Axie Infinity game overview

Why did we choose Axie Infinity? First of all, because it's currently one of the few NFT games that is playable and has nice graphics and entertaining gameplay. Secondly, in recent months the game has seen phenomenal growth, both in the number of users and sales on the marketplace. And finally, thirdly, because our old review is very outdated. And as the cherry on the cake, because playing Axi (at a high level) can be more profitable than working in a number of developing countries (not financial advice). Sit back, there's a full-fledged Axie Infinity guide ahead.

Introduction to Axie Infinity 

Axie Infinity is a turn-based, blockchain-based card game in which players fight monsters and other players (in Adventure and Arena modes, accordingly) with the help of mythical beasts - Axie. 

To a certain degree, it's a real digital universe, with its own economy, game strategies and earning SLP and AXS tokens, as well as various kinds of leisure activities.

At first glance the game may seem quite simple, but at a higher level you need to try to think your combinations a few steps ahead, and at the same time do not forget about the cards of the opponent, whose combinations can disrupt your plans. And the wide variety of Axies themselves and their skills allow you to tailor your team to your own style of play. There's really nothing to compare Axie Infinity with, the closest in spirit are Hearthstone from traditional gaming and Gods Unchained from crypto gaming.

Where to download Axie Infinity? 

You can download Axie Infinity on Windows and Mac OS to play on PC, and Android and iOS versions are available for mobile game lovers. To download the game app, go to the official Axie Infinity website and click the PLAY NOW button. After that, the Windows version should start downloading automatically.

If the site doesn't load - try using a VPN.

In addition, you need to create a Ronin Wallet (what do you expect? blockchain game!), and carefully study this article, in which we have tried to understand most of the questions that arise on the game. Below you'll find information about Axie's characteristics, classes and body parts, the play-to-earn component, and a little bit about breeding.

Table of Contents:

• Basic Characteristics.
  
• Classes, cards, and body parts:
  1. What the numbers on the cards mean.
  
• Balance.
  
• Battlefield Positioning and Roles.
  
• How to Buy Axie?
  
• Popular Axie Builds.
  
• Earn in the Game :
  1. Daily Quest.
  2. Adventure.
  3. Arena.
  4. Breeding.
  
• Energy.
  

If you clicked to download Axie Infinity, it is not yet enough to start. It requires a team of three Axies, which you can buy on theRonin Network  Marketplace (or rent from Metaguild). You probably can't wait to find out which Axies to buy and how much it costs to beat them all, but let's talk about everything in order.

Basic Characteristics Axie 

Each Axie is an ERC-721 NFT token and has characteristics that define its role on the battlefield.

In search of balance, the developers limited the sum of all four characteristics to 164 points.

The tables below show the baseline, with a total of 140 points for each class.

Class		HP		Speed		Skill		Morale
Fish		39		39		35		27
Beast		31		35		31		43
Bird		27		43		35		35
Bug		35		31		35		39
Plant		43		31		31		35
Reptile		39		35		31		35
Dawn		35		35		29		31
Dusk		43		39		27		31
Mech		31		39		43		27

Basic characteristics for each class Axie Infinity.

Axi has 6 body parts, each of which adds a total of +4 points, for a total of 164 along with the base characteristics.

Class		HP		Speed		Skill		Morale
Fish		+1		+3
Beast				+1				+3
Bird				+3				+1
Bug		+1						+3
Plant		+3						+1
Reptile		+3		+1

Additional characteristics depending on the Axie body part class.

If we consider, for example, a pure-blooded Axie who has all 6 body parts belonging to the same class as Axie himself, they will have the following characteristics [which somehow highlight their "role" on the battlefield].

Class		HP		Speed		Skill		Morale
Fish		45		57		35		27
Beast		31		41		31		61
Bird		27		61		35		41
Bug		41		31		35		57
Plant		61		31		31		41
Reptile		57		41		31		35

Characteristics of purebred Axies.

Classes, cards, and body parts 

Now let's look at the classes and body parts that determine these characteristics! Belonging to one class or another is determined by the "body" of Axi, and each class has its own color! There are a total of 9 classes in the game.

Classes - Dusk, Dawn and Mech - special classes obtained by crossing Insects and Beasts (Mech), Reptiles and Fish (Dusk), Birds and Plants (Dawn).

In addition to class, each Axe has 6 body parts that determine its characteristics (and cards). 

