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When you are new to splinterlands it might be difficult to come up with some decent low level strategies. Note that this strategy will also very effective in bronze and also valid in gold. However, most of my games were played in silver so I will consider this a silver strategy guide. That being said, using Yodin in bronze and silver almost feels like cheating because he is simply so strong. However, you will still need the right strategy to make him really effective.

About Yodin Zaku

Imprisoned for two thousand years of dark,
Awaiting the ignition of a spark.
What sorcery confined, now fate released:
A vengeance-stricken, fire-laden beast
Who now will rock the Splinters to the core.
Yodin Zaku will teach us how to war.

Yodin Zaku is a 7 mana legendary fire summoner with the following ability buffs:

• He gives all ranged monsters +1 damage
• He gives all monsters +1 health
• He gives all monsters the blast ability

It's an expensive summoner, both in terms of $$$ and in terms of mana, but you do get a lot in return! Also, you can consider him an investment, I even wrote a post about why I bought Yodin a month ago and he has more than doubled in value since than + he allows me to rise higher in the leagues so I get more rewards, win-win.

Game plan

Let's talk about the game plan. Once again, if you are playing in bronze or low silver, pretty much anything will work in high mana battles. However, if you really want to stand out and climb high on the leaderboards, you will have to think about a general game plan.

There are multiple solid strategies, Yodin is actually a bit more complex than summoners that just provide 1 buff. For example, you might think that selecting a lot of ranged units is all there is to it. This is already effective, but a magic monster with the life leech ability also goes really well with Yodin (hello Zalran Efreet).

Also, if you bring a lot of ranged units, you will have tons of damage, but you will also be pretty vulnurable. Bringing a solid frontline is equally important than bringing enough damage dealers. And with the blast ability a level 1 living lava also deals 5 damage, so your tanks can also become serious damage dealers!

One more thing, the snipe ability is great in combination with blast. Instead of dealing damage to 1 additional monster, you will (often) deal damage to 2 additional monsters! This is a huge deal, especially for high damage hits. Considering we want to focus fire we will often bring multiple snipe creatures to the battle.

Core cards

As usually the core cards depend on your collection and battle conditions, but there are certain cards that I use very often in this strategy.

Frontline (position 1-2)

In terms of frontline I usually have 1 tank with the shield ability, this is almost always living lava. Goblin Mech also works if you have mana to spare, he doesn't have the shield ability but the plain stats and piercing ability are also really strong with blast.

In second position, I will usually have a tanky monster with the reach ability. Fineas Rage is the usually the pick here. If the manan limit is not very high, this card can be left out of the strategy and can be replaced by a lower mana reach monster or the reach monster can be left out of the lineup altogether, this depends on the exact conditions.

In low mana fights Cerberus can also perform well.

Mid (position 3)

The middle of the lineup is also situational. Usually my third position monster is Zalran Efreet because the life leech and blast ability go really well toghether. Especially in third position he has time to grow really big and function as a backup tank to protect the backline.

Zalran Efreet is a pretty expensive monster as well, a decent alternative would be War Chaang. War chaang is good because he has a decent amount of hp, he has both melee and ranged attack damage and he has retaliate. Retaliate also benefits from the blast ability, so all in all a really good combination as well.

For lower mana fights you don't need have a "backup tank" and you can simply ignore the "middle section".

Backline (position 4-5-6)

The backline will be the serious damage dealers.

My usual suspects are: Fire beetle, Furious general and Mantoid

The most important thing about these 3 monsters, they are all ranged and they all have the snipe ability. This means that they get a +1 damage buff, but also that they often attack 2 additional monsters. If the ranged damage is 3, it will also deal 2 to the monsters next to the target, resulting in a total damage of 7(!) (if you hit 3 targets).

All that being said, everything is situational and depends on the battle rules and the battle mana.Some fights I don't even care about the snipe ability at all. It's also a decent strategy to focus on the frontline and just deal crazy damage to their tanks. If there is spare mana an ettin spearman or sandworm can also makes sense for example. However, 3 snipe monsters is what seems to work best for me in high silver/gold overall.

Lineup examples

Now that we have discussed the theory, let's see how that looks in action by showing some lineup examples!

Example 1

Pretty much a textbook example, with the only deviating factor being the giant roc instead of fineas rage. This was done because of mana limitations and I felt like the bird + zalran efreet would make this lineup tanky enough for the backline to do their thing.

The backline is straightforward with the beetle, general and mantoid. Note that all these monsters deal 3 (2+1) damage (fire beetle is level 3) and the blast damage will deal 2 damage. In a perfect scenario, these three monsters can deal 7 (3+2+2) damage each, bringing the total of the backline damage to a maximum of 21(!), pretty neat right?

Example 2

Pretty similar to example 1, with the only difference that I decided to stick with Fineas Rage here and deal with the mana limit by trading Zalran Efreet for the ooze. Both lineups seem very solid, I would have trouble deciding which is the better one tbh.

Example 3

In this example, the mana limit was a bit lower so it's a less classic lineup. That being said, we still see the core cards and the core concept.

Because of the battle conditions I was not able to select an ooze here and I had to settle for the monkey.

When to play this strategy

In silver you might be tempted to always play Yodin, simply because he is so strong. However, in low mana battles, it becomes pretty hard because Yodin already uses 7 mana by himself. I feel like you shouldn't pick Yodin in a -20 mana battle, if you are climbing higher up the ladder this number will only go up.

He really thrives in high mana battles because you get so many benefits from the abilities and it's less of a problem that Yodin is mana expensive.

Cons

The cons of using Yodin? He is less effective in low mana battles. However, that's not really a con, you just can use him all the time.

The real con is that he is simply so expensive and the price is still increasing.

Conlcusion

Yodin is extremely strong and will help you out a lot when you want to climb the ladder.
In terms of strategy it's all about having a solid backline of damage dealers and protecting them.