I’m right into the Splinterlands battle space at the moment and while I’m not quite at the half-way point of my New Modern Experiment I’m close enough to have drawn a few conclusions and do an update on my strategy. So far I’ve managed to get up to Gold III Tier and wins are yielding around 3 SPS each, so while my progress has slowed a little and I’m into the grind now I am making reasonable headway. I am comfortable that my experiment is on track. The most recent Guild Brawl has just concluded and my rental account went 7 Wins and 2 Losses in Fray 10 (Gold Modern) as our guild went on to win so that’s all positive.
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I’ve had a few issues with my rented deck however and there are some obvious improvements that I can make if I decide to go for a 2nd season. The most obvious one is that the Fire Archon Nomos is just trash. I wondered why renting him was so cheap but now after being unable to win with him I understand why. So I am only playing Fire splinter very rarely and that means I’m under-utilising some of the other decent Fire Monsters that I rented – which is not good.
The second big issue I’ve had is with the Little League battle ruleset. I haven’t rented any Modern Archon that costs 4 mana or less so I literally can not field a team for that ruleset. I’ve had to forfeit several games and that has interrupted some of my winning streaks because of this oversight. I won’t make that mistake again and it’s pretty obvious I should dump Nomos (see above) so by picking up a low mana Fire Archon I can solve 2 issues at once.
I’ve also struggled a little bit with my Life Archon Avina of the Wolf. I think she is probably a decent choice for battles and I do like the idea of being able to stick Healing on a Frontline Tank, however I did not manage to rent a good Frontline Tank for that role. If I go with her again I need to pair her up with someone like Bera Dallin so that’s another oversight that I can rectify if I can rent her on the cheap. It may even be worth picking her up for the rest of this season as she’d unlock Life Splinter for me.
The other 4 Splinters I’ve been doing well with. My favorite is Akane of Dragon with Earth Splinter and using Ambush with Mahkah Hemlig and Night Reaper. This combination is often able to cripple an opponent before Round 1 has made it past the Speed 4 Initiative.
I’ve also had a lot of success with Cryptic who is a dual splinter Archon across Death and Water. Giving a late position Missle or Magic attack Poison and Expose abilities is very handy, especially if they have an Opportunity or Sneak attack. I also like giving the Warwall Juggernaut Poison too because he has the 2 attacks and being in position 2 has good survive-ability. The Thanalorian Scion is also becoming a favorite in position 3 because they are great for drawing Snipe and Opportunity attacks plus with a slow speed and Magic attack that always hits its a good option for dropping Poison late in an attack round also.
Finally I’ve also enjoyed using Underboss Fabino when I want to go Melee heavy and check out the opposition lineup before deciding who to give that +2 Melee bonus to. Whenever there is Gladius ruleset I love to get Katrelba Gobson into the fight because she is absolutely devastating with the +2 Melee bonus tearing through opposition backlines like a hot knife through butter.
Overall I am having some fun with my rented cards and in many ways it feels like a completely new Splinterlands game than I am used to because the Meta is so different. There is a lot of new Abilities to get familiar with and being unable to rely on those trusted old Beta Edition cards that I have used as a crutch for years is kind of refreshing. If anyone has any tips or tweaks for these lineups then I'd love to hear them. I've still got 8 days (about 200 battles to fight this season) and I need all the help I can get.