Splinterlands - Celebrating one year of Bronze mediocrity
It was Christmas 2020 and I was having a chill out conversation with my brother, after a big celebration dinner. He told me I should try Leo Finance, a Hive Blockchain blogging platform. With the Hive account I could also play Splinterlands, a cool play2earn game that he is playing for some months. I made my Hive account and left it dormant for few weeks, until I decided to start writing and to try the NFT card game. I am now celebrating one year of Bronze mediocrity!
Probably half way into January 2021, I decided to give Splinterlands a try. I spent $10 on the Summoner Book and dived into the game. As usual, I didn't read any tutorial... PVM will learn by playing. I played so many card games in my life and I was a top tier Hearthstone player so I assumed will be easy. It wasn't easy as the mechanics are more complex then I thought, and learned the hard way that ranged monsters can't shoot from the 1st position. If anyone want's to start without reading about it ... here's PVM's crash course: put an armored tank in front, quick casters and one ranged at the back.
Played casually throughout the year, completing the weekly battle challenge for extra crypto rewards on Hive. I sometimes push it when I was close to a new tier, and my all-time high ranking was Silver II. In one year of Splinterlands I played 5342 battles, about 14 per day. My win ratio is 42.81% and the longest winning streak was 10 games.
I consider my stats decent, considering I started playing late. The OG players started in 2018 and had two years to build a badass deck. Whenever I was thinking I made a perfectly balanced team ... the gods of random found a challenger with a legendary set-up.
New opportunities and a chance to level the game came with the SPS airdrop, new reward cards and the launch of Chaos Legion. The $SPS airdrop was planned for 365 days, and we are already 200 days into receiving daily rewards. All players will receive Splintrshards according to their airdrop points, given by the deck power, $DEC holdings, land holdings, packs and points. While others got an absolute fortune in the early days, I got a small share and a new title!
The total $SPS supply is set at 524,583,332 tokens, with more than half staked. I used a little amount of $SPS to buy Chaos Legion decks, and stacked the majority. At the moment I have 712 SPS staked, worth $98.98 USD. Maybe was better to sell when the price was high and buy now when the token is at discount price!
When the Chaos Legion pre-sale started, I was receiving 0.091 Voucher per day. When the 30 days reward period ended, I had 2.666 Voucher and I had to hit the market to buy 0.334. The vouchers started trading at £22, slowly going cheaper. I bought 0.334 with 5.51 USD and shifted back to Splinterlands to buy the 3rd pack. Unfortunately I didn't get any top cards when unwrapping them.
Then new reward cards where added in the chests. The reward mechanics changed and for me didn't improved. The old drops from the season reward chests were mainly cards, with high chances for an epic or rare, and the new chests give mostly credits.
The new reward cards are definitely fixated on credits, and not even a big amount. Potions keep stacking in the inventory and the new cards got cheaper and cheaper, but none of them could really improve my battle decks. At this point I didn't see it as an improvement and I was waiting to see the impact of Chaos Legion Cards.
Getting Uraeus from a daily quest chest was the only top card I received from a chest in the last 4 months. This Epic Dragon card is really cheap at 3 Mana, and can make a difference thanks to the 1 Armor and the Sneak ability. I started using Uraeus in my fire teams, usually in the last position to absorb two attacks
The price of common reward cards lowered the entry level for new players, making team upgrades affordable. I didn't seen many opponents integrating the new rewards card into their teams, and the time to use them was short as the Chaos Legion cards shadowed them quickly. They were the cheapest cards for a while, at $0.10 to $0.20, until Chaos cards flooded the market.
The Splinterlands were shaken up down to the core when the Chaos Legion packs were opened. This happened only few weeks after new reward cards were added, in a mission to make the game equally fair for both veterans and new players. This ones made a difference and improved the gameplay. I bought stacks of cards from the market at low price and upgraded them at level 3, 4 or 5. Hopefully this will be a good long term move, when the set of reward cards will trend less and they will stop flooding the market. Now with Chaos Legion fast approaching, it may happen quicker then expected.
When the packs got cheaper, I bought some from the market. As the cards price went lower and lower, I changed the tactics and bought the cards I needed for pennies.
The reward cards were just a spark compared to the apocalyptical changes brought by the launch of the Chaos Legion. Lots of cards that were free to play, and some summoners, where replaced with Chaos Legion free to play cards. I didn't anticipated this and I was heavy hit by the change.
My top team was OP damage with Malric Inferno as a summoner, Cerberus as the tank and other low mana cards. Half of them where free cards which I didn't had in my portfolio so now I have to find a new combination. Not sure which new free cards will be a game changer, as the Antoid Platoon can't replace Cerberus. The Lava Spider replaced the Fire Beatle so no major change, while the Tenyii Striker looks good enough to be in any team. Nice to see a fine caster for the Fire Splinter, as the Djinn Apprentice looks overpowered for only 5 mana.
The Water Splinter is my 2nd option when it comes to heavy fighting. Unfortunately I lost the Sea Serpent, which was my main tank for 90% of the team set-ups. Looks like the Diemonshark can be a good replacement, while the Flying Squid and Deeplurker are definitely top choices for high mana battles. The Merdaali Guardian is the new water healers and from what I can see... this splinter received a good boost.
I had to adapt my teams, try new mechanics and find new synergy in the Splinters. Still playing mainly fire but my Death team is as stronger then ever. I am celebrating one year of Bronze mediocrity but the value of my deck keeps growing. That $10 investment in 2021 turned into $654, a 65x growth that is hard to catch when you HODL crypto. The Gold Foil Temple Priest is the most valuable card in my collection, and I chose to rent it as I don't play Life Splinter. In fact, I rented many cards and I am earning 25.5 DEC per day.
If you started playing recently.... keep your eyes on the market as more and more packs are sold daily. The floor price for Chaos Legion cards will go lower and lower, making a more affordable market. Lots of cheap cards will create a flurry of transactions which will also be beneficial for the Hive Blockchain. Join Splinterlands and help us fight against the darkness!
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