Splinterlands Musing: over dependency

When I think back at my time in the lands of the Splinter, I see how much I've grown. I started playing the game with the impression that winning is solely dependent on shoehorning as many cards with high mana cost into the battle. In my defense, I didn't read the rules at all and just wanted to wing it, until I learn it.

That approach worked out for me, and despite being the long way round, I improved overtime and got abreast with the basic tactics of the game. The thing is, My journey in the game has been smoother than most because I received plenty support from my friends and those delegated cards really helped climb up the ratings fast. Remember when I said I use to pick monsters for battle solely on their mana cost? Well because of the calibre of cards I had at the time, I use to still get up to Gold II.

The first thing I learnt for myself was the difference between Ranged, melee and Magic monsters. At the time, I found myself more enthused by Melee monsters for two main reasons;

• I have a level 4 Malric Inferno Fire summoner that boosts melee attack delegated to me
  

• I liked how cool Melee monsters looked when they bumped into other cards.
  This meant that in most of my battles, I basically shoehorned Melee monsters into the team, without considering whether they had sneak, opportunity or reach ability. The tactics was to get as many of them bad boys in and do some damage. This is evident in the fact that my favourite monster in the initial stage was Goblin Mech because it is basically a giant robot, and I dig giant robots.

Time went on and I became more aware of special abilities that monsters possessed but my over-reliance on melee still stood strong. I started finding ways to take advantage of monsters with Sneak and reach in particular. I only learnt about opportunity ability when I started using serpentine spy early last month.

As time went on, I finally got a better understanding of tactics and developed ways to balance my team in different circumstances. Largely the same team(bar some upgrades) that use to waltz into Gold2, now claws its way into Diamond 1, and agonisingly close to Champion 3 on numerous occasions means I've improved my tactics but has also been largely due to a new form of dependency.

In recent times, I've dropped my interest in Melee because Shields reduce their effectiveness and moved over to the magic side of life. So I started depending on monsters that boost magic, leading me to spend almost $6 to get Delwyn the dragon magic booster summoner into the squad.

Prior to Delwyn, I depended on Gandalf(Alric Stormbringer) for boosting my magic attacks and that worked a charm. But, Delwyn feels plenty better because he lets me employ my magic dragons that knock the pace out of my opponent.

That's where I am right now, and it has been working out for me. I prefer magic to every other type of monster because shields don't matter to them. Their only shortcoming is that magic monsters aren't quite good at taking hits, so if you run into fast paced melee momsters that mean business, the battle will end before it even begins.

so, what about you though? Do you also have over dependency issues?