Campaign Mode is Splinterlands’ answer to one of the game’s oldest problems, helping new players learn without throwing them straight into Ranked. There were many attempts to solve this including the mini notes that teaches you each ability when you first play the game (which you can turn off in the settings.) With Book 1: Waur Medge Academy, players can finally go through a full PvE tutorial, dissected into small chunks, that gives rewards while teaching the game step by step. I think that this is one of the most effective ways to teach new players and this makes the early experience much easier to understand.

But this new system isn’t just a better tutorial. It gives players Foundation cards, replacing the Starter/Ghost cards, that they can use in Modern right away plus Glint to spend on reward cards. In the future, Phase 2 will even let you trade and combine these cards, which makes starting early a big advantage. Let’s break down what Book 1 offers, what makes these new cards different, and why this mode might be the future of onboarding in Splinterlands.

A Beginner’s Guide to Campaign Mode

Book 1: Waur Medge Academy is the new Campaign Mode for Splinterlands. It’s a PvE chapter system that helps new players learn how the game works while also giving real rewards. Instead of dropping you into Ranked right away, Campaign Mode shows you how things work one battle at a time.

Each chapter teaches core mechanics like positioning, attack types and card abilities and the best part is you’re using real cards and getting to keep new ones too. I think this makes the experience feel more personal compared to reading a guide or watching a video.

It’s designed to be played manually, and at your own pace. That makes it perfect for people who are new and need a space to fail, learn, and improve. Once you finish, you have a full beginner deck and some Glint to spend on rewards to get more cards.

How Campaign Mode Might Change the Way We Train New Players in Splinterlands

Before Campaign Mode, I, like most new players, had to figure things out on their own. There were some tutorials in youtube and other posts made by other players, but it didn’t feel connected to actual gameplay. Dipping your toes in Ranked game is the practice but no one really teaches you what icons on the cards mean. Now, new players can learn in a way that's easier and broken down in digestible chunks before playing real battles and building real decks.

Book 1 replaces the old starter card system with something you earn. Before, Splinterlands lend you cards that you can play with at the cost of reduced rewards when using them. These Foundation cards does not do that. You get full rewards for using them making your early plays much more satisfying.

In Campaign Mode, you don’t get everything all at once, you work through the story, complete missions, and slowly unlock your Foundation cards. I think this makes the learning feel more like progress, not just clicking buttons.

It also lowers the chance that players quit early. If you can feel improvement and see your deck growing after every chapter, it keeps you going. It’s a better first step than just telling people to go to Ranked right away.

What Makes Foundation Cards Different — and Will They Ever Be Valuable?

Foundation cards are special because they’re earned through Campaign Mode instead of bought in packs or in Ranked Mode. They’re soulbound, which means you can’t sell, trade, burn or combine them for now. You also can’t use them in Wild Format or earn collection power from them.

They don’t work on land either and give no production bonus. These were made in order to stop bot farms from capitalizing. Their only current value is in combat and in earning Glint and SPS through gameplay. I think some players overlook them because they’re not “assets,” but they still give you real some value when playing Ranked games.

In Phase 2, Foundation cards will become tradeable and combinable. When that happens, some of them might gain cash value especially the ones with good stats or abilities. But for now, their value is more about helping players compete than earning DEC. Honestly, I am against this. If these foundation cards were given monetary value, expect more bot farms getting these and ruining it for everybody else.

Foundation Set Spotlight: Most Useful Cards You Get from Book 1

One of the best cards is Marla Singariel, a Water Archon that gives +1 Magic to your team. It’s like a free Obsidian from Chaos Legion and works well even with low cost magic attack units. This one alone can shape full teams as Water has one of the strongest magic units in the game right now.

Another strong unit is Nim Guard Captain from the Death element. It has Void, 1 melee, 3 armor, and 3 health for 7 mana. It is a solid tank against magic-heavy builds. I think it’s a great early game frontline that teaches players how to counter magic. The stats are quite decent as well and I expect his other abilities to be good as well.

New Beluroc Aegis is a Neutral unit with Taunt, 3 armor and 5 health. That kind of universal tank helps any team stall while your backline deals damage. All three are usable in Modern Ranked right away and feel rewarding to unlock.

What Players Should Expect from Campaign Mode Phase 2

Phase 2 will bring more chapters to Book 1 and most likely new Foundation cards too. The official info says cards will become tradeable and combinable. There’s also a plan to release Foundation booster packs, but no details yet. I also heard and read that if you were not able to do Campaign Mode, these cards can be earnable in Ranked battles after a week or so. So, expect these to be a big deal in the future.

Once the cards are combinable, players can level them up for better stats and abilities. That alone will change how valuable early cards like Marla or Beluroc feel. I think people who finish Book 1 early will have an edge when those changes go live.

We don’t have a date for Phase 2 yet, but the excitement is building. People are starting to take Campaign Mode more seriously now that real rewards and Glint are involved. If they keep adding books like this, it could become its own long-term PvE format. I'd also want Splinterlands to allow players to use this feature for their own.

Splinterlands can use this Campaign Mode and launch another idea like Puzzle Mode where players can put assets into escrow that would serve as rewards for players that would beat their challenge. They can add a public and private mode, where players creating these challenges are given a passcode they can share to their own friends and communities so bots won't be able to abuse them for free rewards.

Step by Step Tutorial for Campaign Mode

Now that all of those are out of the way, let's do some Campaign Mode!

Click on this Campaign Mode on your Play Screen.

Next is choosing the book. For now, only Book 1: Waur Medge Academy is available.

After getting in the book, we need to choose what chapters to play. The finished chapters will have a check mark and the chapters not yet finished are lock. You go from chapter 1 to chapter 11 in order.

In this example, I chose the Chapter 6. Except for chapter 1, all of the chapters will look like this. Click "Enter Arena" to proceed with the tutorial.

Here's the first look of the tutorial. It will have some instructions teaching you how to play. Follow that and create your team. You have unlimited time so do not worry about taking a long time. Once you are done, click "Battle."

Campaign will be like any other ranked battles. Click on "Battle" to start or "Skip Battle" to see the result.

After the battle, you will be taken to the rewards screen where it would show the cards and glints you received. Click on "Claim Rewards" to get your winnings.

Lastly, you will have two options, "Next Chapter" to proceed to the next chapter and "Chapter Select" to review previous chapters.

There is a new very useful feature added in Splinterlands and that is to combine all of your cards. Before, you need to click each card, select all the cards you want to combine, and then combine them. If you want to level up 50 different cards, you need to do this process 50 times, once for each card.

Now, you can just click the "Combine all Cards" button on the upper right, as seen on the image above, and then combine all. I added a proof (3rd image) for you to see that it really worked. It combines all cards if you have excess so you don't need to do this process manually.

This saves a lot of time as players usually get cards each week or season through End of Season rewards. The only other thing I noticed is it doesn't combine hidden cards. When I did this, the filter "Regular" was selected in the filter. So, all the gold cards I have remained uncombined and only regular cards were combined. I haven't tested yet but this would be useful if you want to only combine particular cards like All Water with Magic attacks only, as long as you can configure the correct filter for what you want.

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Images are taken from Splinterlands, Drawn in Krita, Animated in Photoshop and Edited in Canva.