Hello there.
Splinterlands' 6 year anniversary celebration is nearing its end, but with it comes the biggest tournament of the year: Rise of the Champion. Initially I thought that it will be a Modern tournament, but checking the tournament page now, it is in Wild. So all cards will be available, from Alpha all the way to Rebellion. It will be a Diamond level tournament, with the same ghost cards provided to all players, so only skill and experience will be the deciding factor.
As I am writing this, there is only 6 hours left before it begins, and there are 643 players that already joined. I was honestly expecting more, because of how big the rewards are. I know a lot of players who don't play in tournaments, or don't like doing the KYC. That last part is important. The KYC should help prevent bot farms from joining, as well as limiting players with multiple accounts to just one entry.
The bigger rewards are up to Rank 61, but ranks 62 to 138 get a Rebellion pack. I would already be happy getting in the top 61, but of course, getting higher for better rewards is best. This tournament is free to enter, and will run for 2 days. The first day will have the first round, where players will be placed in groups of 15, and face each other. I believe the groupings are random, so I'm hoping I don't get grouped with the top Wild players. At the end of the 24 hours, the top 30 percent of players will advance.
It is good to remember that players have 4 minutes and 20 seconds to pick their teams once they accept the battle. With the large number of cards to choose from, and the lack of familiarity with the airdrop cards, it would be in a player's best interest to take their time and find the best team they can come up with.
Today is the end of season, and I am able to finish exactly at Champ league, but my win rate is under 50 percent. I would be very happy if I don't get placed in a group with any of the top 10 players. I know there are bot users in Wild, and that a lot of them can easily reach Champ, so I'm hoping that the players I face are those that have become rusty, or aren't used to Wild and Diamond level cards.
I was initially going to prepare a lot of strategies for this tournament, but when I realized that it will be using Wild league, and all cards are available, I felt like it wouldn't make much of a difference. Not all whales have complete decks. Even those in high leaderboard don't use all cards. Facing players who don't usually play in Wild or Champ can put out a curve ball. Learning the meta might have the opposite effect, and set me up for counters.
What I did do to prepare, was check out the top battles in Champ, and check out team compositions and combos that work well together. I also tried to familiarize myself with the skills of the monsters. I usually play up to silver level cards, so there is a lot I don't know about diamond level abilities.
From the battles I've seen, there are standout cards that see a lot of play. Doctor Blight is used a lot. Mantaroth is really strong against support teams. Lily+Inevitable+Oshuur is really common, and when partnered with support monsters, is really hard to beat. As expected, there isn't really one team that beats all, and there were a lot of different team compositions as expected. I barely saw any Kitty, Llama, and Yodin teams, which were the top summoners before.
Since I don't have a lot of the cards used in the tournament, it is very difficult for me to come up with strategies of my own, or to find ways to beat their teams. Which is why I am thankful for the availability of the Battlevision. It lets me view the battles and see how dominant each team was. I can even replace a team with a different one and see if my strategy would work. This can be time consuming so I wasn't able to do this for long. I know this can't replace actually playing with these cards and having to decide during the battle, but it hopefully helps me in the tournament.
That is it for my tournament preparation and primer post. Are you joining the Rise of Champion tournament? Did you prepare for it? Tell me all about it in the comments below.
And as always, these are Not Financial Advice, and Do Your Own Research.
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