by merging cards but we will talk about that later.

SPLINTERS

On this little more we must explain. In this game is very similar to others of this type, each splinter is a different magic and each has its pros and cons, I also know that each splinter has some that are good and others bad according to the characteristics of the letters from each of them.

ATTRIBUTES OF THE LETTERS

1 Mana cost

It's basically what it costs you to invoke the monster, just keep in mind that in each game there is a different amount of mana available which is very relevant when planning which cards to use for a battle. As is normal, the more powerful the card, the more mana costs.

2 Attributes

They are the monster's capabilities for combat:

• Attack, there are several types, can be melee, distance or magic, this has a series of restrictions in the battle that we will explain later, since it is important to have it when deciding the cards for the battle and your order.
• Armor, the amount of damage that can be absorbed before the attack deals damage to the monster, magical damage usually ignores the armor.
• Initiative, is what determines the order in which the monsters perform their actions, which hits first hits twice.
• Health, determines the endurance that the monster will have before dying, how much damage it will absorb.

3 Splinter and quality

Here you can see the type of magic of the letter according to what we talked about before and the quality or rarity of it, the more quality or rarity the more expensive the letter both to buy it and to find it in the packs. There may also be limitations on the game at the quality level of the cards.

4 Name, 5 level and 6 experience

The name has nothing special, but if you mention that the level determines the cost of the letter and the level of development of its attributes. Keep in mind the limitation that we discussed at the beginning and to use high level monsters, we must have a summoner at a sufficient level according to the rarity of the card.

The bar that goes below marks the level of progress between levels of the letter or level of experience, as I have said, to raise a level card goes by stacking lower level cards.

7 Skills

Well, this is the really complex section that revolutionizes all the game mechanics. In the next post you make will be the most talked about since it is where the greatest complexity of the game is.

Game mechanics

Once explained the basics of the cards, let's see how it works to start playing. If we enter the battle option, the system will start looking for a rival of a level similar to ours to make the crossing and the conditions of the battle will be drawn and that is that in Splinterlands each battle is different ...

For the approach of the battle there are always 3 conditions:

• Rules of the combat: They are special conditions that are put in the combats, like limiting the maximum level of the monsters, not allowing monsters with attack at distance, etc, there are many options that you will be seeing as you fight many times.
• Mana available: For each battle the available mana changes so that you can not always draw the same cards, it can vary from 30 to 15 more or less.
• Spliters available: In each battle there will be some splinters that will not be allowed.

Also in the upper part of the screen we can see the level of the player against whom we are going to beat and the splinters and decks that he has used in the last 5 games. A timer is also displayed that informs us of the time we have left to make the battle deck ready. In view of this we are given the option to surrender or form the team of cards for the battle.

What will really make the difference is having the ability in 2 minutes to see the last thing our opponent has used and depending on the conditions we have to build a competitive stack to be able to beat him in the fight.

Mount your card team

To finish we must choose from the allowed splinters the summoner that we prefer and start to choose the monsters by ordering them by rows as shown in the image. Keep in mind that units with melee attack will only attack in the front row unless they have skills that allow them to do so from other ranks. The attack by distance can not attack in the front row.

Riding a well-ordered team and is essential to win many games, we must see many times the stack of the opponent and see where we have to put our tank cards, attack, etc ... but this will see in detail the next posts.

SPLINTERLAND STRATEGY III

If you know the enemy and yourself, you should not fear the outcome of a hundred battles. (Tzu tzu)

One of the things that I found confusing in the beginning was why the attacks hit each target and the mechanics of the combat.

I remember that the first battles almost placed the units without order and without understanding then why lost one battle after another.

So that you do not happen the same thing I will explain how the mechanics of combat works. As you know, the monsters are placed by rows and according to some conditions that I will explain can attack one row or another. Let's see an example:

Combat mechanics

In this capture you can see the first turn of an example battle where you can see several actions of the combat mechanics. To determine how the turn of attacks will work, two things will be taken into account:

• Monster Initiative: Determine the order in which attacks are executed.
• Objective of the attack: Determine which of the enemies will attack the monster.

