Trenloco´s Beginner Primer #1 : Fundamentals + Fire Splinter

in #introduceyourself3 years ago (edited)

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Hello to my beloved Splinterlands community !

I´m @trenloco, a chemist and a fan of TCGs since young, proud to say most of my life savings are bound within my MTG binder.

Sunk loads of hours on Hearthstone, Kongai, Urban Rivals, Elements the game (if anyone even remembers those drop a comment lol). As soon as I found about NFTs, and Splinterlands I got obsessed.

Cutting to the chase, today I bring you an extensive review of the most newb-friendly splinter, a solid choice in novice/bronze (even with just spellbook cards).

Note: Spellbook cards refers to cards you don´t own but can still play from the start of the game, also called ghost cards.


But first let´s review some basics:

  • Melee monsters can only attack in first position, which is topmost, below your summoner.

  • Ranged monsters can only attack if at the back, that is NOT in first position.

  • Magic monsters can attack from anywhere.

  • Attacks will target the enemy monster in first position.

Certain abilities break these rules, such is the case of reach, sneak and opportunity.

Team building fundamentals:

  • First position: Melee (or in rare cases, magic) tank, with high health and/or armor plus defensive ability (heal, shield, void armor).

  • Second position: Melee monster with reach, serving as backup tank.

  • Back Row: High damage, fragile magic or ranged monsters, ideally with snipe. Melee monsters with opportunity or sneak are a good fit here too.

  • Last Row: Here it´s a good idea to place a beefier ranged/magic monster, so as to soak sneak attacks from the enemy.

With that out the way, let´s introduce RED, I mean:


                                                                     THE FIRE SPLINTER

I will outline card choices for each position from spellbook, suggest a couple upgrades and give my input in which summoner to choose.


First of all: Summoner Choice
                                                                

  • 99% of the time you will be taking Malric (+1 melee attack), his raw damage boost is too good to pass up and pairs well with fire spellbook monsters.

  • Pyre (+1 speed) I use the remaining 1% of times, mostly in the mirror match. If I know I´m against a Malric player (ALWAYS look at opponent´s previous teams) I like to run Pyre with Cerberus, Serpentine Spy and Spark Pixies, with a Creeping Ooze to slow the enemy down.
    This way you will get rid of Malric´s backline before they can even attack, rendering his buff useless. Same logic applies to any summoner or splinter that likes to run a fragile backline (plus Spark Pixies go into Neo-mode and dodge everything).


With that out of the way: Team Setup

  • First position: Fire is blessed with two great tanks out of the gate, both Cerberus in low mana battles and Living Lava otherwise, are top tier. Always use one or the other here, and don´t even think of replacements in this spot !
                                                         

  • Second position: The choices here are Magma Troll or Grumpy Dwarf, both underwhelming (Giant Roc isn´t good either). I choose the former when I´m facing a magic team (remember, magic goes trough armor) and the latter otherwise. For high mana battles we have an excellent upgrade here, cheap to rent, fast, tanky and hard-hitting (try him out I dare you!), the MVP Fineas Rage.
                                                                       

  • Back Row: Always, and I mean ALWAYS include in your team Serpentine Spy (the guy is amazing, his speed, high damage and opportunity ability make him cut trough your enemy´s backline like butter). When running Malric, Kobold Miner and Elven Cutthroat are good fillers too. If running Pyre, run Spark Pixies or Fire Elemental instead.
                                                     

A good addition to any back row (not just for Fire) is Creeping Ooze , this wonderful card reduces the speed of ALL enemy monsters by 1, and can even tank a hit from a sneak attacker, all for just 1 mana and cheap rental !! (Remember too, that speeds also increases dodge chance, which is very relevant in this game)
                                                                    

Situational picks:

  • Battering Ram : nice with Malric when you got 2 mana to spare, albeit slow it can snipe priority targets. Parasitic Growth does the same but is more expensive.

  • Sand Worm : amazing card for high mana battles, must rent), (same as battering ram, just more expensive.

  • Furious Chicken : fantastic card, free meat shield, but too expensive for my taste.

  • Exploding Dwarf : wins equalizer condition battles by himself.


