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

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.

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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:

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                                                                     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.

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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).

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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 !
                                                       

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• 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.
                                                                     

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• 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.

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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

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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.

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

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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.

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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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