The Good and Bad of Survival Mode

It is good to try something, in fact I always tell people to try something instead of being afraid of failure.
After I carefully studied survival mode, I understood something and they are:

Don't be tempted to use the most useful monsters in Ranked Battles: When survival mode was launched, I was eager to play, and I played it. Though the majority of the battles I played were so simple to me; but the moment I was defeated, those cards were not useful for any battle unless the cooldown expired.
In the process, I was waiting for my cards that were depleted to be used in the battles; I ended up losing more ranked battles because most of my powerful cards that I used in ranked battles were depleted.
To correct the mistake, I decided to deactivate the most important cards from survival mode.

Be ready for both good and bad: you can never say you will win a certain battle when you have not seen your opponent. To guess either to win or lose, you must see the lineup of your opponent; that is the reason you have to be ready for both good and bad.
When I started survival mode, I won 4 battles in a streak; I was happy because it was very simple to play. At the fifth battle, my opponent was so strong that I couldn't defeat him/her. At the sixth battle, the opponent was stronger than the fifth one. Within 2 minutes, 12 monsters were defeated which simply means that those cards cannot be available in ranked battles.
Another thing was that some of the depleted cards are my best cards in ranked battles; the absence of those cards simply means that I'm going to lose some ranked battles that should have been won by me.
I was struggling to win some ranked battles that should have been bonus battles; and I kept losing tough battles that would have won.

Come up with strategies that will make you maintain your cards from being depleted: splinterlands battles are all about strategies. If you have all the necessary cards and fail to strategize, a player with a lower level than you can defeat you. I defeated players with max level, and players with level 5 and 4 drafted me.
Good strategy is not only to master the rules; but also to know the best position for the best cards, best summoner and best monsters to use. Once a player can know this, winning battles will be very simple for such a player.

There are high chances for players with higher cards than lower cards to win battles: I noticed players with higher cards have advantages over small players to win battles; that is the reason it is always difficult for a player with lower cards to win against a player with higher cards.
Based on my experiences, it is very easy to battle with lower players. When I started playing the modern format last 2 season; when I was at ‘wood level' I won almost all the battles. As my points increased to 2,000, the battles became tougher.

Use those cards you are not using in the ranked battles: I tried to use some of the cards I did not use for ranked battles but ended up using some of the some of the cards I used in ranked battles. I realized that the best way to avoid using those cards one is using for ranked battles is to deactivate them from survival mode. As a matter of fact, if you are not deactivating those cards, they will keep on appearing when you want to select cards.

Bellow is the survival mode battle I played,
Click Here to watch the battle

Monsters Arrangement

Ulunding Overseer🔸🔸🔸
Splinter: Neutral
Level: 1⭐
Speed: 1 🚤
Ability: Flank
Health: 12 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Armor: 5 🪖🪖🪖🪖🪖
Attack: None
Mana: 11
One of the reason I preferred Ulunding Overseer than any other monsters available in the first position was that:
The health was extremely high to withstand high pressure for a longer time.
Ulunding Overseer could not be defeated in this battle as a result of its long life.
The flank gave Coastal Sentry opportunity to attack in the second position; and without Ulunding Overseer, Coastal Sentry can never attack in the second position because it does not have reach ability.
The armor was also a good criteria! All the opponent monsters were melee and ranged attacks which simply means, Ulunding Overseer's armor would be destroyed before its health. It was in the process of destroying the armor that all opponent's monsters were eliminated.

Coastal Sentry
Splinter: Water 💧💧💧
Level: 3 ⭐⭐⭐
Speed: 4 🚤🚤🚤
Ability: Void, Phase and Forcefield
Health: 7 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Attack: Melee
Mana: 10
Ulunding Overseer gave me confidence to use Coastal Sentry in the second position; and that was the reason it attacked in the second position.
Coastal Sentry's Melee and double attacks were incredible; four melee attacks made the battle very easy for me. At round one, 2 opponent's monsters were eliminated, at round 2, 3 opponent's monsters were eliminated.
In case of Ulunding Overseer was eliminated, Coastal Sentry* can also lead the attack.

Captain Ghost
Splinter: Water 💧💧💧
Level: 3 ⭐⭐⭐
Speed: 2 🚤🚤
Ability: Affliction
Health: 8 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Attack: Magic
Mana: 7
One of the monsters that is difficult to eliminate in battles is a monster with healing ability, especially if such a monster has immunity ability, it is very difficult to destroy.
That was the reason I thought of using Captain Ghost to afflict such a monster. Though, a monster with immunity ability can not be afflicted but can be killed.
You could how *Captain Ghost” afflicted Unicorn Mustang in round one of the battle. Assuming there was a tank heal monster in my opponent's lineup, it would not be able to heal Unicorn Mustang because of the affliction. Therefore, affliction is a strategy to stop monsters with healing ability to heal itself, and tank heal monsters to increase the health of a monster in the first position of the battle.

Water Elemental
Splinter: Water 💧💧💧
Level: 4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Speed: 5 🚤🚤🚤🚤🚤
Ability: Heal
Health: 6 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Attack: Ranged
Mana: 5
There is no point of using Water Elemental in the second or third position when there is Coastal Sentry and Captain Ghost in the lineup.
We all know that *Water Elemental would become useless if he led the battle; and the reason was the ranged attack. Monsters with ranged attack cannot not lead the battle, except such monsters have close range ability.
Therefore, the best position is fourth position; this was because before Water Elemental lead the battle, much harm should have been done to the opponent's monsters.
The speed of Water Elemental gave the monster advantage to attack faster than any other monsters in this battle. The 3 ranged attack made his attack very strong against opponent.

Crustacean King
Splinter: Water 💧💧💧
Level: 3 ⭐⭐⭐
Speed: 1 🚤
Ability: Tank Heal
Health: 2 ❤️❤️
Attack: Ranged
Mana: 3
To keep Ulunding Overseer Although the battle tank heal must be added to the lineup. With the nature of survival mode, it is not good to lose a monster, and I don't want to lose any monster: that was the reason I used 2 tank heal monsters in this battle. If the both tank heal monsters kept on increasing the health of Ulunding Overseer, it would be difficult to eliminate the monster in this battle even though I'm paired with a player with higher cards.

Merdaali Guardian
Splinter: Water
Level: 2 ⭐⭐
Speed: 3 🚤🚤🚤
Ability: Tank Heal
Health: 3 ❤️❤️❤️
Attack: None
Mana: 3
Merdaali Guardian was to kept on healing the health of Ulunding Overseer. All this was to make sure that Ulunding Overseer did not eliminate in in this battle.

In conclusion, I thought survival mode was an easy battle until I stepped in. The moment I stepped in, I realized how difficult it was. Losing your important cards for 3 days can be frustrating.

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The pictures in this post are taken from Splinterlands
Credit to Canva: Cover photo created by canva