How Can We Win More PVP Battles in Axie Infinity?
Chances are you’ve stumbled upon a couple of Axie Infinity videos and you’re interested to try the game. However, you’re unsure of which three Axies to buy and the cost of an average team being close to two thousand bucks (USD) isn’t helping. Ideally, we want to have a team that is easy to understand and simple to use. More importantly, a successful team is one that yields us 70% win rate for PVP battles in the game. When we’re constantly winning, we’re climbing up the MMR (Matchmaking Rating) which allows us to earn more Sleep Love Potions (SLP) and potentially AXS Tokens (AXS) when we become the Top 300. Here are the teams and strategies you may want to consider:
Team 1: Aqua-Aqua-Plant
Tanks
Plant Axie (Pure) — Pumpkin, Serious, Cactus, Hot Butt
Mid Lane
Aqua Axie (Pure) — Sponge, Lam, Oranda, Nimo
Last Lane
Aqua Axie (Hybrid) — Goldfish, Lam, Cuckoo, Koi
Strategy
This team of Aqua-Aqua-Plant (commonly known as the Double Aqua Combo) is good against Beast and Birds. As long as you can pull off three high damage (110+) cards, you’ll be able to completely destroy Beast and Birds. The inherent nature of Beast and Birds are that they’re usually around 330+ HP with ridiculously low defence. It is even more disadvantageous for Beast (41 speed) as it is slower than an Aqua (57 speed). Even though birds (61 speed) are the fastest class in the game, the ability of Koi allows our Last Lane Aqua to speed up faster than Bird and go first.
At the start of the game, you want to chip off the enemy’s Plant from 516 HP to 350+ HP by stealing their energy with Serious and dealing one or two blows of Cactus or Pumpkin. Simultaneously, you want to shield up with Pumpkin whenever you anticipate the opponent trying to 4-card kill your Plant. Once the enemy’s Plant is down to 350+ HP, simply cast 4–5 high damage Aqua cards to finish him off.
Another game changer of this build is the Mid Lane Aqua’s ability to use Sponge. Sponge is a card that gives high defence (90). Likewise to keeping your Plant alive, you would want to use Sponge to soak up your opponent’s high damage cards. Cast one sponge if you anticipate your opponent casting three high damage cards, and cast two sponge if you anticipate your opponent casting four or more high damage cards. This way, your Mid Lane aqua wouldn’t perish in a single blow, which allows your Last Lane Aqua to dominate in a 1v1. With its zero-cost card (Cuckoo), Koi and Goldfish, you’re likely to go first every single round in the 1v1 with sufficient energy and damage to finish off your opponent.
Team 2: Beast-Bird-Plant
Tanks
Plant Axie (Hybrid) — Pumpkin, Serious, Leaf Bug, Hot Butt
Mid Lane
Beast Axie (Pure) — Hero, Goda, Dual Blade, Hare
Last Lane
Bird Axie (Pure) — Pigeon Post, Little Owl, Eggshell, Post Fight
Strategy
This team of Beast-Bird-Plant is a standard example of the backdoor technique in Axie Infinity. For most cards, the attack is being directed at the closest Axie to you. If a Plant Axie is tanking in front of a Beast Axie, you’ll need to destroy the Plant Axie before being able to land any hits on the Beast Axie. However with cards like Little Owl (Target Fastest Enemy), Shrimp (Prioritize Furthest Enemy) and Tri Spikes (Target Enemy With Lowest Shield), you’ll be able to backdoor attack the Axies at the back. Simply use the Bird to cast Little Owl followed by three or four high damage cards to finish off any Birds, Beast and Fish.
The good thing about this strategy is that the opponent have to guess when you’re going to backdoor him and is constantly on his guard to shield up his back Axies. In the event that he shields up his back Axie, he wouldn’t have sufficient energy to shield up his front Plant Axie. This is where this build shines. Not only can the Mid Lane Beast be annoying and destroy the opponent’s energy with Goda, it can also completely annihilate the opponent’s Plant by chaining 1 zero-cost card (Hero) followed by three high damage cards (E.g. 1 x Dual Blade, 2 x Hare). As long as you have four or more energy, the opponent have to guess whether you’re backdooring his back Axie or wiping out his front Plant Axie. As for your own Plant, you’ll want to steal as much energy as possible and shield up to keep it alive. It is ridiculously satisfying to see the opponent casting three or more cards to get rid of your Plant Axie only to be outplayed by your Bird destroying them first, resulting in them wasting the energy away.
Team 3: Aqua-Reptile-Plant
Tanks
Plant Axie (Hybrid) — Pumpkin, Serious, Leaf Bug, Yam
Mid Lane
Aqua Axie (Pure) — Blue Moon, Lam, Oranda, Shrimp
Last Lane
Reptile Axie (Hybrid) — Snail Shell, Tiny Turtle, Lagging, Thorny Caterpillar
Strategy
Team 3 is similar to Team 2, however it is less aggressive in the sense that the Last Lane is replaced with a Reptile over a Bird. The Mid Lane still retains the potential to backdoor with the Aqua’s ability to use Shrimp. If the card draw is good, Shrimp combined with three or four high damage cards can clear a Beast, Bird and Aqua. However, you also have a choice to slow the game down and allow the Poison (Yam) from your Plant to deal continuous damage overtime. Furthermore, other than dealing additional damage with Yam, the Poison debuff allows the Reptile’s Thorny Caterpillar to deal more damage whenever necessary. Once enough health has been chipped away, simply finish the front Axie off by chaining the Aqua’s high damage cards or with the Reptile’s Thorny Caterpillar.
This build shines in mid game as the Reptile is able to stun the enemy with Tiny Turtle. When the enemy is being stunned, he wastes one energy along with one of his cards. This can be severely detrimental to him. In the event that he can pull off three high damage cards to finish off your half-HP Mid Lane Aqua, he can’t do so when he is stunned. He’ll simply use a total of three cards with 1 card doing nothing. While on first glance, this may not be a game-changer, the Mid Lane Aqua being able to survive one additional round means two additional energy for our 1v1 battle with our Reptile. This is where the battle gets truly interesting.
With its ability to use Snail Shell, the opponent will be stunned whenever he breaks your Reptile’s shield. Accompanied with Tiny Turtle, the Reptile can stun the opponent when it is chained with 2 or more cards. Keeping in mind that Lagging is a zero-cost card that causes speed debuff, it is convenient to pull off a Lagging + Thorny Caterpillar + Tiny Turtle combo. Ultimately, this means that the opponent is spending half his time being stunned in a 1v1 battle with your Reptile. In order to counter you, he’ll need to either have a healing card or a zero-cost card, coupled with his ability to time your Snail Shell well.
Final Thoughts
Whichever team you choose to use or get inspiration from, it is critical that you count your opponent’s energy every single round. By knowing how much energy your opponent has, you’ll be able to better determine what he can or cannot do. In the event that he has overcommitted too much energy in the previous round to destroy your plant and is only left with 2 energy on the current turn, there is very little that he can do. To be exact, he is unable to chain any combo to finish off any of your existing Axie. At this point in time, you can actually choose to pass the round without casting any cards knowing that your Axie will still be alive on the next turn with two additional energy for you to play around with. It is always better to gain enough energy and be confident in finishing off your opponent’s Axie than to leave it hanging there with 11 HP. It isn’t a good feeling that you’ll have to use 1 card in the attempt to finish off his 11-HP Plant only to realise that he has outplayed you by casting Pumpkin (110 Shield) followed by a Serious to steal your energy. His Plant is still alive. He has stolen 1 of your energy and chances are he is gonna completely shatter you on the next turn. Good Luck!
