New Player Needing Help!

Hi Yall!!!

Pyrose91 here. I'm new to the splinterland game, splinterland community and crypto in general. I have a lot of questions that I was wondering if anyone could help with.
When responding about a specific question, please provide the question number in your response.

1. Why is SPS important?
2. How do you maximize your SPS?
3. What is the airdrop and why is it important?
4. How do you maximize your airdrop level?
5. What types of cards are helpful for new players?
6. Should I buy or rent cards and why?
7. Is it best to keep owned cards or sell them?
8. Should I become well rounded in each type of element (ie fire, water, dark, etc) or specialize in just a couple in order to maximize wins?
9. I need power to go to the next league. How do I do that?
10. What does staking mean?
11. How does staking work? Is it like interest that you'd get from a savings account?
12. Are there other ways to earn DEC besides wins or selling cards?
13. Are there other ways to earn credits besides buying them?
14. Are card packs worth it or should I focus on buying individual cards?
15. Are there only specific card editions that can be played or are all cards able to be used?
16. Is there a benefit to using a certain edition card, for example alpha or promo, over a different edition card, for example reward?
17. Is it better to stay in the top of your league or advance to the next league?
18. How do you make yourself marketable to join a guild?
19. What are the benefits of joining a guild?
20. Is win vs loss ratio important? I've sure lost a lot of games lol.

I think that's about it for now. I truly appreciate any kind of help. This game has become a lot more complicated than I could have imagined. I hope this helps others too.