Back to Basics, Back to the Start

Hi everyone! Hope all is well this during this Chaos Legion Pre-Sale FOMO. So, it’s been five months since I started my crypto journey and Splinterlands. And it has been a steep learning curve for me. Just learning about the various cryptos out there, which is a scam and not. All the various wallets and so much jargon……too much jargon.

Then I jumped onto Splinterlands and Hive. OMG, Hive is a beast on its own and I still get lost with the numerous tokens and powerups & downs, staking & delegating, all the tribes and RC needed to do anything here. Splinterlands is a card-based game, I like playing games, so it should be easy to pick up yeh? If you don’t mind losing streaks, yeh it’s easy to pick up. Took me quite a while to figure out the dynamics of the game and the whole eco-system that supports the game.

I must admit that I was really lucky to start when I did. Untamed packs were still on sale at $2 and even Land was available at $20. Being the newbie that I was, I had no foresight to buy any land and maybe bought 10 Untamed packs to murk around. Of course, the idiot in me did not know to use the legendary and GF potions while opening them….The one thing I picked up quick was that I needed to rent cards to advance and Peakmonsters became my dear friend. So dear that I wrote an articleon it, only for it to become obsolete in a few weeks as they launched the current rental system we have now.

The rental system v1 was glorious for renters in my opinion. The relatively cumbersome nature meant it was difficult for card owners to optimize their rentals. This meant I could get Lvl 1 Yodin, Valnamor, Prince Rennyn and Crypt Mancer for 1-2 cents per day and this were my most expensive rentals! You have to see it to believe it. It was awesome fun playing around with all these summoners and the various cards. My daily budget then was around 5 cents a day, don’t think that will get you very far nowadays.

So, for my 5th month anniversary, I thought it would be fun to create an alt account and go back to my roots and start from scratch. The main reason was that I have been reading all the comments from new players complaining about the game changes and how it favours the whales and that new players were getting shafted.

So…….I have to admit, after being in their shoes, I can understand their pain and resentment. It is really really hard in the novice and bronze leagues whereby most players have the same set of cards as evident by the zero CP. It didn’t take me long to realise how crap a player I was when I didn’t have the upper hand of better cards or the Alpha/Beta cards. Getting 0.01 DEC per win meant it was not possible to rent at all. So I did what any normal person in my position would do, I delegated cards to myself! I had built up a stash of reward cards and they were very handy and was able to get to 5k CP and Bronze 1 league. Sadly, I didn’t have the spare 15k CP lying around for Silver 3 League, so I ended up getting Credit for the chests.

In Conclusion
Before I started my Splinterlands adventure, I decided that I would need to commit not just my time, but money to it as well. I converted $100 to HIVE so that I could rent from Peakmonsters and am glad to say only around $10 was used and the rest has been powered up to HP. Everything I spend on rentals is now from in-game battles.

For new players, if you are reading this on Hive on Splintertalk, you are already ahead of the curve as there is so much good information here. You just need to take the time to find and read it. Keep battling and learning why you are losing. And you do need to commit money to this, rent first and buy the cards that you like. Don’t go buying all the expensive cards everyone tells you to buy. Lastly, read the AMA summaries and official Splinterlands news. Why? Because complaining in Discord about something that has been known for months solves nothing.

For the ones who have been playing longer than me, try to remember what it was like when you started, how hard it was and all the people here that have helped you. It might be harder now with everything being so much more expensive. So, try to be patient and guide the lost ones here.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading my rant/reminisce and good luck with the Chaos!