Before playing Axie Infinity, you must first assemble a team of Axies and place them into a formation you desire. 

In this article, I’ll be covering how you can place your Axies in a formation that is effective and suitable for your playstyle, as well as the pros and cons of each one. But before we get to specific formations you can use, I’ll first discuss what formations are.

What Are Formations?

Formations are the arrangement of Axies on a player’s field. There are seven slots on that field where you can place your Axies in any order you want.

This is what those slots look like in-game when you first create your team:

Players usually follow the typical order of primary damage dealer at the back, secondary damage dealer/support at the middle, and tank at the front.

Why Are Formations Important?

Axies have a certain way of attacking the enemy. They attack the Axie that is directly in front of them but follow the “tier” in which opponents are placed.

For example, if you face an enemy team that is placed like this:

Even if you have Axies that are directly in front of the blue enemy Axie, your Axies will still target the green one (assuming you don’t have cards that offer any kind of target prioritization).

Placing your Axies in a specific formation is your way of manipulating how your opponent can attack your team. Putting Axies in an order that puts you in an advantage extremely helps and would significantly increase your chances of winning.

What Formation Should I Use?

The formation a player should use depends on their team and what kind of playstyle they have. Generally, there are formations that most players use because they are tried and tested to be effective, plus they have their own benefits.

Straight Down The Middle

In this formation, you place all your Axies in the middle. This seems like a no-brainer for new players because it follows the traditional order of Axies (damage dealer > support > tank).

However, this formation has its own pros and cons.

Pros:

• Frontline protects the midline; midline protects the backline Axie
• You can predict what Axie your opponent is likely to attack next

Cons:

• If enemy Axies are split up, attacking becomes 50/50
• This formation is linear, meaning the enemy can easily form a plan of attack

1 Front, 2 Top/Bot

This formation is arguably the best one. It follows the concept of the first formation where Axies protect the one behind it while also removing the 50/50 chance of attacking split up opponents

Pros: 

• Same as the previous formation
• Will attack the Axie directly in front of them (while still following the tiers) even if the enemy is split up 

Cons:

• The formation is still linear

2 Front, 1 Back

This formation is extremely situation and I don’t recommend using it on standard teams. It only works if you don’t have a dedicated tank, or have two or more tanky Axies.

Pros:

• Can throw off enemy attack patterns

Cons:

• Can easily be countered by putting two axies in either the top/bottom two slots
• Only specific teams can effectively use this formation

Diagonal

Personally, I think this formation is the worst. There isn’t any real benefit to placing your team this way.

Pros:

• None (it looks good I guess?)

Cons:

• The formation is linear
• Attacks can be 50/50 if enemy Axies are split

Conclusion

Arranging your team into formations you find success with is a key part of playing Axie Infinity. At the end of the day, it all comes down to your win condition, preferred playstyle, and team composition.

I recommend experimenting and mixing it up in arena matches in order to find which formation suits you.

What formation do you use? Do you want to recommend one? Comment down below and let us know!