The first point is simple to determine, the greater the initiative will be executed first, unless otherwise specified in the combat rules (there is a type of rules that precisely specifies that the least initiative attacks first). In case of a tie, it is decided randomly which will be the first to attack.

The second point is more complex and is one of the incentives in terms of strategy that the game has. There is a general normal depending on the type of attack of the monster, but then there are abilities that can change this "natural" order.

Types of attack

As we discussed in previous tutorials, there are different types of attacks, specifically there are three:

1. Melee or melee attack: Only works from the front line in case there are no additional skills.
2. Remote attack: Only works remotely, that is, does not work from the first line. In case of not having additional skills, the monster will always attack the enemy's first line.
3. Magic attack: Works from any distance, short and long range. As with the remote attack, it will be carried out on the enemy monster of the first line.

Modifiers by skill

Although the default attack choice depends only on the type of attack, there are skills that change this behavior, they are the following:

• Sneak: Allows attack with mele attack from any location and always to the last row of the opponent.
  

• Reach: Allows attack with mele attack from the second row. It will attack the enemy's first rank.
  

• Snipe: Change the objective of a remote or magic unit and cause it to attack the first monster with a remote attack or magical and not in first position.
  

As you can see there are several conditions by which the aim of the attacks can be changed, so that the outcome of the battle changes a lot. The units with snipe are very useful to eliminate the monsters of healing or empowerment of the rival.

Battle Rules

Also from the rules of battle we can change the mechanics of the game since sometimes it may be the case that all remote units win snipe, or that all of mele win sneak.

Therefore it will be important to be aware before starting the game both the stack that the opponent usually uses and the rules of combat we have for that battle in particular.
I hope you liked it, if so, please vote me and if you want to keep seeing this type of articles follow me !!

SPLINTERLANDS STRATEGY IV

The art of strategy is of vital importance for the country. It is the terrain of life and death, the road to safety or ruin.
"The Art of War"

Splinterlands strategy: Rules of combat

Hi all! To continue with the cycle of posts about strategy in splinterlands I think it is important to comment in more detail how "rules of combat" works and how they influence when you choose which cards to fight and their order in the field of battle.

As we discussed in the previous post, the "rules of combat" are shown in a small box on the left just before the battle begins.

Why are the "rules of combat" important?

Because many times those rules are decisive when resolve the outcome of the battle, either because initially it is already very close, or simply because the rule greatly influences the game. In this article I am going to talk about some of them, although since I am playing new battle rules emerge

Scenario I: Keep your distance

In the first of our scenarios we see this rule that does not allow us to use mele units.

I focus this situation by putting a unit in the front line that can withstand the main attacks of the rival, always have some unit with snipe, but the rest will attack our first unit, for example for this role is the giant pacific.

To illustrate this situation we will see one of my battles

As you can see we have both opted for this peacefull giant in the front line as a tank, although it does not attack. Then I put the healer, because if I put units away and the tank falls, I already lose the attack of those units when they are in the front row. In last rows we will have to put units to distance or magic that do the greater possible damage, taking into account that the magic normally penetrates the armor.

Scenario II: Healed out

This rule of combat forbids the healing of one's own or another's monsters. My strategy in this situation is to get as much attack capacity as possible, since the battle will turn into a time trial as there is no possibility of healing.

Let's see an example of battle of this type

I take advantage of using a cheaper hero and that allows me to put the level 4 ogre with two abilities. In any case what we have to take into account is that we can not use healing units that are useless, you would be surprised how many people use them with these battle rules.

Scenario III: Super Snake

This scenario is superinteresting because it completely changes the mechanics of combat. Let's consider what the snake skill is worth. The unit, instead of hitting the one on the front line, will choose to attack the last unit. The same will happen with all mele units minus the one in the first line that will continue to hit the first line.

What we should keep in mind is that we must leave behind a unit that has the capacity to take damage, even if it can be cured better than better. In this way we will contain most of the rival's attacks while we are wearing it. This case is an unequal battle because he has much more powerful units.