Cover image from the Splinterlands Website
Now that I finished my first season in Splinterlands, I thought it would be a good time to share my first impressions. Even though it has taken me a while to write this, my opinion still hasn't changed and I keep playing daily.
In March I finally scraped together ten dollars worth of STEEM to sign up. Having seen and played many auto-battler games before, I wasn’t in any rush to join. They all seemed more or less the same, with winning boiling down to whoever had the better cards. I figured this would be another pay to win disappointment, just with asset ownership tacked on.
Sample game screenshot
I was wrong. After my first night playing I immediately regretted not buying it ages ago. I feel the same way two weeks in. While there definitely is a benefit to having better cards, the starter collection is certainly capable on its own. You can also earn cards through daily quests and at the end of each season. I was lucky enough to receive a very generous card donation when I signed up, but even so it wasn’t until silver tier that I started to notice people with better cards.
The key reason why I am so impressed by Splinterlands is its approach to deck building. You cannot build an uber-powerful deck in advance because you don’t know what special rules a given match will have. You may be banned from using a specific shard, forcing you to have a more diverse collection instead of hyper focusing. The battle may strip you of your special abilities, or grant you others. I particularly like the Earthquake rule set as well as the Lost Legendaries and Little League rules. While playing with the Earthquake rules, non flying creatures take damage every turn. Lost Legendaries limits rarity and Little League limits individual monster cost. The ever changing rules end up cramming a lot of strategy into the two minutes you are given to plan.
That being said, there are some cards which stand out as better than others. Also I find myself cringing when facing someone with the same cards as I am using, but higher level. Still, I very rarely feel like I’m completely outclassed. There is also the hope that changing my selection or strategy will let me win the next time.
My favorite shard to play so far is probably Fire Shard with its fast speed and shield units.
Water's healing and reach monsters seems to be particularly useful in low point battles... 16 points lets you do 6 damage a turn with healing.
Being able to use a touch target like the shieldbearer means you can safely use all sorts of easy to kill units while using the life shard.
To top it all off, there are a bunch of fun neutral units like Goblin Mech which shreds through monsters and the surprisingly useful furious chicken.
Over all I am very impressed and look forward to what future seasons hold. If you haven't already signed up, please join using my referral link.
Thanks for reading and don't hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments!
I am cross publishing this to STEEM and HIVE. Please only upvote one or the other as I will be using the number of upvotes to decide where to post in the future.