To wrap the post up, I´ll leave for you this replay of mine, showing how with simple cards and a solid team I could beat an enemy with an (at the time of writing) $800 deck:

https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_54fa343e62cd22617d178e56cd6d999b


If you made it this far, all I can say is thank you !!

Wrote this with the best intentions and would love some feedback !

Any questions you might have, I´ll check this post often so just ask away.


Y para mis compañeros hispanohablantes: Si hay interés, en breve publico una versión en español de este mismo artículo, saludos y paciencia !


In case you have friends that have not yet joined the game, I delegate cards to my referrals, together with deck help to get them on the right foot:

https://splinterlands.com?ref=trenloco

NOTE: Even if you bought Spellbook already , I can still sign you up as a referral, just message me your in game name plus email adress used to log into game. I´ll delegate you a couple cards right away to get on the right foot.


I play lots of other games on Hive too, and I help referrals there also, just DM me and ask away !! Note: being referred doesn´t cost you anything in these games.

DCrops: https://www.dcrops.com/?ref=trenloco
Rising Star: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=trenloco


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Wow finally I find the help I was looking for. This is my first TCG so I feel lost on how to build teams correctly. This helped a ton and I'm about to go read all your other posts as well. Thank you so much for this. Also I don't know what it means but I saw other commenters do this so I will too: !PIZZA

@smoshed, sorry! You need more $PIZZA to use this command.

The minimum requirement is 20.0 PIZZA liquid, and 0.0 PIZZA staked.

More $PIZZA is available from Hive-Engine or Tribaldex

Hi ! Thank you for the comment, very appreciated.

When I started playing I had the same issue, it was too much at once, that´s why I decided to write this series, to lay a path for newer players.

Glad to know it´s useful for ya. I suggest you check out my third post (the water one), that deck is still bonkers and very very cheap. Although by this point it´s quite known so people expect it, be careful with that.

I´ll give you some !PIZZA

I´m allowed to give out 10 pizza slices (0.01 PIZZA tokens) per day.

When you get 20 Pizza tokens on your Hive Engine wallet you will be able to use that command (you can buy the token straight on engine or build it up with time).

PIZZA!
PIZZA Holders sent $PIZZA tips in this post's comments:
@trenloco(2/10) tipped @smoshed (x1)
Learn more at https://hive.pizza.

Hello @trenloco! This is @indayclara from @ocd (Original Content Decentralized) team. We saw that you already posted your first post here in Hive! Congratulations and welcome!

Great to hear you are enjoying Splinterlands. Its best you subscribe to Splinterlands Community and share your blogs there. You can also check out Splinterlands Player's Guide: All You Need to Know.

It would be awesome as well if you do an introduction post. Information like who are you and where you're from, how did you discover Hive or who invited you, what types of content you want to see here and the types that you want produce, and what are your expectations in this platform. There's no pressure on this. You can choose on whatever information you would like to share. As a sample of what an intro post is, you can refer to this intro posts for reference Keeping Up With the Buzz - My Introduction to the Hive Community

It's also best to subscribe to other Communities you like and share your blogs there to have a wider range of audience. Or you can check out the Communities Incubation Program.

If you are looking for tips and information as a Hive newbie, click here: Newbie guide

If you have questions, you can hop into Discord server and we'll gladly answer your questions.

Thanks for sharing! - @mango-juice

we really need these kinds of posts to help the new players. Thank you for your effort and contributions towards the community. Keep playing splinterlands and post awesome contents like this one.

Congratulations @trenloco! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

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To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

Check out the last post from @hivebuzz:

Feedback from the September 1st Hive Power Up Day
Introducing the Hive Power Up Month - Let's grow every day!

Good one bro and welcome to the !PIZZA crew untitled.gif

@trenloco! I sent you a slice of $PIZZA on behalf of @stickupboys.

Did you know you can earn $PIZZA through Hive-Engine Diesel Pools? (14/20)

Lol, thanks gotta love those $PIZZA memes !

They seem like pretty sound choices to me!

!PIZZA

@trenloco! I sent you a slice of $PIZZA on behalf of @revisesociology.

Did you know you can earn $VFT through the PIZZA farm? (5/20)

Thanks for dropping by !

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Pleasure´s mine !