How to win low mana fights in Splinterlands?
Hello guys, Since I restarted playing Splinterlands, I find myself often in the situation that I have to fight low mana battles, which is logical ofcourse as I'm battling in Bronze league. On my hunt for some informative articles, I found that there aren't plenty about low mana battles in particular and/or they are outdated or not easy to find. So I thought, let's give it a try to write some observations I did myself. As already said, I battle in bronze and are still quite nooby on the game. But I hope nevertheless, I could help some people with my insights!
What do I mean with low mana fights?
Low mana fights are battles in which you can only use a certain amount of mana on. There is no exact limit as to which is a low mana battle and which isn't, but let's say that <20 mana is low mana (this is just an arbitrary number which I chose myself). As the mana you're able to use, is limited, you'll have to make thoughtfull choises of which summoner and monsters you'll use. When you go for a summoner with a high mana cost, not many mana is leftover for your monsters. So think twice before chosing your high cost legendary summoners!
Cards or combos which work for me in low-mana battles
Xenith Monk
The first one on my list is the Xenith Monk. BUT, there is a really big BUT! (No not butt, you dirty minds! ;p ) As you can see on above card, it has to be level 2. Why? Well, at level 2, he gets the Heal ability which let him heal himself. As it's a neutral monster, you could always use it, isn't that fantastic? Besides that he only costs 4mana, which is really not that much. So yes, he has a lot of advantages!
Venari marksrat
Another neutral monster. You can't buy him, as you have to get him from rewards, but I still wanted to include this card. Usually I use this card as a sacrifice to boost other cards as it has the Martyr ability. For example, when I put it in front of my above Xenith Monk, he gets boosted. Another option is to put him in front of a Kron the Undying, Djinn Oshannus, Quora Towershead or any other card. I'll talk about the mentioned cards later on.
Kron the undying
I guess most people will already know Kron the Undying. He used to be an OP combination together with Scarred Llama mage, but surprise surprise, he's still quite efficient, especially in low mana battles. If the mana cap is atleast 17mana, you can pair him with Scarred Llama mage, otherwise, just use another earth summoner. For example Mylor crawling with her thorns ability or Obsidian to receive a +1 on your magic attacks.
Djinn Oshannus
I already mentioned this card in combination with the venari marksrat. On it's own, it's already a one-man-army. As he has 2magic attack while having the void ability which reduces incoming magic attacks. Besides that, he has 5speed as well which makes the possibility of dodging melee or ranged attacks quite high. As you can see, he has a 8 mana cost, so you won't be able to use a lot more cards in a low mana battle, but he's a true one-man-army, so no problem if he has to fight (nearly) alone.
Quora Towershead
You can't just buy this card, you have to find it in gladius cases, which can be bought using merits. These on their turn are obtainable from winning brawls with your guild, so yes: Why didn't you join a guild yet? As you can see, this card has the heal ability as well. It's becoming a trend among the mentioned cards, isn't it? Besides that, it has Bloodlust, which is very powerfull as it keeps improving her stats everytime she kills a monster.
You may be wondering, she's a gladiator card, we can't use her in normal matches? That used to be true, since the latest reward summoners exist, you're able to use her in a normal game if you have Lobb lowland as a summoner (or the ruleset in which you could use 1 extra gladiator card).
Doctor Blight
As most cards I mentioned so far have the healing ability, it's ofcourse a good idea to share how to counter them. An option to do so, is using the Affliction ability. As this prevents monsters to heal. As Doctor Blight is a neatral monster, you can always use him, besides affliction, he has the Camouflage ability as well, which helps to keep him alive. He also has 1 magic damage, always something nice! Though, this card is quite costly, at the moment of writing, he costs $44. But maybe you could snatch a steal somewhere ;)
Conclusion
That's it for my tips about winning low mana battles. As you could see, I focus on bronze level cards, as I guess people in higher ranks already have a better understanding of the game to get their decks together themselves. Ofcourse these cards won't guarantee you always a win, that would be too imbalanced and it wouldn't be fun anymore, but see it rather as an idea to form your own deck. Have fun on the battlefields and see you there!
How did I begin to play Splinterlands?
It all began in December 2021, I was a bit bored and was looking for a new game to play on my laptop. After googling a bit, I saw the term play2earn in my google results. I didn't know it at that time but it seemed awesome, earning money while playing games instead of spending money on those games. Soon I learned that play2earn means that you can indeed earn some money to play the games. How does it work? While playing those games, you can earn NFT's of those games. These NFT's can be traded and sold for cryptocurrencies which could be swapped for fiat if you would like to. That's how I started.
Do you want to try out Splinterlands aswell?
Here is my referal link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=stekene
