Splinterlands | Fun Speed Card Combo!

This week in the Community Engagement Challenge inSplinterlands, the topic is to write about a card combo strategy. So I played a manual battle making it as fun as possible card combo based on the game rules.

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This Is What Splinterlands Should Be About !

The actual concept of deck building and trying out strategies in Splinterlands is something that simply is impossible in ranked play while for me it's by far the most fun aspect of the game. Instead, in Wild, you are pretty much forced to play a bot as those have learned to play optimized decks while nobody has time to grind 1+ hour daily. The game rules also very much dictate which card or summoners you have to player either going with them or counter your opponent.

I will try to come up with some fun game mode or tournament model to make this aspect of the game shine in a way where everyone is at a level playing field.

My Favorite Splinterlands Strategy!

Whay I enjoy playing the most in Splinterlands are decks that are designed to have very high speed making it so that the opponent gets in miss after miss. However, the difficulty with these types of strategies is that they are not only dangerous to get countered, opponents also nearly always play a basic high-speed strategy which makes it all less effective. However, when you can pull it off it is super fun for you but extremely frustrating for the opponent.

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Key Speed Deck Abilities!

In order to successfully pul off a speed Strategy, you need to make maximum use of key abilities. Phase makes it so that magic also can miss target which is absolutely key and you want it al least on your tank. Blind is also a must as it gives all opponents an increased chance to miss. Swiftness increases the speed of all your monsters by 1. While Dodge & Fly also increase the chance of opponents to miss. With Backfire, you will actually do a to of damage with each miss, while Rage helps to give a lot of extra speed and Slow reduces the speed of all opponents.

It is better to speed up your own monsters as it works on all of them while monsters with 1 speed don't get a disadvantage. Also when you play Phase, you less need to worry about countering magic since you have that covered as many of the magic attack monsters that are commonly used aren't the fastest.

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My Speed Deck & Card Combo!

The Game Rules

I always planned to play a speed deck if the rules somewhat allowed it which was the case as the 'what doesn't kill you' game rule gave all monsters enrage and extra speed. Usually, I go for the Death Splinter as the main Nightmare tank has the Phase ability. However, with that not available I went for the Sthispa Dragon Summoner which is one of the cards that you almost never see played while it's a ton of fun.

The Card Combo

To be honest, the 2-3 minutes simply was not enough time to properly craft the best possible deck so I took 3 Main cards and filled them with some others that supported the strategy.

The Summoner always is a key part of the strategy and the Sthispa is one that gives all your friendly monsters Phase meaning Magic (which is one of the more popular attack types) can miss the target. While if for sure is one of the more fun summoners in the game, it rarely is effective enough and some of the monsters that are high-speed like the Nightmare, Almo Cambio, Djinn Oshannus already have this ability so it is a waste to play it using those cards.

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I love the design of the Phantom of The Abyss even though I only own it at level 2. It's the only card in the game for as far as I know that has both the Fly and Dodge ability at high speed. These increase the chance of a miss by 2x 25% by default. The Demoralized ability also helps to reduce the melee attack of the opponent. The main weakness is the low health and the fact that it's very vulnerable to reflect damage. It also comes at a high price and there is no guarantee that it gets targeted in case the opponent plays lots of sneak monsters.

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The Spirit Miner is one of the cards that I always include in a speed deck as it has both the Blind Ability (which is absolutely needed) and it increases the speed of all your monsters by +1. The dodge also helps for opponents to miss it while the main weakness is the fact that it doesn't have the highest speed itself and can be vulnerable with lower health for 6 mana.

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The Battle

While it by no means is the best deck, it was quite fun to play as I combined the 3 key cards with the Deeplurker as is generally is a strong card and I wanted to have some Melee damage in my deck. The Ruler of The Seas is also a standard choice for a speed deck as it counters Magic (which I didn't really need) but also increases the speed of all monsters and does quite some damage. In 2nd last place I played a high damage output monsters with the Axemaster which does double 3x ranged attack. In the back, I opted for another high speed card which countered Armor and also had backfire damage along with high speed and survivability. Since bots in Wild often play Sneak I hoped to counter it that way.

How It Played Out !

My opponent played a standard bot deck which matched my speed level but with all the abilities to boost the odds to miss, my opponent has 13 attacks which simply didn't hit as the chance was so small to do so especially after my tank got the enrage ability. My entire team stayed alive also and it was a super fun battle even though I possibly could have made it much stronger.

Full Battle Replay

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New Summoner Ability Idea !

Playing this match made me thing of a potential fun new ability for a summoner!

Reverse the Speed of all the Monsters on the opposing team!

I would make it so that

Speed Original	becomes	Speed New
6+	->	1
5	->	2
4	->	3
3	->	4
2	->	5
1	->	6

This would be the perfect counter against the speed meta and potentially make slower monsters way more powerful as they are almost useless right now in the game.

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Conclusion

I had a fun time playing a manual battle in Splinterlands which unfortunately has become somewhat impossible without giving up a big edge in Wild where everything is dominated by bots and optimal strategies. It really shows the potential of the game and where they need to improve the actually maximise the fun instead of everything being about the economy.

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