Funding My Splinterlands Obsession for Free | Part 1: Google Rewards

I love free things in life. I also love things that will compound for free overtime as well. My recent obsession with Splinterlands has got me thinking about all the ways that I can advance in the game by building and collecting more cards for "free". This series will explore how I've been able to collect more cards (so far) without parting with my fiat. Is Splinterlands truly a free Play2Earn? We will find out.

Note: You will need to buy the $10 Spellbook to begin with in order to really play this game. But I believe with some strategy, luck and effort, the deck you build will soon surpass this initial investment. This is not financial advice and is for pure entertainment purposes.

Why do I need to collect more cards?

I have only been playing Splinterlands for about a week and I've noticed that a lot of players that beat me in the game either 1) Have a better strategy than me (duh) or 2) Have better cards than me. Mind you I'm still in the Bronze league so it's quite surprising when your opponent flashes a $10 card. Although this doesn't necessarily mean they own this card because they could have been delegated some nice cards from an experienced player or even rented these cards for cheap on PeakMonsters. But it does mean that the base playable cards that the game grants you is not enough to win.

If I want to advance in the game to a higher league, I need to get better cards (either buy or rent). So before I dive into looking at renting cards (which is another area I'd like to research a bit further as well), I will see all the ways I can get cards for free.

How does Google Rewards come into play?  

I've been doing Google Rewards surveys for a while now (as early as 2015 it seems). You can simply download the Rewards app from the Play store (for Android users) and the app will send you surveys from time to time. These surveys will give you Google credits which you can use in the Play store.

These credits also expire from time-to-time and I probably wasn't utilising the full amounts because of this. From 2015 to now, it looks like I did a total of 363 surveys totalling $90.09 in rewards and I can't remember more than 3 things I've bought with this. I did rent the movie Parasite. Really awesome movie if you haven't watched it already.

Enter the Splinterlands Android app.

I normally play Splinterlands just on the mobile web browser. It's fast and does the job. But if you download the app version from the Play store, this will allow you to use Google credits to do in-app purchases. My Google play balance from doing all the surveys came to a total of A$17.07.

Step 1. Download Spliterlands Android App

Step 2. Sign in to your Splinterlands account

Step 3. Purchase game credits with Google play credits (there will be a pop up when you go to buy, the app sometimes is buggy so close it and open it again if it's not loading properly)

Step 4. Buy Untamed packs or cards or potions or anything else you can buy with these game credits. You might have to switch to the web browser or mobile browser to make these purchases as the app don't have all the functionalities.

For me, I decided to invest the credits in Untamed packs. I know you probably overall are worse off when you get the packs as it's all a game of chance, but I just love opening them in the mana well...

So I purchased the $10 credit in-game which costed A$15.99. Leaving me with a balance of A$1.48. To be honest I felt quite good with this purchase because it would have expired and gone to waste anyway.

The $10 game credit allowed me to buy 5 Untamed packs in the game. Each pack contains 5 cards. You can also increase your chances of getting Legendary and Gold foil cards by using potions. I had some potions from daily rewards and also end of season loot which got applied to the mana well.

P.S. I will cover the opening of these packs in another article if you're interested

Free Play2Earn Strategy

I'm currently not intending to spend anymore than the initial $10 Spellbook purchase on the game (unless the money is earned as a result of Splinterlands or free like Google Rewards). There are many more avenues which I intend to try out as well as I go about building a stronger card collection.

For me, converting the fiat in Google Rewards to Splinterlands cards is a great investment purely because

1) I believe the cards will keep their value and come with the ability to rent those cards out for passive income;

2) I enjoy playing the game; and

3) I would have wasted it on renting movies or something else that I don't really need.

Let me know below some other strategies I should try out to fund my Splinterlands obsession for free!

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