VOUCHERS, VOUCHERS, VOUCHERS!!!!!! (And Why I'll Never Have Any)

Note: This is a cross-post from my Publish0X blog.

OK, I admit it. The title of this blog is a little defeatist - but hear me out. I've been playing Splinterlands for about a month now and have a whopping 0.028 of a voucher. I exchanged my Basic Attention Tokens from Brave Browser to SPS and put that into the game to stake and all I have show for it is 0.028 of a voucher. I get about 0.25 SPS per day with the airdrop. At this rate I will never have enough SPS to earn even ONE voucher and will probably never see one card from the Chaos Legion pack unless I buy an overpriced one from the secondary market. Unless vouchers are needed for that, too.

Whew! OK. Rant over. Or is it?

In Early, But Not Early Enough

Like most things in life, I'm late to the Splinterlands party. The game started in 2018 and here it is 2021. So some folks have had three years to accumulate SPS and airdrop points and DEC and land and titles and skins and cards and all the other stuff that build up "wealth" in Splinterlands. I have not and I can not drop huge amounts of money on buying SPS outright because I have a job to go to, bills to pay, a kid to raise, and a wife to keep happy. Plus I have other, more expensive hobbies. It just doesn't make financial sense to shill out a ton of money on a game. (Although, I've probably spent close to $100 on it already).
So what's a new player to do?

Honestly, I don't know. I've read a TON of articles about how to advance out of Bronze III (which I seem perpetually stuck in which is no one's fault but my own - I still suck at certain aspects of the game). I've bought higher-level cards, I've rented cards that I thought would get me into the next league, I've flipped cards for (tiny) profits, and I've tried desperately to hold on to my DEC for SPS airdrop points. And I'm not even going to talk about how expensive summoners are let alone how expensive it is to upgrade cards and summoners. And here I am - still in Bronze III and still with 0.028 of a voucher.

And, after reading all this, you may think I'm down on the game or thinking of quitting. I'm not.

It's A Marathon, Not A Sprint

That heading above is more to remind myself of that fact than most of you reading this. But, if you ARE a new player and are getting a little discouraged like I am just remind yourself of that fact. This is a game unlike any other. A true paradigm shift in gaming - and I've been gaming for longer than most of you have been alive, probably. This game actually allows you to OWN assets and sell them for a profit. NFT games in general are a crazy-radical change in the gaming world and even though I'm late to the party - as some of you are, too - I fully intend to stick with it.

Even with my 0.028 of a voucher.

Thanks for reading this far. I realize this was a little departure from my usual newbie blog and it may have seemed a little... umm... depressing. Despite what all I wrote up above, the game is fascinating and still full of potential. If you'd like to try - and you'd better get in now before it's REALLY too late - please click here and sign up. I guarantee you that it's worth it.

Also, feel free to comment below and drop some tips, hints, tactics, or just commiserate with me. Or encourage me. Either is fine.