The new season has started, and the latest game economy changes have gone live, which essentially nerfs the earnings earned in the Bronze league. This is tough for new players who have been jumping into splinterlands in the past couple of months. Fellow blogger @costanza touches on a few of these points that new players need to consider when growing in splinterlands. What sets splinterlands apart from many other games in the crypto space is that the game is constantly being updated to ensure the game is sustainable and fair. However, I am not going to be debate whether the updates to the game positively affect the whales or not or puts new players at a disadvantage.

I am reminded of a quote by Wayne Gretzky, who said, "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been." For new players, your goal is to identify which monsters will help you get to Silver leagues quickly so that you can start earning those DEC rewards to help build your collection. This post will explore the top monsters from the past five seasons in Bronze and Silver that you should be looking to either rent or purchase.

Number Crunching

I used the top 100 players' usage stats provided by @jacekw for the past five available seasons and scraped all the monster usage data for the Bronze and Silver. Two hundred forty-seven monsters were used amongst the top 100 players in the Bronze and Silver leagues, respectively. The following two tables will rank the top 20 monsters by usage percentage and win rate percentage.

Top 20 Monsters Ranked By Usage Percentage in Bronze and Silver Leagues

It is no surprise to see Creeping Ooze and Furious Chicken at the top of the usage charts. These low mana-cost monsters are almost always used either as filler cards or as bait for those sneak monsters. It came as a surprise to see the king of passive tanks, Lord Arianthus, not even have made the top 20 cut – it was rank 42.

rank	monster	usage	wins	losses	win rate %
1	Furious Chicken	43.17%	4209	3966	51.49%
2	Creeping Ooze	18.02%	1759	1629	51.92%
3	Flesh Golem	10.00%	1086	735	59.64%
4	Haunted Spirit	8.72%	757	897	45.77%
5	Ice Pixie	8.50%	856	789	52.04%
6	Serpentine Spy	7.98%	811	755	51.79%
7	Wood Nymph	7.91%	719	762	48.55%
8	Living Lava	7.46%	666	774	46.25%
9	Ruler of the Seas	7.30%	869	512	62.93%
10	Cerberus	7.04%	726	601	54.71%
11	Twisted Jester	6.72%	515	734	41.23%
12	Kobold Miner	6.61%	589	642	47.85%
13	Sand Worm	6.16%	494	591	45.53%
14	Divine Healer	5.96%	517	532	49.29%
15	Halfling Alchemist	5.61%	662	375	63.84%
16	Kron the Undying	5.54%	666	332	66.73%
17	Spirit Miner	5.48%	589	436	57.46%
18	Crustacean King	5.26%	524	444	54.13%
19	Failed Summoner	4.95%	498	426	53.90%
20	Prismatic Energy	4.94%	481	413	53.80%

Top 20 Monsters Ranked By Win Rate Percentage in Bronze and Silver Leagues

This list is dominated by super expensive legendary monsters who don't have many matches, but it's almost always an automatic win when they appear in battle. I was surprised to see the Flamesmith make the top 20 as this is one of the Reward cards that were issued early in the year.

rank	monster	usage	wins	losses	win rate %
1	Poseidon	0.16%	24	2	92.31%
2	Shin-Lo	0.08%	11	2	84.62%
3	Kralus	0.38%	49	17	74.24%
4	The Vigilator	0.31%	43	15	74.14%
5	Fiendish Harpy	1.16%	242	89	73.11%
6	Caladuum	0.29%	34	13	72.34%
7	Black Dragon	0.20%	28	11	71.79%
8	Lord of Fire	1.40%	185	81	69.55%
9	Flamesmith	0.30%	33	15	68.75%
10	Imp Bowman	1.79%	227	106	68.17%
11	Magnor	1.19%	143	67	68.10%
12	Kron the Undying	5.54%	666	332	66.73%
13	Goblin Dartling	0.33%	44	22	66.67%
14	Royal Dragon Archer	0.06%	8	4	66.67%
15	Ferexia General	1.59%	198	101	66.22%
16	Hobgoblin	0.15%	24	13	64.86%
17	Cornealus	1.41%	163	89	64.68%
18	Swamp Thing	1.95%	241	133	64.44%
19	Halfling Alchemist	5.61%	662	375	63.84%
20	Ruler of the Seas	7.30%	869	512	62.93%

Conclusion

When you make a side-by-side comparison of the two lists, you will notice that the following three monsters appear on both lists; Ruler of the Seas, Kron the Undying, and Halfling Alchemist. Ruler of the Seas has been a community favorite for ages and has good synergies in a Water splinter magic deck. Kron the Undying has developed a reputation of being an OP card over the past period, especially when paired with Scarred Llama Mage. I don't have the Halfling Alchemist, so I never used it before, but being a low mana cost monster and the Halving debuff ability looks like a great combination to negate high damage monsters in the backline.

Are you new to splinterlands and want to learn to play the game? Check out my Ultimate Guide to Splinterlands: A Collection of Articles and Guides 2021. If you enjoy reading my splinterlands content, please follow and support me by signing up to playing splinterlands through my affiliate link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=mercurial9. We both would have a chance to receive a cool NFT!

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