What happens in action is that one of these abilities give -1 Speed to opponent's team and the other gives +1 speed to all friendly monsters. They are tow abilities that can cancel out each other. But the reality is not that simple when you start looking into the math.

If You Had Never Thought Of This; Now Is The Time

Don't worry, there are no complex math involved. If you have passed grade school, you are more than qualified. All you need to think of is X-(X-1/X) vs (X+1/X)-X

Let's take a simple example to make things clear. Let's take a monster with Speed stat of 3. I'm a Champion League player and this is the speed stat that I have most commonly seen on my team. the average and median Speed of monsters should not fall too far from 3.

If X = 3 with "Slow" you create a 1/3 AKA 33.33% debuff for enemy monsters and with "Swiftness" you create a 1/3 AKA 33.33% Buff for friendly monsters. The percentage change along with the speed each monster has

"Slow" Debuff Percentages

1 - 0% Debuff 2 - 50% Debuff 3 - 33.33% Debuff 4 - 25% Debuff 5 - 20% Debuff 6 - 16.66% Debuff 7 - 14.28% Debuff

"Swiftness" Buff Percentages

1 - 100% Buff 2 - 50% Buff 3 - 33.33% Debuff 4 - 25% Debuff 5 - 20% Debuff 6 - 16.66% Debuff 7 - 14.28% Debuff

Notable Facts For Strategy

• Faster your monsters are; less impactful buffs/debuffs become
• Faster monster are rarer
• If your monsters are fast, you are more resistant to potential uses of "Slow" by opponent anyways and you will gain less by using "Swiftness" -You can't make enemy monsters slower than a speed stat of 1 (creating an upper limit to potential advantage you can have over your opponent)
• The power of "Swiftness" buff gets enhanced and magnified by "Enrage" buff

Depending on the rule sets and the team builds these two abilities that seem like just the opposites of each other could result in vastly different outcomes. @splinterlands requires you to be smart if you want to win . I have beaten teams worth hundreds of dollars with teams worth few dollars with the right strategy (and some RNG luck)

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