How Can We Get A Strong Team in Axie Infinity?

There is one thing we can learn from tech support, and that is starting with the easy tests. If you’ve encountered some kind of tech issues, whether it is your WiFi being down or your computer suddenly crashing into blue screen, you’ve probably been asked by the tech support guys to turn the system on and off. Sometimes they may even ask you to turn it on and off multiple times. It sounds dumb, but it really isn’t. The reason why they would do this is not due to the fact that this step often fixes the problem, but on the off chance that it does, they’ve found an efficient way to get things to work quickly. It doesn’t work in all instances, but if it works 60–70% of the time, it is worth to give it a shot. The idea of a free test is often neglected, especially in its simplicity.

Somehow, we’re more attracted to fancier math and complex solutions.

We can apply this concept to Axie Infinity too. Everyone is so enamoured over a team that wins all the time, myself included. So, before we begin to invest money to buy our first three Axies and play the game, we do a ton of research. We don’t just want a team that carries us up to the Top 200. We want a team that takes us all the way to be the best. However, in the process of our research, we soon realise that there is almost a hard counter for any teams that we can come up with. So, we restart the process again and begin rebuilding our ideal team in mind. What is often being missed out in this journey is that we don’t need to win all our matches. Likewise to the easy tests from tech support, we simply need to win 60–70% of the time.

This means that there will be moments when we lose to hard counters, but for most parts, we should be able to conquer our battles well.

Here are some of the teams and strategy you may want to consider getting to enroll yourself into Top 2000 before thinking about Top 200:

Team 1: Plant-Aqua-Dusk (Commonly known as the Shrimpinator)

Tanks
Plant Axie — Pumpkin/Watering Can, Serious, Leaf Bug, Yam
Must Have: Minimum of 57 Health and Maximum of 31 Speed

Mid Lane
Aqua Axie— Garish Worm, Lam/Piranha/Risky Fish, Oranda, Shrimp
Must Have: Minimum of 52 Speed

Last Lane
Reptile Axie — Snail Shell, Tiny Turtle, Lagging, Thorny Caterpillar
Must Have: Minimum of 51 Health and 43 Speed

Strategy
This team has a slower pace of gameplay. In Round 1 to 3, you want to steal as much energy as possible with Serious and Leaf Bug, and hopefully put Poison charges on your enemy with your skill Yam. Ideally, you want to store up 4 or more energy as well as draw your backdoor combo cards on your Aqua. It’ll be best if the backdoor combo includes Garish Worm. So, it would look something like this — “Shrimp → Garish Worm → Lam → Oranda” It’ll be even better if you’ve managed to draw 2 Garish Worm in the combo, as you’ll be able to put more Poison charges on the enemy’s backline Axie which will eventually poison to its own demise. However, you’ll need to note that there is a need to chain your cards to produce the effect of Poison. Chaining of cards means that you’ll need to use another Bug card on another Axie on the same round that you’re intending to backdoor the enemy. This is usually done by using Lagging / Thorny Caterpillar on your backline Dusk or Leaf Bug on your frontline Plant.

After you’ve backdoored the enemy’s backline Axie, you’ll proceed to clear the enemy’s front line Axie with a mix of Aqua and Dusk’s high damage cards. Note that if the enemy’s front line Axie (usually a Plant) has around 200 HP, it is better to simply Tiny Turtle → Thorny Caterpillar it, so you don’t need to deal with the pesky shield he can potentially put up. Moving forward, it’ll be an easy 1v1 battle between your Dusk and the enemy’s midline which often lacks a zero-cost card. He’ll be stunned if he breaks the shield of your Snail Shell. He’ll be stunned again if you were to end off your combo with Tiny Turtle. Overall, you should have no issues against Beasts and Birds as your Aqua can easily backdoor them, especially with class advantage damage. As for Reptiles, it is dependent on whether you’re able to draw Garish Worm and your backdoor combo within the first three rounds of the match.

