My second (almost) full season of Splinterlands in a while wrapped up the other day and so today I ran the Splinterstats Report Card to see how I did with rewards and have a bit of a review of the season. The season overall was a bit of a grind early on as I was struggling to put the hours in. I was finding the game a bit tedious, however at some point I got my 2nd wind. It was probably a combination of things so I’ll brain dump them out in this post and see if the penny drops….
This season I wanted to focus on the Martyr cards. I tried putting them at the front of a Big Mana card, gambled occasionally to put them into middle positions where they would be Sniped, Poisoned or Earthquaked. I tried to combine them with the Resurrect ability too so my Astral Entity Summoner got a good workout this season, but my favourite trick play was to put them 2nd last and wedge them between a Big Mana backline card and a final card with Camoufluge so that Sneak attacks would pass over the Camouflaged card and the death of the Martyr would benefit 2 backline cards. I had some mixed success with this, but have started getting the hang of it.
Next thing I tried this season was getting the Gladius cards into the Ranked play battles. It took me a while to realize just how powerful these cards are but I started getting my ass handed to me by Quora Towershead in a few Brawls so figured it out quick. The problem I have is that the Summoners I have earned who enable Gladius cards to be played in Ranked are not powered up to Silver League level so it was a bit of a trade-off as I’d often go into battles with weaker Monsters or lacking other important Abilities. I was initially frustrated by this but have now realised the masterstroke of the developers to keep people playing….to get those Gladius cards upgraded. Now that I’m playing Brawls regularly I've decided that upgrading these Summoners is a new goal that I’ve set for myself.
Following on from that - I also decided this season to commit to my Guild Full Time so I made a big contribution to my Drop Bears Guild and we’ve upgraded our Arena to Level 5 so that we can have a shot at the Tier 3 Brawls. We had been winning the lower tier Brawls so this current one will be a good tester to see if we can go to the next level. I’m really enjoying the Brawl concept and our Guild is pretty good with helping each other out and re-organising playing decks together so I’m really pleased to be a part of it. Shout out to @bearone and all the other legends over there. Thanks again for having me on the team!
Next thing I ended up trying this season was the Xbot.app – which I took the 7 day trial to end the season. I was both happy and dismayed to discover that it plays better than I do. At one point it projected me up into rank #22 on Wild Ranked (which is worth a DEC prize) so I am pretty impressed with how it works. I’m going to give its older competitor Archmage a try this season for comparison as I’m loaning an ARCHMAGE token and have just set up my reward delegations. I don’t really expect it to be better than the newer Xbot but I’m a Dev and a Tinkerer so I’m curious if nothing else. Not really sure how the upcoming ban on bots in Modern Ranked is going to affect these bot products - or the Rewards for Modern and Wild Ranked. I’ll probably post about all that later once I have a better handle on things.
My card collection has a really good mix of both Modern and older cards so I generally play Wild Ranked to give myself more choices and options. Once I had the bot running on Wild Ranked however, I decided to give Modern Ranked a try and I was a bit surprised to realize just how dependent I was on the older cards. It’s not even that the old cards are necessarily better, but I realized I have been using some cards more out of habit and patterned behavior. So while I didn’t do that great in Modern, it was a bit of an eye opener and I eventually enjoyed playing with (and against) a different set of cards. In many ways it was like playing a whole new game.
The last few days of the season I started trying to use the cards with Weapons Training Ability that I have been picking up as Rewards. I wedged them between cards like Chaos Agent, Pelacor Conjurer and Lord Arianthus with some success. These cards aren’t available on the market either so mine aren’t upgraded but I can see that they are going to be potential game changers too. Just another reason for me to keep playing I guess.
Finally I guess I should mention the Rewards won this season. I picked up 150 Standard Cards and 4 Gold Foils. I did get a Gold Foil Epic but it’s the 2 Legendary Standard cards that I’ll be looking to get into my game play going forward. Skok Duskblight and Berix Snakeye – Both with the Weapons Training Ability. They look like a couple of keepers to me. Very difficult to put a value on the Rewards cards as they aren’t currently trade-able, but my gut feel is that I’ve done a fair bit better than I would have done Renting my cards out. It certainly was a pretty busy season for me but I think I've got a good handle on how the game is evolving now and that was my primary goal.
Man... when you make a commitment, you MAKE a commitment! :D And we're so glad to have you. I always dreaded the end of your assessment periods.
It never occurred to me to use Martyr for the back line OR to pair it with Astral Entity (which, btw, had been annoying me since I don't use it.) I'm going to have to experiment with that later.
Quora is an essential addition to the deck. Not sure what your merit rewards are like in ranked play, but when I compared the rewards in T3 to T2, I think we get less merits in T3 once we slip below a certain rank (6th? I think?).
I'm keen to discuss everyone's observations once our T3 maiden voyage is done. Do we stay in T3 and grow into it, or do we go back to T2?
My gut feel is that we will grow into T3 and I think it'll be fun to figure out how we're going to do it as a team.
As for my rewards, I think the SPS boost will have helped me a bit but it really does seem to me that the cards won are more valuable than the SPS or the Merits.
Bump Amanda if you haven't already. Until the mobile app improves, she's out of the game.
Seems you've decided to put in more skin in the game. I think that of the Guild will play out very well and this is because investing in a Guild translates to really good rewards. In the cards departments, it looks like your reward was decent.
I think those cards that's aren't too available in the market will be really valuable during the bull market.
Yes. I also think the Guilds are going to have an important role to play when the Lands functionality is released.
This is absolutely true. I haven't even thought about it, but being vested in preparations keeps one in the mix.
It's interesting to hear about your different strategies and how you experimented with different aspects of the game.
I'm glad you found the Martyr cards to be effective. They can be a great way to protect your backline cards and get some extra value out of your summoners. I've also been experimenting with Gladius cards, and I agree that they can be very powerful. It can be a bit of a challenge to get them upgraded, but it's worth it in the long run.
For the Xbot.app. I've been considering trying it out myself, but I'm not sure if it's worth the cost.
Give the 7 day xbot trial a go. It'll cost you nothing.
I think that's true about defaulting to the older cards because we're so used to them. It's almost like muscle memory. The newer cards seem to be more powerful though but I find myself not using them as much.
You have done a lot in the splinterlands game to make the most out of it. how was your experience with xbot
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Do you think the bot experience really work??
Have you ever encountered a bots that doesn't let you win the endgame at all. A person works hard for a whole month and reads his rank and at the end when it happens in the same way, there is a lot of sadness and regret.
I've been having fun with Zyriel then Lord Agapanthus up the back when I expect a lot of melee sneak. He's already great there, and his Shield ability minimises the impact of any Returned fire, while Zyriel's life leech keeps her alive longer.
Usually its a life team, so I'll often put Warrior of Peace in front of her, to reduce all 3 incoming damage types.
You are the Master! I don't have Zyriel yet and my cards are at Silver League level so Warrior of Peace only weakens Melee but using him with Weapons Training is definitely on the cards. Warrior, Ave Sturgis, Lord A would make a good Life backline at my level when expecting Sneak. Thanks for the tips.