Let's take this wonderful Animal as an example.

• Eyes - Chubby - the Beast's native eyes (+1 SPEED / +3 MORALE).
• Ears - Nyan (+1 SPEED / +3 MORALE).
• Back - Ronin (+1 SPEED / +3 MORALE) + Single Combat card.
• Teeth - Nut Cracker (+1 SPEED / +3 MORALE) + Nut Crack card.
• Horns - Wing Horn - part of the bird's body (+3 SPEED / +1 MORALE) + Smart Shot card.
• Tail - Nut Cracker (+1 SPEED / +3 MORALE) + Nut Throw card.

What do the numbers on the Axie cards mean?

Each card has four attributes:

• Energy: Each card requires an energy expenditure. Each player receives 3 energy at the beginning of combat, and 2 energy at the beginning of each subsequent turn.
• Attack: Shows the damage of the card.
• Shield: The incoming damage is absorbed by the shield first, and then the health is reduced.
• Effect: Most cards have effects, such as increasing your Axe's damage (buff) or decreasing the enemy's speed (debuff).

All buffs and debuffs in Axie Infinity are described in this article.

Axie Infinity has a total of 132 cards, 22 cards per class. The special classes Dusk, Dawn, and Mech have no cards of their own.

Balance 

Balance has often been a sore point in popular online games. Sky Mavis, the development team behind Axie Infinity, uses an "RPS bonus," which translates to "rock-paper-scissors."

This scheme shows the advantages and disadvantages of classes in relation to each other. It should be used when calculating outgoing and incoming damage.

The class of the attacking card is compared to the body class of the defending Axi.

It is important to separate these two concepts - "card class" and "body class". In addition, when an Axi of a certain class uses a "card of his class", he receives a 10% bonus to attack/shield. The bonuses add up. For example:

• A Bird card used to attack the Axie Insect deals 15% additional damage.
• A Reptile card used to attack the Axie Insect deals 15% less damage.
• An Axie Plant playing the Plant card deals 10% more damage and gains 10% more shield.
• An Axie Beast using the Beast card against the Plant Axi will deal approximately 25% more damage.

Special classes deserve to be mentioned separately:

• Dusk: 7.5% damage/shield bonus for Reptile and Plant cards.
• Dawn: 7.5% damage/shield bonus on Birds and Water Creatures cards.
• Mech: 7.5% damage/shield bonus for Beast and Insect cards.

When calculating incoming and outgoing damage, it is also important to consider such concepts as "Combo" and "Chain":

• Combo is when a single Axie plays two or more cards in one turn. The extra damage is calculated by the formula:
  (card damage) * (skill) / 500.
  
• Chain effect is when two different Axies from the same team play a card of the same class in one turn. Some cards have an effect that triggers only when cast "in a chain", i.e. "in a chain". Also, "in a chain" increases the shield size of each card by about 5-6%.
  

Detailed information about the interface and mechanics of the game Axie Infinity.

Positioning and roles on the battlefield 

Positioning is very important, primarily because of how Axis choose targets to attack. 

And they choose them very simply - they attack the closest one (if two targets are the same distance from the attacker - the choice will be random). This also means that the front line is usually occupied by the tank that takes most of the damage, and the back line is occupied by those who have little health, and who need to do as much damage as possible (to play as many cards as possible). 

You can also see teams where the DDs stand on the midline, leaving the late game to the creeper on the backline (who hasn't played a card in the first 5 turns, and has something in mind definitely).

Tank in Axie Infinity 

Each team needs a resistant Axie on the front line to absorb all of the enemy's damage. 

Tanks will protect your back lines while you are trying to get energy and cards to perform combos. 

Otherwise all of your flimsy Axies will simply die before they even have time to do any damage.

Axi Plants are the best candidate for the tank position. They have the most health, and their cards have bonuses that allow them to heal themselves or allies and increase their survivability and benefit in all kinds of ways. They also have a lot of defense. Sometimes as an off-tank (second half-tank, with good survivability, high speed and medium damage) I use Reptiles. Water creatures also have good survivability, and with the right body parts they can compete with the mentioned classes in the tank position.

Damage Dealer 

Damagers, DDs, or Damage-Axies, whatever you want to call them. These guys hit very hard. Their job is to do as much damage as possible, or to play a 3 or 4 card combination that will definitely eliminate one of your opponents. Beasts and Birds usually deal very high damage, have high speed and lots of morale, but little HP and a weak shield, so they are usually placed in the middle and/or far line.

