On August 17th there was a debate in the Axie Infinity discord primarily on two different things..
- Is Axie Infinity pay to win?
- Is the game about skill or luck?
There seemed to be a combination or split in what people thought about the game. Some think that Axie Infinity is both pay to win and/or pure luck. Some believe it’s all about skill. While others take the middle ground and believe the game is probably a combination of everything. However, it’s an interesting and important argument.
Now as someone who has played Axie Infinity since 2018, I found the overall consensus a little disturbing.
Which ultimately leads to the .15 eth challenge…
With a fire in my belly to prove the consensus wrong I immediately start searching the Axie Infinity marketplace. At first glance though, I was a little taken back. The Axie floor price has doubled in just a month. A little oversight by me and perhaps I should have checked the marketplace before I had made such claims. However, I can’t back down now and I continue my search for the perfect team.
As I scour the market I make sure to look for 3 basic things . I need a decent Tank Axie with enough HP and tank moves to front load some of the damage in our arena matches. The next thing I look for is my damage dealing Axie. This Axie is the one I rely on most to do my initial damage in the game. If I can time the damage properly this Axie alone can generally carry a game to a win. However, I notice that all of the good damage dealing Axies are too expensive which worries me. I decide to move on to the last Axie that I will need which is my support Axie. Generally the support Axie is an Axie that meshes well with the damage dealer and tank though. As worry sets in I know that I must get creative if I want to have a chance at being successful. The best way to solve this problem is to maximize our team using the best moves that are available to us. This will help solve that problem.
The key to finding a team that can work at this point is finding a team that has good synergy. What this means is finding a team of Axies that mesh well together. To determine this I highly suggest looking at and reading all of the moves in detail. This will help us differentiate which moves go well together on our team.
As we try and form our team I notice one thing. I am having fun! I find something exhilarating by the fact that we can only choose one team of 3 Axies. We are only allowed to spend .15eth on all of the Axies. Whatever we choose we are stuck with. There is no going back. I find that this is an experience that most new players probably feel. However, I sympathize because most new players probably find it more stressful than fun. They are basically shooting in the dark at which Axies to choose and have to hope that they are right. This is why I believe education is key to helping out our new players. We want them to enjoy this experience not dread it.
About an hour after I started searching I finally stumbled upon the team that I want to use.
On paper my team synergizes well. My tank has 57HP which is a strong amount. Not perfect but it makes up for it with 2 non tank moves (perch and parasite). Parasite will even allow us to use cute bunny effectively on our bug. Serious and hatsune are very strong tier A plant tank moves as well. That being said our bug Axie is a mix of damage dealing and support moves. We even have backdoor potential with the move wing horn. A very interesting move set but it has strong moves nonetheless. For our back Axie I decide to go with something that has a lot of synergy with our bug but can also stand its ground in a 1v1 or 1v2 situation. This is what is known as a finisher Axie. We can use lagging to out speed an opposing Axie in a 1v1 situation. We can use the hatsune move to prevent ranged attacks in a 1v1 or 1v2 situation. Garish Worm will synergize well with the rest of our team and lam will be our primary big damage source especially against other beasts and bugs.
That being said, I was surprised at what little options I had when choosing my Axies. I definitely felt a sense of being at a disadvantage when compared to people with a higher budget. There was not a good spread of Axies to choose from and I actually felt lucky that I stumbled upon this team for .15eth. Out of all of the Axies that I saw I probably could have only formed 3 or 4 sufficient teams. In the future I hope this number increases and I do believe that this low number probably has something to do with high ethereum gas prices. Axie Infinity’s scaling solution Ronin should fix this and I hope to see more Axies beeing bred in the future.
Our team ends up looking something like this…
Excited about the potential of our new team, I hop into Arena to see what we can do. I lose the first game… I immediately think to myself man what did I get myself into. Fortunately, it was just a bit of growing pains as each team has a unique learning curve. The more you play your team the more you learn how to play it effectively and efficiently. This is even more the case for a budget team. I learned that you have to play almost perfect and utilize each ability to its absolute potential. Even though I find this realization frustrating I find it almost equally fun. The fact that you must utilize each ability to its max potential forces you to sit down and think about the way you are playing each game. Each match is a learning experience and each learning experience boosts the overall effectiveness of your team. Eventually some of our early games start to look like this…
If you are an avid Axie Infinity player you can see that there were mistakes made on both sides. However, a couple crucial mistakes on my opponent’s end allowed me to take the victory. This was my experience during the first half of this challenge. If my opponent did not make any mistakes I found my team was overpowered by “better” move sets. But isn’t this line of thinking what prevents people from improving and from doing better? Again its an ego thing. Instead of blaming my play I decided to rationalize and say “well he just has better axies”. You are forced to either say “well that player has better axies”, “he got lucky” or say to yourself “what more can I do to learn and improve?”. I think it’s a lot easier to just blame the game or to use luck as an excuse rather than trying to improve. This video below is a great example of why some players feel completely overpowered. The team that I am playing against is worth at least 1 eth at current prices.
