A Beginner’s Guide to Axie Infinity – How to Play

In this day and age, you’re probably already aware of NFT games and the like. But did you know that you can actually earn while playing these? One of the most popular NFT games today is Axie Infinity – a fun and interesting fighting/breeding game.

It’s a game where you, the player, control monsters called Axies for ETH.

Axie Infinity is among the few NFT games to see a huge price growth in just a few months. Its high revenue and popularity even swayed investors into buying in.

But what is it and how does it really work? How did Axie Infinity become a thing anyway? Here, we’ll delve deeper into all things Axie Infinity to give you a better understanding of it.

What are Axies?

Similar to CryptoKitties, Axies are little digital monsters that are all unique in their own way. They’re considered as NFTs that again, can be bought or sold for a specific amount.

You can trade your Axies in real life as NFTs in the Axie Marketplace. They’re safe and well-protected since all these NFTs exist on the blockchain.

Today, the lowest-priced Axies that you can find are about $200, while the most expensive one is 300 ETH. This number equates to almost $550,000. Keep in mind that before you can play the game, you’ll need to purchase a minimum of three Axies.

How to Start Playing Axie Infinity

When you’ve decided to start playing Axie Infinity, the first thing you need to do is sign up. Visit their official page at www.axieinfinity.com to create an account.

After that, you’ll need to buy your three Axies to start the game. Remember that these can go from 0.065 ETH and higher, while some are selling at a higher price point.

Battling Tips

If you’re planning to play Axie Infinity, here are a couple of tips that you need to remember for battle.

When you’re using damage-dealing Axies, speed is highly advantageous. That’s because the attribute allows them to incapacitate an enemy before it launches an attack.

For the skill stats, it adds damage during combos while morale boosts the chance to execute a critical strike. This will deal 100% more damage when your Axie attacks. So, high-morale Axies are ideal for the damage-dealing role.

Lastly, Bird & Beast cards are almost entirely great damage-dealing cards.

Base Classes – What Are These?

In this NFT game, there are currently a total of 9 classes. You can compare their classes to the Pokemon types.

Both Axies and their moves (cards) are categorized under one of these nine classes. Purebred Axies will be under the same class for both the Axies and all its moves.

Here are the nine different classes you’ll find in Axie Infinity.

• Plant
• Reptile
• Dusk
• Bird
• Aquatic
• Mech
• Bug
• Dawn
• Beast

If your Axie isn’t a purebred, it means somewhere along its family line, two Axies under different classes bred. This results in offspring with breed classes that don’t match.

It isn’t a bad thing, but breeders often search for purebred Axies for their collection. Technically, it’s easier to breed Axies with specific abilities and parts when breeding the purebreds. This is the reason why purebred Axies are costly.

Again, having a different class from its breed isn’t a bad thing for your Axie. That’s because you can even execute powerful combos using cards from various classes.

Class Advantage of Axies

Similar to Pokemon, Axies also have class advantages. When looking at the Axie cards, these have three different values which are attack, energy cost, and defense.

The classes come into play when you start counting the actual damage your Axie deals to an enemy Axie. Simply put, the game has a rock-paper-scissors relationship between these classes, and these are the following.

• Reptile → Plant → Dusk – trump Aquatic → Bird → Dawn
• Aquatic → Bird → Dawn – trump Beast → Bug → Mech
• Beast → Bug → Mech – trump Reptile → Plant → Dusk

From this, you’ll determine which classes go effectively against specific types of Axies. Regardless of what move, let’s say, a Reptile Axie executes against an Aquatic Axie, it’ll always deal extra damage.

Attacking a class advantage deals 15% extra damage while attacking with a disadvantage deals 15% lesser damage.

Different Stats in Axie

This time, let’s take a look at the different stats in this NFT game. Each of your Axies will have 4 stats and here’s what they are and what they do:

Health

This is the amount of damage the Axie takes before it gets knocked out during the game.

Morale

It boosts the chances for critical strikes and also makes the chance of entering the “Last Stand” state more likely. Plus, it adds more Last Stand ticks.

