My Splinterlands Blog #112 - The End of 2022
Welcome to the last article for 2022, where I write about my journey playing Splinterlands! It has been quite the year, coming in with the highs of a bull market only to descend into the bearish market that we've been dealing with for the last several months - though it seems much longer. Looking back to January, Chaos Legion packs had just gone up for public sale. It seems like a long time ago, even though it seems like the year has flown by.
This year saw the rework of the ranked rewards system, Splinterlands TV launching as a Twitch channel, the Waka Spiritblade sale, the Wild and Modern format split, teetering initial steps toward SPS validators, Splinterfest, Runi, and Riftwatchers to name a few of the things that have changed in, or happened with, the game. I made Champion league, albeit briefly, for the first time. Though, I have remained essentially a Gold league player for the majority of the year.
In more recent news, we did get the stats for the upcoming Earth legendary Chaos Legion summoner. Even though the number of packs has hit the level where he will be released, he won't be out until after the New Year's holiday. Earth is already one of the stronger Splinters in Chaos Legion, with Obsidian giving +1 Magic damage, but Immortalis may have some uses with particular rule sets.
With the Christmas holiday last week, there were no new game updates then either. Which, is fine, people should get time off from work, even if they do work for a crypto-related gaming company. Anyhow, let's take a look at my last week and season rewards:
Daily Quest Rewards:
Daily Quest # 826. Got Defend Focus on my main account in Gold League. I received 4.806 (0.5 + 0.977 + 2.68 + 0.454 + 0.195) Splintershards (SPS), 8 Legendary potions, and a Pelacor Conjurer.
InvestYGator, my Silver league alternate account, got Defend Focus. I got 1 Gold potion, 3 (1 + 2) Legendary potions, a Pelacor Bandit, a Pelacor Conjurer, and a Vampire Bat.
Daily Quest # 827. Got Healing Focus. I received 3.443 (2.115 + 1.328) SPS, 30 (6 + 6 + 12 + 6) Legendary potions, 44 Merits, and a Twilight Basilisk.
InvestYGator got Defend Focus. I got 0.534 (0.07 + 0.372 + 0.052 + 0.04) SPS, 2 Legendary potions, 47 (6 + 41) Merits, 3 (2 + 1) Gold potions, 2 Venari Heatsmith, and a gold foil Dhampir Infiltrator!
Daily Quest # 828. Got Exploits Focus. I received 100 (44 + 56) Merits, 22 (10 + 12) Legendary potions, a Gargoya Lion, a Pelacor Mercenary, a Venari Seedsmith, a Venari Wavesmith, and a Uraeus.
InvestYGator got Healing Focus. I got 0.963 (0.362 + 0.034 + 0.303 + 0.195 + 0.069) SPS, 1 Gold potion, 6 (3 + 3) Legendary potions, a Venari Heatsmith, a Bloodmaker, and a Djinn Renova.
Daily Quest # 829. Got Exploits Focus. I received 2.3 (0.981 + 1.319) SPS, 20 (11 + 9) Legendary potions, 19 (8 + 11) Gold potions, and a Pelacor Bandit.
InvestYGator got Earth Focus. I got 0.979 (0.079 + 0.324 + 0.06 + 0.092 + 0.095 + 0.266 + 0.063) SPS, 19 Merits, 1 Legendary potion, and a Pelacor Deceiver.
Daily Quest # 830. Got Fire Focus. I received 1.627 (0.248 + 0.379 + 0.475 + 0.525) SPS, 7 Gold potions, 15 (7 + 8) Legendary potions, and a Pelacor Conjurer.
InvestYGator got Disable Focus. I got 1.385 (0.095 + 0.047 + 1.107 + 0.081 + 0.055) SPS, 1 Legendary potions, a Pelacor Deceiver, a Pelacor Bandit, a Vampire Bat, and a Revealer.
Daily Quest # 831. Got Anti Melee Focus. I received 50.267 (0.518 + 0.297 + 49.021 + 0.431) SPS, 1,141 (33 + 22 + 1086) Merits, a Pelacor Deceiver, a Gargoya Devil, and a gold foil Venari Seedsmith!
