My Axies, why they’re so cute, and ABP tips.
Hello.
My brother and my nephew, the latter happens to be part of the first few groups who were into breeding, told me about this play-to-earn game called Axie Infinity. Oh what cuties they are, so I thought. And that marked the start of my Axie journey.
Axies are such cute monsters I would need to spend some time writing about them. Axies are non-fungible tokens, which are certified unique digital assets, i.e., no two axies are alike. Each one has its own Axie number, is born through breeding, and carries sets of genes that dictate the characteristics of its body parts (e.g., eyes, ears, horn, mouth, back, and tail), the profile of its body statistics (e.g., health, speed, skill, and morale). The body parts determine which cards (attack, defense, energy gain/destroyer/stealer, healing, and buffing and debuffing) an axie will get and the statistics determine, well, the health and others mentioned above. Each Axie set has dominant, recessive 1, and recessive 2 genes that breeders particularly take into consideration to ensure that they breed axies with good parts.
But there’s more to them axies than being cute. The gene pool, cards combination, the position of your axies, the builds of your opponents, among other things are what make this play-to-earn game so enjoyable. I’d just recently realized how there’s so much game theory involved. You have to think of the optimal (physical) position given the roles each of your axies play. Will you have a defense or offense play? Should you burst attack or not? Will your opponent draw this particular card or not? Should you end your turn to save energies or not? You think your opponent’s thinking what you’re thinking and you would base your next play on their next play, which is assumed to be also based on his or her best guess on your next move. There are just so many permutations of play strategies given the set of cards you and your enemy have. To me, it all boils down to (1) maximizing damages and killing the front and mid line the soonest possible and (2) minimizing damages to your axies. Sounds like the utility maximization model, eh?
Axies are grouped into 9 classes. I’d further group them into three. First, the most reliable tankers (or annoying if they’re in the opposite team) are the reptile, plant, and dusk. There are also the aqua, bird, and bug comprising the damage dealers or the destroyers. Lastly, the beast, bug, and mech, also damage dealers. Reptiles and bug are axies that players, if given a choice, would rather not face because of their debuffing and poison attacks that would ruin your play strategy. But one thing that annoys me the most are the healing cards that essentially render the entire play or strategy futile. It just does not make sense that you try to make a good play out of the cards you have when your opponent would just draw heal cards all throughout the game.
The game has two modes: adventure and arena. Adventure is like a campaign mode where you level up the axies and get sure smooth love potion (or SLPs, could be exchange for money or other cryptocurrencies/ tokens like USDT, ETH, and AXS) when you win. Arena is where you play with other players, get SLPs, and move across the ranking. The ranking has brackets that also determine the amount of SLP you get for every win, e.g., by being in the 1350–1450 bracket will give you 9 SLPs for every win. The higher the bracket, the higher SLPs you get.
In the next article, I’ll talk about ABP, my first build, and some tips.
