If you read my post from last Sunday, you are probably already quite aware of the fact that I'm really in love with Splinter Royale, the new auto-battler that joined the Splinterverse. However, you might not be aware just how addicted I am to this game right now. Since Sunday, I've played a total of 119 battles and I don't see that stopping any time soon. I managed to defend rank #1 in the leaderboard for now, but that's probably not so much due to me being the best player in the game and more due to the fact that I'm simply playing quite a lot.
Nevertheless, with the game being brand new and a lot of Splinterlands players giving it a shot, I thought it would be cool to share some simple tips that should get you started in the fabulous world of Splinter Royale. These are going to be simple tips that go beyond what you are taught in the Tutorial but without going deep into the just evolving Meta. Also keep in mind that we are in an early Alpha state, so things are were likely going to change a lot over time, thus rendering this tips obsolete.
Alright, with that out of the way, let's have a look at the board state and talk about tip #1 - Positioning:
As you are probably already aware, monsters from both players take turns attacking an opposing monster starting from left to right. Because of that fixed order, you can actually get a huge advantage by setting your monsters up in the right order. In the example above, I put a 1 HP monster in the first spot so it will attack first. This way it has the highest chance to actually get in an attack and not dying to an random magic blast or something. At the same time, the Crustacean King went to the second right most position so he's going to attack as late as possible. The reason for this is the fact that both the attacking and the defending monster deal their damage in Splinter Royale. Since that monster is mostly there for its +2 armor buff and only deals 1 damage itself, I want it to attack as late as possible. Only the taunt monster went further right because again, I want to protect against blast attacks which hit both the monster to the left and the right. This way, any blast is only going to hit one additional monster.
Generally speaking, high damage monsters with low health should go to the left, more beefy monsters go to the middle of the field, and fragile buff monsters are going to the right. I've won a lot of games simply because my opponent put their buff monsters to the left, randomly making them suicide into one of my stronger monsters.
Positioning doesn't stop there, though, it get's even more interesting in tip #2 when you are bringing Multiple Tanks:
As you can see here, my board state evolved and I brought in a second tank. In this case, your opponents monsters are always going to attack the left most of your monsters with the taunt ability. This allows you to pick which tank you want them to attack (and likely kill) first. Again, this allows for some interesting decisions. Depending on what your opponent played last turn, it might be better to play the weaker tank or the stronger tank first. In the example above, my opponent was running a single monster with 4 magic attack in the first spot and then only followed up with ranged and melee monsters. So if I put the turtle left, it would die from the first attack, wasting the 4 armor. By moving it to the right and setting the Serpent up to be attack first, I can make sure that it will survive the 4 magic damage and then still have its full armor as protection against all further attacks.
Having multiple tanks also means that you are more vulnerable to blast, though. Since your opponents monsters will always attack the left most tank, blast is now going to hit 2 additional monsters instead of only one. So if your opponent goes with a blast heavy team, it's probably a good idea to sell your additional tanks and only keep the most beefy one.
Talking about selling, lets talk about tip #3 - Selling Strategically:
So as you can see, the game progressed further and I now have two tier 3 units in hand that I want to play. The obvious candidates for selling are my two tier 1 monsters, so the taunting turtle and the armor buffing Crustacean King. One could now sell both these monsters and then place both cards from hand. That would be a mistake, though. When a buffing monster is played to the field, the buff is added to all monsters already on the board. If you play additional monsters afterwards, those are also buffed once they enter the game. But the fun thing is - these buffs aren't removed when the buffing monster is sold. So in this case, what we are going to do is sell the turtle first, then play one of the tier 3 cards, and only then sell the Crustacean King. This way, the first tier 3 monster we play will get +2 armor permanently that it wouldn't have otherwise. So again, generally speaking, if you are about to sell a buffing monster, always make sure to sell it last and always play as many new monsters before selling it as possible. These little things will often make the difference between winning or loosing the round with one monster left on the board for either side.
So these were my tips for this time. I do have a lot more to share but I'm not really sure if this is of interest to anybody. So please let me know - has this been useful to you? Would you like to read more content like this? And if you haven't played the game yet - you really should, it's a lot of fun. Actually, it's the most fun I had with a blockchain game ever since stumbling across Splinterlands! So just head over to Splinter Royale and give it a shot. Chances are, you'll end up just as addicted as me.
And that's all from me for today, thank you all for reading and see you next time!