Special mention should be made of Water creatures, which can compete with the aforementioned classes here as well.

Support 

A support fighter who can, for example, debuff enemy Axies and heal himself and/or partners, or, for example, allow you to get cards, debuff allies, steal energy from the enemy, and so on. It's harder to talk about class here, because often the soopers have cards (and hence body parts) of other classes, like Insects or Water creatures. Either way, Axis are great for the role of a supporter with a decent amount of health, and have very useful effects, whether it's putting Fear effect, debuffing from blows, or reducing the attack/speed of the enemy. Often you can find teams where the second DD acts as a support, with cards that improve the synergy of the whole "deck" or team.

How to buy Axie? 

To do this, go to the Axie Infinity Marketplace, which consists of three sections:

• Dashboard – brief information on the volume of trades, the number of sales, as well as the latest listings and sales.
• Marketplace – a place where you can look at all Axie Infinity listed for sale.
• Bridge – bridge between Ethereum and Ronin.

Go to the Marketplace tab. Use the filter to set the desired parameters.

For example, we want to take a strong Axi Plant, which will stand first and act as a tank. To do this, we:

• On the General tab, we chose the appropriate class - Plant, and also set Pureness to 5, which means that 5/6 of the body parts should belong to the Plant class.
• On the Parts tab we've chosen the parts we're interested in - the tail Yam, horns - Cactus/Leaf Buff, and back Pumpkin.
• In the Stats tab we set the amount of health and speed, which we are interested in.

Which Axies to select? 

It's a complicated question that's not easy to answer definitively.It all depends on your playing style.  Below we'll just talk about some popular builds. The builds are usually based on 1-3 cards, leaving a little freedom of choice.

Poison Tank 

This build uses Yam's body part - the tail, which gives the Gas Unleashed card - to put poison on those who attack Axie who plays this card, one stack for each hit they receive. It also applies venom when attacked directly with this card. The second card in this build is October Treat (Pumpkin back), which gives a large amount of armor and the ability to retrieve the card.

Characteristics Priority:

HP > Speed > Morale

RIMP Beast  

RIMP = Ronin + Imp. This build uses the Single Combat card (which deals 100% damage when cast with two other cards), and the Ivory Stab card (which gives +1 of energy for every hit in this turn). Allows you to deal very tangible damage. The third and fourth card is usually Nut Crack/Throw, or another card with high damage. The real pain in the life of any tank.

Characteristics Priority:

Morale > Speed > HP

Backdoor Bird  

As the name clearly indicates, this Axi seeks to destroy opponents standing on the back line. This is done with the Dark Swoop card, which makes it the target of the fastest Axi on the battlefield. Combined with other bird cards, which have 120-150 damage each, it's quite successful in this task.

Characteristics Priority:

Speed > Morale > HP

Pure DD  

Is like the bird, but without the backdoor card (which has weak damage), but with a full set of cards at 120-150 damage each. Early Bird + Eggbomb + Blackmail + one more card with high damage. For example Risky Feather or All-out shot. Beasts are also good as pure DD, but lose out to birds since they are inferior in speed.

Idle Exploiter  

The basis of the build is Spinal Tap card - a kind of backdoor (the "attack idle target" effect makes the player attack the enemy, who is inactive (has not played any cards this turn), which, combined with the card Shall Jab (deals 130% damage to idle target) allows you to destroy the enemy Axie gaping quickly.  It's a difficult build that requires a good understanding of your opponent's actions.

Thorny Turtle  

The basis of the build is the Insect card Allergic Reaction, which deals 130% damage to targets with any debuff. Also obligatory stan - Chomp and sometimes Sticky Goo, and card for 0 mana - Mystic Rush, which reduces speed by 20% for 2 rounds. One of the variations of this build is called Terminators. 

Characteristics Priority:

HP > Speed > Morale

Earn in the game 

Where's the play-to-earn, you might ask?

By playing and winning at Axie Infinity, you earn SLP tokens. These tokens have value because they are tightly integrated into the game's economy and breeding, and are also traded on the Binance and Uniswap exchanges. The developers (Sky Mavis) have immediate plans to create a decentralized exchange (DEX) inside the Ronin blockchain. Earned cryptocurrency SLP can be withdrawn 14 days after the first game. Subsequent withdrawals are every 14 days.

