In Splinterlands, the players get to show their skill in the building of the deck. It’s in this part that mastery is shown.

There are two main types of cards: Summoners and Monsters.

Summoners are magic users that harness one of six primal forces. They can use this power to summon monsters.

Monsters are any person or creature that is called by a Summoner to do Battle. This means that monsters are the ones doing the actual fighting.

Splinterlands has six sources of magic: Fire, Water, Earth, Life, Death, and Dragon. Each of these sources has distinct factions, these are known as Splinters.

Summoners use magic to call upon different races, habitats, or creatures that exist within the same Splinter. As an example: a Summoner of the Earth Simpliner is able to call forth monsters that live in the mountains and forests.

Cards

Cards have their typical structure, including elements such as Mana, Stats, Rarity or Abilities.

Cards may be leveled up by merging numerous copies of the same card. Higher-level cards have improved statistics and, in certain cases, new abilities. Cards can utilize these abilities to activate a special effect, improve the stats of your own cards, or lower the stats of your opponent's cards.

In The Battlefield

The Battlefield Success is dependent on the understanding of the terrain. The Battlefield consists of two rows of six positions. Your forces' strength depends on how you can use these positions and anticipate your opponent.

The mechanics of the Battlefield are as follows:

For filling vacancies, it’s important to know that when a monster dies, the monsters behind it all move up one position to fill the vacant spot. So it’s important to consider how your monsters will be positioned upon one dying. You cannot have holes in formation.

Battle Preparation

In Splinterlands there are 3 game modes: in Practice Mode, players can fight other players without affecting their ranking for the season; in Ranked Mode, players win "rating points" for every battle they win, and they lose "rating points" for every battle they lose. This affects where they rank in the season; in Challenge Mode two players can have a friendly battle between themselves, and their rank is not affected.

Once the matchup is confirmed, a screen will prompt both players to assemble a 7-card deck with one summoner and six monster cards. Each battle is unique, before each battle you will see a popup showing you the combat rules for that battle and other information, and it is valid for that battle only.

Changing the rules usually means changing the amount of mana each player gets in every battle. Every card has a mana cost that must be paid in order to put it in a deck. The changing mana limit makes sure that players don't keep using the same decks or strategies in every game. In others matches, rule changes involve also restricting the use of specific summoners, cards or abilities. This makes the game more difficult for the more experienced players but also keeps the gameplay interesting and fun.

Combat

Once both players have made their decks and confirmed them, the results of the battle are immediately uploaded to the blockchain, and players can watch a live replay of the battle. You can skip the replay, but it's recommended watching it because it shows you the different strategies and combinations that your opponents used.

It’s the moment of Truth. Your team has charged into battle.

The battleground is split in half, with your team on one side and the enemy on the other. At the halfway point, the front-row Monsters from each team face off against each other. The Monsters with the highest Speed will take their turns first. If two monsters' speeds are equal, then attack type is used to break the tie: first magic, then ranged, and finally melee. If the attack types are the same, then a random order is chosen.

As the battle unfolds, you may want to take note of what works or doesn’t. After participating in several fights, you will become more familiar with what combinations of Monsters work well for different types of battles and in what positions they are most effective.

The auto-battler system in Splinterlands also requires players to be smart. Once the players have made their decks and the battle has started, they can't change the way it goes. Instead, the order in which the cards were put in the deck and how the stats were spread out play a big role, showing how important strategy is.