If you've ever found yourself scrambling to pick cards before time runs out, or maybe feel like you're not progressing as fast as you could be, this advice will help you.
First off, I have no experience playing any kind of card battling game. So when I first started playing Splinterlands, I had no idea what I was doing and I assumed it would take at least a week or two to advance up the leagues at all.
It was slow going at first with nearly equal losses to wins, but a few changes made all the difference and got me into silver within just a few days of casual playing here and there.
Here's what you can do to advance faster like I did:
Study the card options in the market for the various splinters to identify the most useful cards and strategies for each splinter (which can take some amount of trial and error), writing it down for quick reference.
Pick up a few highly useful ability cards in the market for each splinter, based on the strategies you identified for each splinter (or just your favorite 1-2 splinters). The more useful the ability is, the more expensive that card will likely be, which is why its helpful to study your options and decide on your strategies ahead of time.
Write down some preset team options to try out! Take into account the strengths and weaknesses of each splinter, and attempt to create some strategic teams revolving around your chosen ability cards. (Example: high health team with healing ability card, high melee team with +melee summoner) Try to utilize the mana in strategic ways, focusing on things like the highest health or highest attack team you can make for each splinter within typical mana ranges. It's useful to come up with options for both high mana and low mana matches. This is incredibly helpful, because it prevents you from ever scrambling to choose before time runs out.
Once you've tried out each of your team presets several times, you'll start to discover which teams are working against which enemy teams and strategies, which leads me to a couple of final tips:
ALWAYS WATCH THE BATTLE! Otherwise, you won't know what went wrong and what might have made the difference for you in that match. You'll notice things about your positioning of cards, whether it would have been better to use two 2 mana monsters on the end instead of one 4 mana, why your strategy worked or didn't work, etc. I can't stress enough how helpful it is to watch the battles and try to learn all you can from them.
Lastly, keep refining your team presets as you discover what's working often and what's only working against certain other splinters or teams. Don't assume the presets you originally selected will remain as successful as they were at first, because as you move up the ranks you'll encounter cards and strategies and summoners that aren't really used in the lower ranks, and you'll have to adjust your strategies accordingly!
With successful teams picked ahead of time, you'll win more often, resulting in potential win streaks - which advance you even faster by giving you extra rank points (and extra DEC!).
When you keep track of which teams work best against which splinters or strategies, you can quickly utilize that info to pick your preset team based on what team your opponent seems most likely to choose (according to the teams they've used recently).
If you try these tips, I'm confident it will dramatically improve your win rate and advance you much faster than just going for it blindly. These worked wonders for me, and remember I have no experience in these kind of games whatsoever, so it will work for you too!
If you only follow one piece of advice, I hope it's to write down preset team ideas and learn from how those work out! Writing it down makes all the difference!
Keep experimenting (and writing it down!!) and never give up. <3