There are several ways to earn SLP in the game itself.

Daily Quest, also known as the daylik 

The daily quest (updated once a day) consists of three entries:

• Daily check in - you need to "check in" by pressing the "Check In" button.
• Complete 10 Adventure mode levels - complete 10 adventures (you can pass the first level 10 times, for example).
• Win 5 Arena matches - get 5 victories in the arena.

After completing the quest and pressing the Claim button you will get 25 SLP.

Repeat every day.

Adventures (PvE) 

You can earn a maximum of 50 SLPs per day.

That's about as many SLPs as you get at any given level:

• Level 1-4: 1 SLP per win.
• Level 5-9: 2 SLPs per win.
• Level 10-14: 4 SLPs per win.
• Level 15-16: 6 SLPs per win.
• Level 17-20: Random number of 6 to 10 SLPs per win.
• Level 21-36: Random number of 10 to 20 SLPs per win.

For a single passage of level 21 and 36 give 200 and 300 SLP tokens respectively.

At level 21, there's a boss like this.

Tips and explanations : 

• The first week, farming SLP in adventures (50 SLP per day) will take a lot of time. Try to spend most of your energy in the first few days to pump up Axi levels in adventures, as this will save you a lot of time later on.
• You can pass the same level an infinite number of times. 
• The number of SLPs per walkthrough may decrease after several walkthroughs of the same level during the day.
• The arena does not use a level system, every Axe there is always a level 1.
• The SLP per win data reflects the approximate minimum number of SLPs given for a win.

Arena (PvP) 

A new player starts with a rating of 1200 MMR.

Depending on the rating, the player gets different amount of SLP for winning the arena. The better you play, the bigger the victory reward.

Below are the averages for different rating ranges (updated data, valid as of the 18th pvp season):

• 0-799 - 0 SLP to win.
• 800-999 - 1 SLP.
• 1000-1099 - 3 SLP.
• 1100-1299 - 6 SLP.
• 1300-1499 - 9 SLP.
• 1500-1799 - 12 SLP.
• 1800-1999 - 15 SLP.
• 2000-2199 - 18 SLP.
• 2200+ - 21 SLP.

Draws in arena games usually give you half the SLP for winning your ranking, and also take away your ranking (but slightly less than for losing).

Breeding 

Yes, Axies can be crossbred to produce offspring. Breeding is not that easy, and the entry budget is even higher than for simple comfort play. Each Axe can be bred a maximum of 7 times. The financial side of breeding consists of two things:

• Breeding commission is 4 AXS tokens, a fixed amount that is sent to the Axie Community Treasury.
• SLP for breeding, depending on the number of crosses in which each Axie participated. You can find more detailed figures in the table below.

You can read more about SLP and AXS cryptocurrency tokens, as well as the economics of Axie Infinity, in our article.

Breed count		Breed number		SLP needed
0/7		1		150
1/7		2		300
2/7		3		450
3/7		4		750
4/7		5		1200
5/7		5		1950
6/7		7		3150

The cost of each new breeding increases.

For example, if you take two "virgin" Axies, with Breed count 0/7, their crossing will cost 150 SLP + 150 SLP + 4 AXS (at the rate of 26.07.21 ~$235).

Another important point for those who want to learn the basics of breeding is Freak's Axie Extension for Chrome, which allows you to see "hidden genes":

• D - dominant gene, 37.5% chance of passing this gene to offspring.
• R1 - recessive, 9.375% probability.
• R2 - small recessive, 3.125% probability.

And members of the Axie Infinity community have made a couple of breeding calculators of their own, such as  axie.zone or Freak’s Breeding calc.

Last but not least. Energy 

One of the key points in the play-to-earn component of the game is energy and its recovery rate:

If you spend all your energy - no problem, you can still play, only in the Adventure you do not get experience for the victory, and in the Arena you do not get SLP.

UPD. from about Season 19 (August 2021), the energy charges once a day, in the same way as in the picture above.

Looking for more in-depth material? You can check out our other articles about the game's interface and mechanics, buffs and debuffs, and tokens in Axie Infinity.

We hope that after reading this article you have a complete understanding of the game and have no questions at all. And if you still have any questions (or if you have any comments / you've found a mistake or inaccuracy) - please, burst into our Cryptogamer chat room and write about it. We love constructive feedback and will be happy to see you in the ranks of Cryptogamers!