Splinterlands: Beginners Guide- 3 Things to know before playing

I have been playing Splinterlands for many years now, sometimes regularly and sometimes I stop playing for long periods. At times the gameplay feels really engaging at times it feels repetitive. Sometimes the rewards payout is really generous and sometimes it feels the rewards given out are peanuts. 

Despite all the ups and downs in my sentiments towards this game one thing I have to hand to them is their consistency. They have been regularly building and improving the NFT gaming ecosystem. Honestly speaking initially I did not expect the game to be sustainable long term. Looking back this is probably one of the few NFT games that has survived the ups and down of market over the years and is doing well in the current bear market when most of the competing NFT games have disappeared completely from the scene.

I know many people who played it regularly since the start and have already made life changing gains. I think it still not late though as the user base is still growing and there is still a lot of scope to expand over the years.

In this article I will be focussing on the aspects of this game I wish I knew when I started to get the maximum out of it.

I will not be dwelling much on the gameplay aspect as I plan to write separate posts on that.

1. Summoners come First

If I was to give just one advice to anyone starting with Splinterlands it would be to focus on levelling up your Summoners as early as possible. This was probably the biggest mistake I made when I started playing and it took me years to fix it.

During my initial days I only focused on getting the fancy legendary cards and did not pay attention to levelling up my summoners. I did not realise then that the level of summoner controls what level of cards you can use for a fight. It does not seem like a big deal during the Bronze level fights but as you advance later to Silver and Gold levels you realise what a major handicap it is to not have levelled up summoners. They make the difference between a winning spree and a losing spree.

Summoners are also the most expensive cards so many people think you need to invest a lot to level up the summoners but you can get there by trading the cards you earn through rewards. It will surely take more time but if you are patient you will eventually be levelling up your summoners.

When you reach the Silver level for the first time you would be really glad you levelled up your summoners as without a high level summoner all other cards in your team are basically useless.

2. Learn from the Fights you Lose

Once you have the summoners levelled and got your hands on your favourite set of cards you will reach a point of exuberance and after your first winning spree will might start thinking of yourself as invincible. Sooner than later there will arrive a point when you will start losing more than you win. You will be asking yourself how is that possible, you got the best cards and you levelled up your summoners and have even got a few of those mighty legendary cards. 

The reason is that there are innumerable strategies to be used and there are many players who have been playing day in and day out for years. At this point you will be tempted to throw any extra money you have to buy some more special cards, but that is an emotional mistake you should avoid. You might also get frustrated and stop playing, which happened to me at times. This would be costly mistake as well as if you stop playing you will lose out on the rewards. The rewards are always cards from current season which are cheaper compared to older season but if you think long term you will know that once the next batch of cards comes these will rise in value.

Best approach is to be patient and keep playing regularly and whenever you lose a fight don’t skip it but watch the full match to see what strategy did the opponent use to gain an upper hand. I personally have not watched or read any guides on gameplay, I only observe what the opponents did to win and it has helped me to learn a lot. It includes basics like how to sequence your cards to advanced tactics like which card is better suited for a specific battle conditions. It gets more trickier as you advance through Silver and Gold levels.

3. Strive to Maintained a Balanced Team

When you start  playing you will soon develop your favourite element and set of players and would get inclined to level up cards of only that particular element. In the bronze stage it will not seem like an issue as most of the fights will not have any conditions set so you can get away with selecting your favourite element in all the fights but as you advance through silver and gold levels you will see that each fight will have restrictions on the elements that can be used and the type of cards allowed. If you only have one element strong you will be in for a rude shock made worse by a losing spree.

To avoid such a situation it is better to start focusing on having a balanced team. It might not be possible to be strong in all elements but you should strive to be strong in at least 3 to 4 elements. This way you will have a competitive team ready for most of the fights. Also you would be able to pick up multiple strategies for different kind of elements and also start getting a view on which element is better suited under which kind of fighting conditions.

I would soon be making videos on strategies related to the gameplay.

In case if you have still not tried out this link I would strongly recommend you to give it a shot and feel free to use my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=sambtc

Cheers,

SamBTC