✦ Before your first Ranked battle, Splinterlanes needs one thing from you: a Deck. Unlike Splinterlands, you build it before you queue — no team-picking clock, no scramble. And if you let the Deck Builder do the heavy lifting, it takes about a minute. Here's the whole path.
(Just want to feel the game first? Practice works with no Deck at all — hit Practice and the game deals you a ready-made Deck to learn with. Battle first, build after is a perfectly good order; only Ranked insists on a saved Deck of your own.)
New here? Splinterlanes is three-lane battles for your real Splinterlands collection: tickets cost $0.01, winners roll real cards, delivered on-chain. How to play · Battle now
What a Deck is
A Deck is 3 Archons (as Splinterlands Summoners are called here) and 50 Monsters, every card unique. In battle, one Archon leads each of your three Lanes, and each Archon caps what its Lane can field — both the colours it accepts and the levels your Monsters can reach. Your cards, rentals and delegations included, all count as owned.
That's 53 owned cards to fill, and the builder counts honestly as you go: if your Splinterlands collection is still small, it tells you up front how many Archons and Monsters you can cover — so you'll know whether a full Deck is in reach before you're staring at the save button.
Step 1 — pick your three Archons
Open the Deck Builder and start at the top: the builder lays out every Archon you own, with its level on the tile.
Click your three best — the ones closest to their own max level. Rarities run different ranges (Commons reach Level 10, Rares 8, Epics 6, Legendaries 4), so a Level 4 Legendary is fully maxed while a Level 4 Common is barely started. The further along an Archon is, the higher its whole Lane gets to fight — though a Monster still plays at the level you own it, when that's lower than the cap. Spreading your three across different colours widens the pool of Monsters that can join you.
Step 2 — give Dragon and Neutral Archons a colour
A Dragon or Neutral Archon is flexible, so the builder asks one extra question: which colour does its Lane pair with? Pick from the dropdown under the tile — that choice decides which Monsters its Lane accepts.
Step 3 — press +50
Now the good part. Find the Auto-Build panel:
One press of +50 fills your Deck with fifty good Monsters that fit your three Archons. That's it — that's the minute.
If you want a say in what it picks, set things first and the auto-fill follows: the mix in Neutrals box decides whether Neutral Monsters join, and the builder's filters (name, ability, Mana range, attack type, rarity and more) all steer what +50 reaches for. It only ever adds Monsters your three Archons can actually field, and if your filters are too tight it stops short — the Monster count shows the gap, so loosen up and press again.
There's even a Pick 3 Archons button if you'd rather the builder choose those too — it applies exactly the closest-to-max rule above, and the colour buttons tell it where to look. The full lazy path is two clicks.
Step 4 — name it, save it, play
The bar at the top keeps score as you build — Archons 3/3, Monsters 50/50 — and shows your Deck's total Mana and its Strength, a measure of how far your picks are levelled.
Name your Deck, hit Save Deck, and Play → takes you straight to the lobby. Done.
Three things worth knowing before you go
- Talismans: the dropdown under the save bar equips one of your owned Talismans to the Deck — its mods govern your Friendly Lane in battle. No Talisman yet? Every match deals you a free loaner, so your Friendly Lane always has one active — and a loaner never carries more mods than an owned Talisman it faces, so owning one is never a disadvantage. Talismans of your own arrive as battle prizes.
- Deck Codes: Copy Deck Code turns your whole Deck into a short code you can share. Paste a friend's code and it rebuilds at your card levels as a new, unsaved Deck — anything you don't own is simply left out, and the builder shows you the gaps to fill (the +N buttons are the quick fix). A code carries the recipe, never the cards — and never a Talisman.
- It's never final: come back anytime — swap Archons, clear the Monsters and refill, or fine-tune card by card with the filters. Your opponents' Decks will teach you what to change.
✦ Every battle still costs a $0.01 ticket, every win still rolls for a real card, and 98% of every ticket goes back out as prizes. Stuck on a step? Say so in the comments — that is our support desk, and it gets read.
That sounds fun and beginner-friendly! 😄 Building a deck in just one minute definitely makes it easier to jump in and start playing. 🔥🎮