I've been playing Splinterlands for more than a year now, progressively increasing my stake within the game.
Whenever a big change is introduced it's always interesting to stop and try to evaulate its effects.
In this case specifically the change has to do with how players are rewarded for winning matches.

It will still be possible to earn SPS rewards, potions, merits and even chaos legion packs with a bit of luck.
However, from now on players won't be able to get the old reward cards.
They won't be issued anymore and the only way to get them will be to either rent them or buy them through the market.

What we will get instead is account-bound cards that include both summoners and regular monsters.
It won't be possible to trade these cards until their issuance will be over and although there's not any official figures yet it's likely they will keep getting printed for at least one full year.

In the short term, the only way to use these cards in battles will be to earn them through the reward chests.

The premise

I currently have 83K card power and only have silver level summoners.
I do not own or rent any gold level summoners.
You can check my profile in Splinterlands to get a better idea of what assets I own but briefly put the summoners I'm using the most to fight in silver and gold are Kelya, Thaddius, Jacek and Quix.
Similarly, most of my monsters are from the chaos legion and riftwatchers set.
The cumulative value of my assets is several hundreds of dollars.
I rented additional cards rarely and with a similar stake within the game you should be able to get similar results or possibly even better ones.

In the final days of the season I was able to achieve a rating of over 3000, however due to card power restrictions I was confined to the gold II division for the most part and I earned more than 40 end of season chests.

The results

I was able to get at least one copy of each available common card.
Some are more solid while others are more niche but can still be used in some fringe cases as surprise weapons and even though I'm playing in gold I've already used some of them in battle as basic, level 1 copies.
I particularly like the firecaller monster with the martyr ability.
I also enjoy using the swamp spitter for the repair which synergizes nicely with the armor given from Kelya and offers some sustained defense.

Considering this were the results of just one season it is very likely I will be able to max out these different cards for competitive play in silver and gold with more to spare.

As for the rares, I was able to only get a few so far.
Out of the ones I've got the cheekily named venari marksrat is my favorite, again featuring the martyr ability.
It's nice to use him in conjunction with camouflaged monsters and position him so that he may end up buffing two monsters at the same time but even if he ends up buffing just the one monster the payoff can still be meaningful enough to turn the battle in your favor.

I was able to get four copies of a gold foil summoner too! Luckily that's just how many I need to enable silver level monsters to played so I'm very happy with how that turned out for me.
I haven't combined the copies yet because I don't currently have many fire gladiator cards but I will definetely use this summoner at some point.
It's not exactly the llama summoner I've been dreaming of but it will do! And it's a gold-foil!

More in general, it's very interesting how it's now possible to get summoners as rewards.
I currently do not plan to buy gold level summoners and I still have holes to fill in my line-ups.
For instance, I don't have a life summoner yet. For this reason the prospect of earning more summoners (possibly even ones that will allow me to summon gold level monsters at some point) is very, very exciting!

Because of the high variance of these rare cards payout it will definetely take a while to collect them all and level them up to a point where I'll be comfortable playing them but I look forward to the grind.

The most notable rewards I got were the epic ones.
Not only did I get four copies of the clockwork aide but I was rewarded with two gold foil copies as well! Enough to get combined into a level 3 to be as competitive as possible with silver level summoners. Again, I feel quite lucky that it worked out like that.

The interaction of alchemy and legendary potions with reward chests is definetely noticeable.
After more than one year of playing the game frequently, the only gold foil epic I had to show for it was a lava launcher. Within just one season with these new rewards I got two!
I don't know what giving out these cards will do for their eventual prices but for now I'm really enjoying collecting them and using them in my battles.

And more in general I like that there's now a very practical use for potions.
I never bought packs so I never got a much of a chance to use many potions but now they finally have some concrete value for me!

As for the card itself, I quite like it.
I've already used it several times in conjunction with other cards that manipulate speed and I usually like to put in the very last spot.
With normal game rules it's difficult that it will be targeted by magic monsters with either the sneak or opportunity ability so it will be able to offer the extra speed for quite a while and absorb some damage in the process.
Excluding scattershot and explosive monsters the only magic attacker that could realistically harm it ( at least at the silver and gold level, in the modern format ) is the coral wraith, which is not a very common card.

To complete my breakdown of this exciting season here's the various invoices for my SPS earnings.
The token currently has a market price of 0,028$.

Progress with brawls

I've been enjoying guild brawls more and more as well. I'd reccomend to anyone that's still sitting on the fence about guilds to at least try one.

I opened three gladius cases as well. I have been saving them up and the opening was very exciting.

Here's the full account!
I will get right to the good part, though.

I got my first epic and legendary gladiator cards, all in one sitting!
I'm very happy about this result and I very much look forward to use this amazing legendary card.
In brawls as well as in regular battles, at some point in the future.
Even though these cards don't necessarily have a market value tied to them and they never will they still directly impact my ability to do well in battle and they're great fun to collect.
Everyone should look forward to engage with this part of the game as well.

Notable battles

I will try in each of my posts to include some fun battles as well.
I wanted to include this one specifically because it features some of the new cards as well as some older ones that are a bit more niche but can still put in a lot of work given the right circumstances.

https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_c3704ab90e8cca853a1e9ee86182de27

In hindsight there's definetely some polishing that both me and my opponent could have done to our respective line-ups but the chaos that ensued was very fun to spectate.

My opponent fielded the legendary drybone raider, aptly combined with the new sacrificial marksrat. It makes for a very effective synergy that almost got him the win.

I played the desert dragon instead. It's not a particularly solid card and it's not used very much. It is however relatively cheap and can be still used to great effect in the right circumstances. It will get a very satisfying double kill here, enabled by the specific ruleset.

Similarly, Jared Scar also isn't featured in every single battle but when I get the chance to use him it's always very fun to watch the battle unfold. He ends up getting a few scalps as well.
What an exciting battle, with each side displaying some very quirky monsters!

https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=sl_92889fbee53ed08779f3fe4a541fa325

Here's another fun one that features one of my favorite combination of cards.

Again, there's a very specific ruleset enabling all this.
Both our line-ups were doomed to off themselves throught the backfire effect.
However this turned into a positive for me thanks to the two scavengers in the back.
I personally find the combined effect to be very satisfying to watch.
Always keep that option in mind when you might be facing an earth line-up!

Parting words

Overall, I had a lot of fun this season. Possibly more than ever!
I'm very happy with the new reward system. I have faith in the vision the developers have for the game and I look forward to collecting more cards in this new season!

Good luck to everyone with their Splinterlands endeavours!