Team 2: Plant-Reptile-Dusk (Commonly known as Mid Line Tri Spikes)

Tanks
Plant Axie — Pumpkin/Watering Can, Serious, Leaf Bug, Yam
Must Have: Minimum of 57 Health and Maximum of 31 Speed

Mid Lane
Reptile Axie — Tri Spikes, Tiny Turtle/Cute Bunny, Incisor, Thorny Caterpillar
Must Have: Minimum of 43 Speed

Last Lane
Reptile Axie — Tri Spikes, Tiny Turtle, Cuckoo, Tiny Dino
Must Have: Minimum of 42 Speed

Strategy
The gameplay of this team is very similar to Team 1. In Round 1 to 3, you want to gain as much energy as possible with your Plant while waiting for a good 4-Card Tri Spikes combo from your Reptile. The combo looks something like this — “Tri Spikes, Incisor, Thorny Caterpillar, Tiny Turtle/Cute Bunny” In the event that you’re using Cute Bunny and you would like to chain the cards to induce the effect of Fear on the enemy (which means he’ll miss his attacks on the first 2 turns), you can do so by using Leaf Bug on your Plant. Since Tri Spikes targets an enemy that has the lowest shield, and this 4-card combo deals onwards of 450 damage, the enemy’s Axie is bound to falter. If you’d like to leave him in Stunned mode, you can end off your combo with Tiny Turtle. If you’d like to deal maximum damage, you can go with — “Tri Spikes, Incisor, Thorny Caterpillar, Thorny Caterpillar”. That being said, it depends on your card draws on the first three rounds which determines the combo you’re gonna use subsequently.

If you were to look for this mid line Tri Spikes Reptile on the marketplace, you’ll find that the ones which have lesser than 43 Speed is significantly cheaper than the ones who have 43 Speed or more. If your Reptile is lingering between 39 to 41 Speed, the risk of dying to a Beast is high as Beasts are normally between 41 to 45 Speed. This means that in the mid game, the Beasts will go first followed by your Reptile. It doesn’t matter how much shield you put up, because each of their high damage card, accompanied with class advantage, deals onwards of 165 damage. A regular combo of Risky Beast, Dual Blade and two Nut Crackers will deal approximately 630 damage and completely annihilate your Reptile. The easy solution is to simply get a Reptile that is quicker than the Beast, chain your combo, kill off their back line Axies (or even their Beasts if they didn’t shield up) and pray that the Beast fails to kill you on the same round.

Soon after, you’ll realise that you have managed to draw a four card combo on your back line Reptile too. Similarly, you want to deal high damage and end off with Tiny Turtle, and the combo would look like this — “Tri Spikes, Tiny Dino, Tiny Dino, Tiny Turtle.” Do not, and I repeat, DO NOT attempt to use your Tri Spikes combo with your backline Reptile till after Round 4, because Tiny Dino only deals 90 damage before Round 4 and onwards of 130 damage after Round 4. Paired together with Cuckoo, which is a zero-cost card that gives attack buff and 40 Shield, your backline Reptile can take on a variety of 1v1 matches. It can get rid of Stuns with Cuckoo. It can stun enemy with Tiny Turtle. It can deal high damage with Tiny Dino.

I hope the foundation of these two teams would broaden our knowledge in creating different teams to play in Axie Infinity. I understand that traditional teams such as Beast-Bird-Plant and Double-Aqua-Plant can yield substantial amount of success, however not everyone is comfortable with playing an aggressive fast-paced team. If you want to use Beast-Bird or Double-Aqua effectively, you want to deal high damage almost every single round and end the game by Round 7–8. You’re attempting to out-speed and out-damage the opponent, not just in terms of the Axie’s stats itself, but also on card draws.

In the event that we’re using the aforementioned teams, but we’re unable to draw our backdoor card till only Round 4, a Beast-Bird or Double-Aqua might have already cleared our mid line. That being said, a slow-paced team have a lower chance of losing as compared to a fast-paced team when both teams experience unlucky card draws. We have a tanky Reptile/Dusk in the back line which limits easy backdoor opportunities for the opponent as compared to using an Aqua or a Bird in the backline. We have a speedy mid line which prevents the enemy to go first and clear us before we can use our cards. We have a high damage backdoor combo that we can potentially draw by round 2 and finish off the enemy’s backline Axie. We steadily stack these odds in our favour to improve our chances of winning the game. We may not win all the time, but we’ll win most of the time. This is how we can get to Top 2000 before thinking about moving on to Top 200 next.