InvestYGator got Stealth Focus. I got 0.720 (0.22 + 0.415 + 0.085) SPS, 2 Legendary potions, a Pelacor Bandit, 2 Gargoya Lions, and a Chaos Legion pack!
Daily Quest # 832. Got Anti Melee Focus and started getting Diamond league chests. I received 1,835 (134 + 1612 + 89) Merits and 48.187 (45.475 + 2.712) SPS!
InvestYGator got Disable Focus. I got 0.200 (0.052 + 0.047 + 0.101) SPS, 3 (1 + 2) Legendary potions, 7 (2 + 3 + 2) Gold potions, and 15 (9 + 6) Merits.
Daily Quest # 833. Got Exploits Focus. I received 3.215 SPS, 112 Merits, a Pelacor Bandit, and a Vampiric Blossom.
InvestYGator got Flying Focus. I got 0.606 (0.067 + 0.067 + 0.413 + 0.059) SPS, 76 Merits, 2 Legendary potions, a Pelacor Deceiver, and 2 Gargoya Lions.
While I generally get more chests in Silver, there's a pretty noticeable difference in SPS gained in higher leagues. InvestYGator usually ends up with single digit amounts per daily claim in Silver, while my main account tends to get about 50 SPS a day from battle rewards in Gold. This was also a much better week for rewards in general, with a few bigger SPS chests, epic monsters, and gold cards.
Guild Brawls:
Guild Brawl #122, playing Bronze League Gold Foil Only. Another terrible showing for the guild, as we came in last place with at least 3 people either failing to submit teams or just losing all their matches. I expect it was probably the former, and people just forgot to enter their teams.
Vs. RENT-TO-WIN of FORBIDDEN SUMMONERS
Vs. PAULPAUL1996 of LUCRATIVE DEGENERATES
Vs. CLEV of SL - SPANISH ELITE
Vs. MARIO13 of [KOG] AEGIS OF GLORY
Vs. JAZZJAM of BLOCKCHAIN HEROES
Guild Brawl #123, playing Bronze League Gold Foil Only. I think everyone managed to submit their brawls this time, as the guild came in 4th from last place. Not great, but better than the previous week. I didn't have a lot of matches, but did fairly well this time around.
Vs. MICHAELJNZ of PLAYER CONTROLLED BETS
Vs. MONKEY8128 of RAIDERS OF ROHAN - opponent fled
I did open one more Gladiator pack, with the usual results:
Really better than average results, with 3 rares. But, no gold foil cards for the particular brawl rule set that I fill for the guild.
The Rest:
I've pretty much given up on playing tournaments, outside of any big special events. Part of it is that I feel kind of awkward working on the game. I feel like tournament prizes should be mainly for the end users, even though some other team members do still play in tournaments regularly.
Anyhow, no trading either this past week. I've mainly just been renting out some of my extra cards. I could probably manage those better, but the time commitment to do so is a little tough. I know there are rental bots, but I'm not about to give out any of my account keys.
While I'm getting fewer seasonal reward chests of late, since it seems like a lot more people are playing max level cards for Gold league, I did get a pretty good set of rewards on both accounts this season:
These are Gold chest on my InvestYGator account.
A Chaos Legion pack, one of the best legendary reward cards available, and an epic card are pretty solid for forty chests.
The Diamond league chests on my main account.
Two Chaos Legion packs, two legendary monsters, and a gold foil common! Tons of potions too, as usual from higher tier chests.
While the game seems like it's had a ton of changes this past year, it also seems like very little has changed. I'm still farming rewards in Gold league for the most part, although I do now have a few max level cards for when I manage to limp into Diamond at the end of the season. I also started my InvestYGator account early this year, so I guess that was a big change. While my collection has also grown quite a bit, the value in US dollar terms has shrunk from the heady highs of early 2022.
Still, I'm hopeful that 2023 will be a good year for the game. With any luck, Land functionality will finally come out and we'll see that add a new mechanism for locking up cards. Plus, if the Tower Defense game comes out, they've also said that will use Splinterlands cards to give bonuses. Also, I would kind of like to play the Tower Defense game personally.
That's about it for 2022! I hope that you had a good year, even though we're in a tough place for crypto markets at the end of it. Thank you for reading and see you in 2023!