Skill and Speed

This status adds damage when your Axie plays various cards simultaneously (combos). As for speed, it determines the order of turns. Quicker Axies can attack first since speed also lessens their chances of getting hit by a critical strike.

Managers and Scholars

Since the game has been around for quite some time, long-standing enthusiasts of Axie Infinity already have hundreds of Axies. These were kept in their collection since the earlier days of this NFT game. It was a time when Axies and the breeding cost was cheaper.

A player who has 20 Axies can’t play all of them at the same time. This is the reason why they lend their Axies to people who will actually play and take care of them.

This is where the Managers and Scholars come in. Managers are those who already have tons of Axies, and have the means to lend Axies to others. On the other hand, those people who borrow the Axies are the Scholars.

How This Setup Goes

The Managers who lend their Axies get a part of the earnings from those who borrowed their Axies. The split between them is often 60% / 40% for the Scholar and Manager, respectively.

Here, the Scholar earns more since they’re the ones playing, using their time, and caring for the Axies.

Once the Scholars and Managers make the cut, it’s all up to the Scholar. He or she will decide if they’ll sell it in the market or keep the Axie until prices rise.

It was previously noted that breeding is possible with SLPs. However, Scholars can’t do this since their job is to fight in PvP matches, fulfill daily quests, and gain SLPs.

As of July 2021, there are around 140,000+ Axies around the globe. Prices usually begin at $1, yet the priciest Axie that was ever sold cost 300 ETH. To be specific, this amount costs around $1.5 million.

Can You Really Earn in Axie and How

Yes, you can really earn from Axie Infinity and this is what made the game extremely popular. And what’s driving the game’s impressive revenue streams is the high and continuous participation among many.

Based on CoinDesk reports, Axie was able to generate more revenue in the month of June compared to decentralized exchanges.

And with that, there are a couple of ways you can earn through Axie Infinity.

Investing in Lunacia Land

In the land of Lunacia, Axies are creatures that inhabit the land. It’s an open-world area that’s operated, owned, and controlled by the players.

The land is categorized into tokenized plots of land referred to as TERRA. These can be rented, purchased, and organized by the owners.

The Axie Land sale began on the 21st of January in 2019. Then, a new way to join the Axie Infinity ecosystem was announced.

Players were given the chance to buy plots of land in the area. To note, Lunacia is made up of a 301 x 301 grid of land. ¼ of these were up-for-grabs during the time of its initial sale.

The land has its own in-game currency called Luna, and these are earnable too. Of course, Luna will be taken advantage of by a lot of players in the game.

To purchase land directly from other Axie players, you can do so via the marketplace.

Trading SLP

When you’re planning to trade your SLP, the first thing you need to do is link to your Ethereum wallet.

To do this, you need to access your Axie Infinity account then go to the Profile Dashboard. From there, click the “Sync Love Potion” button on the lower-left portion of the screen. Doing this will transfer the SLP from your in-game wallet to your Ethereum wallet.

Once done, it will now be available for trading.

The prices of Smooth Love Potions have continuously become a very important driving force in Axie Infinity. The reason for this is it lets you and other players earn value from playing. It’s while they sell their SLPs to players who need to breed their Axies.

Is Axie Infinity Worth Playing?

The answer is yes, but remember that you are required to shell out money to start playing. As you play longer and learn the ins and outs of the game, you’ll eventually gain back the expenses you’ve provided. From there, you’ll start earning more.

However, it’s also good to note that Axie Infinity is a strategic type of battle game. You’ll need patience while devoting a lot of time to learn how the game works. It’s necessary so you can come up with a smart and effective game plan.

Additionally, the environment of cryptocurrencies has been described by having rapid and sudden changes. The rates fluctuate in only a couple of seconds, so there’ll definitely be instances when values go sky-high. Of course, there will be times when values will plummet.

A lot of people have already attested to Axie Infinity as a legit play-to-earn game. Some even utilized the platform to earn additional income to provide for their daily necessities.

But just like with every other type of game around, remember to play at your own risk.