Very frustrated, I idled around the same rating playing these teams until my mindset changed. I decided to take my own advice, get patient and take each game as a learning experience on how I can maximize the potential of my team. Not only did this mindset change affect my win percentage but I also found myself more engaged in the game and ultimately started having more fun. It was almost like each match was a journey and each learning experience was a light bulb turned on inside of my head. I finally realized that the potential and skill cap of the game had not nearly been touched. I also found deep satisfaction in beating teams or players that I otherwise shouldn’t have with this budget team. After all, if the consensus were true I should have found myself still idling around the same rating still unable to improve.
At this point, I felt like we were finally on an upwards trajectory. It felt as if I was significantly improving after each game. As I mentioned before there is also a sense of pride in our team now. Every win feels 10 times better but each match is extremely nerve racking. I can not make any mistakes. We are at about 1550–1600 rating (we need 1625 for top 50). Each game we are dialed in and have max focus. I have not been this focused or engaged in a game in a long time.
At 1590 all we need now is a decent win streak. I lose the next game and end up going on a losing streak back down to 1500. At this point I sympathize with players on a budget. Again we get these feeling of “if only I had their Axies” or “if only I spent a little bit more money”. It’s hard to stay motivated and to not get demoralized.
I quickly realize though that I would lose the challenge if I went back on my word and bought different Axies or even if I bought one additional Axie. My stubbornness pushes me forward and I try to grind out the remaining rating needed. This leads me to my next realization.
The amount of matches and the more you play actually matters. The current way the matchmaking rating/system works rewards higher rates of game play. This means that I gain more rating from winning than I do for losing as long as my mmr (matchmaking rating) stays high. Basically as long as I win more than I lose against tough opponents that are ranked higher than me the more rating I will eventually gain.
As a kicker to this I also realize that I have accrued almost 700 SLP (small love potions) which at current prices would equal .08eth. That is right, after 2 days of game play I have a little more than half of what I spent on my actual team back. This is another interesting proposition for new players and for players that are on a budget. In my personal experience YOU WILL eventually get your investment back on your team if you keep playing. Axie Infinity is unique in this aspect as the game philosophy is “play to earn” and not “pay to win”. This is very important to understand.
With renewed confidence and faith I start ranking again and eventually find myself back at around that pivotal 1590 spot. All I need is 3 wins and I will have achieved top 50. I will have proved almost everyone wrong. I will have proved that you can achieve top 50 with a budget team. I win the next 2 games. Now all I need is 1 more game…
I did it! And a final note, I want to thank every member of the Axie Infinity community. You constantly make this game interesting and this amazing gaming experience would not have been possible without such an interactive community. This means that even the people who disagree or the people who are not happy with the game can affect the game in a positive way. Of course there is a fine like between constructive criticism and toxicity. However, in this case I believe the disagreement and frustration in the community helped to solve a couple big questions.
Is Axie Infinity pay to win?
Is the game about skill or luck?
After this experience I can say that Axie Infinity is not inherently pay to win. But you can give yourself a boost if you have more money to spend. I think the main thing we need to focus on though is Axie Infinity is inherently “play to earn”. You will earn cryptocurrency tokens regardless of how much you spend on your team and it is possible to achieve top 50 ladder rewards with a budget team. I think this is the philosophy and direction that the Axie Infinity team intends to take.
To answer the next question is a little bit more complicated. Is the game about skill or luck? I would probably say it’s a mixture of both with skill being the driving factor of the game. However, there will always be a degree of variance in card games. For instance, in Axie Infinity luck is involved in the randomization of your card draws and so are the critical strikes. And especially after this experience, I will say that I think critical strikes in Axie Infinity still need to be reworked. I find that critical strikes are awesome to see but they often feel more punishing than they feel rewarding. However, luck will always be a factor and should be expected when dealing with the concept of variance in card games.
Again, I want to thank everyone for reading. I hope you enjoyed this experience/article as much as I did and I also hope that you find this article beneficial or even enlightening. I plan on making this challenge a regular series so if you find this concept or Axie Infinity in general interesting please follow me on Twitch, Twitter and Youtube. =)
Skill>Team>Luck
-Zee
