My Splinterlands Blog #54 – Not So Diamond Hands, or Moving On Up

Welcome to another weekly update on my attempt to challenge the Splinterlands ranked leagues! Initially it was a self challenge, to see how far I could get with the initial set of cards plus whatever I could win. But, that kind of fell apart around week 30 (with the game integrating with the WAX network and users being able to buy and sell cards on Atomic Hub).

The Splinterlands servers have been a bit more stable of late. There have still been some issues, like lots of people being oblivious to the need to write down their Hive account keys, but that's just me complaining about the most common issue in the support backlog. On the upside, there have been a couple of patches since my last article!

After a lot of complaints coming in about compromised accounts, the developers put out a patch requiring you to provide your account keys to do more things in the game. The makes it much harder to get anything stolen with a simple breach of your Splinterlands password, but has led to a mass influx of people asking how to get their keys.

The bigger news is that the new set release is coming out in a little over a week! They added the pack icons in-game, though they won't be able to be opened until November when the set is officially released. The pre-sale is going to be limited to users staking their Splintershard tokens (SPS) in-game. I'm hoping to have enough for about 3 pack vouchers a day, though that will be far less than the amount needed to get all of the promotional items from bigger pre-sale purchases - in-game title, promo card, and top 6 buyers get to design a card.

The Chaos Legion pack art.

With Chaos Legion coming soon, Dark Energy Crystals (DEC) and SPS have both spiked in price. DEC is now worth about 1 cent each, at the time of this writing. My resolve to hold my stockpile of DEC didn't last, as I picked up two collections of cards, giving me a solid set of Earth and Water cards for Gold league play.

I may go into what I got a bit more at the end, but I decided that I'm going to go ahead and play in Gold league this season. Granted, I didn't decide that until almost half way through the season. Anyhow, on to the usual breakdown of the past week!

Daily Quest Rewards:

Daily Quest # 393 - Win 5 with Fire…re-rolled to Win 3 with No Neutral. For completing this daily quest, I got a Pelacor Mercenary (common monster) and 38 DEC (10 + 3 + 25).

At higher levels, this card gets health regenerate. Not quite a Flesh Golem, but much cheaper to acquire now.

Daily Quest # 394 - Win 5 with Water. For finishing this daily quest, I got 6 DEC, 2 Gold Potions, and a Venari Bonesmith (rare monster).

Daily Quest # 395 - Win 5 with Earth. For completing this daily quest, I received 2 Gargoya Lions (common monster), a Gold potion, and a Legendary potion.

Daily Quest # 396 - Win 3 with No Neutral. For finishing this daily quest, I received 3 Gold potions and a Pelacor Deceiver (common monster).

Daily Quest # 397 - Win 3 with No Neutral. For completing this daily quest, I got a Legendary potion, 16 DEC (10 + 6), and a Gargoya Devil (rare monster).

Daily Quest # 398 - Win 5 with Death… re-rolled to Win 5 with Life. For finishing this daily quest, I received 4 DEC, 2 Gold potions, and a Pelacor Mercenary.

Cards with no attack are not my favorite. Both Life and Fire got one in the new reward set.

Daily Quest # 399 - Win 5 with Sneak. This is where I went crazy and bought a lot of cards. I finished my daily quest in Gold II, getting 2 Pelacor Bandits (common monster), a Pelacor Mercenary, a Pelacor Conjurer (common monster), a Gargoya Lion, and 6 DEC (2 + 4).

Daily Quest # 400 - Win 5 with Snipe. Still finished in Gold II after getting close to Gold I, then going on a losing streak. For completing this quest, I got 2 Venari Wavesmiths (rare monster), a Pelacor Deceiver, a Legendary potion, and 44 (7 + 19 + 18) DEC.

I broke down and started opening some more of my packs. I opened 2 more Untamed packs, so packs 25 and 26 out of my 50 that I was slowly opening. I also opened the Beta pack I won, since the Beta cards will be cycling out of the "ghost" cards once Chaos Legion comes out. Granted, I probably should have just sold it and bought Beta cards with the funds!

Very happy to see a Gold foil in this one!

A more average pack, with nothing too spectacular.

Happy to see three rares in this Beta pack, but sad that none of them was a Summoner card. The commons are also some nice ones as well.

Tournaments:

Thursday Bronze Blunderbuss, no legendary cards, Untamed sets tournament. These have become quite competitive. I did a poor 5-5-1 to not make day 2. However, I still came in 29th place for 25 SPS.

Stache Classic Bronze League Qualifier tournament. I rented Yodin and Llama, but really messed up my lineup and lost in the first round. A little less panicked team building on my part and I could have gone further. Ah well, I wouldn't have been able to attend the main tournament, as I'll be out of town.

Sunday Bronze Blunderbuss, no legendary cards, all sets allowed tournament. One of my better showings in a while, I finished day one 10-1. I finished day two 18-4 to come in 5th place for 125 SPS.

It seems that if I'm playing in Gold League, I'll have to move up to higher tier tournaments. The Bronze Blunderbuss are intended for Silver and lower. I'm finishing up one last Bronze tournament, then I'll have to see if I stand any chance in the Silver level tournaments.

Guild Brawls:

Guild Brawl #37, playing Gold foil Bronze, Untamed set only. The guild overall came in 2nd place for this Brawl, though I only had one match.

Vs. FWXIII of Team Possible Hackers

Guild Brawl #38, playing Gold foil Bronze, Untamed set only. A couple of people who missed submitting matches for this one, and the guild came in 5th place.

Vs Golden Pachu of SL- Spanish Elite

Vs IVAN23 of NFT Warriors

Vs AXRHO of KORTKLUBBEN - Opponent failed to submit a team.

Vs MAICEFAICE of PERPETUALS

One match I played after moving into Gold I wanted to leave a link for, since it was an unexpected win. This seemed like a good place for it!

The Rest:

Nothing of note on InvestYGator account this week. Just getting more new reward cards and potions. I didn't sell anything, but I did go on a bit of a buying spree. I picked up a few new reward cards, mainly a Djinn Oshannus and a level 2 Djinn Chwala.

As mentioned earlier, I bought two collections that were up on PeakMonsters. Both were listed at 10-20% under the market value of the cards. In theory, I should be able to flip them for a profit. If I were to actually sell them that is. So far, I've just been using them to play in Gold league.

At this point, I have a single Gold level summoner for every Splinter. However, only Water and Earth now have cards at that level, from the sets I just bought. I really need to take some time to consolidate cards between my two accounts, and sell or rent out the extra.

Case in point, I now have a level 5 and level 6 Bortus. I could technically combine them to get a max level card, but the only max level water card I own is a Ruler of the Seas that came in that Water set. The smart thing to do would be to sell, or trade, both the Ruler of the Seas and the level 5 Bortus.

Level 3 Kron doesn't even need a Llama to Last Stand.

Trying to get a max level deck is way outside of my finances, though I may be able to make it into low tier Diamond by the end of the season if I grind through for enough wins! Still, my collection is huge compared to most new players coming into the game. I just happened to get in a year ago, when everything was a lot cheaper.

First world problems, I know. On the bright side for most players, I do tend to put stuff up for rent for far cheaper than I probably should. If I do manage to get into Diamond at the end of the season, I'll also do another delegation contest for anyone reading my posts.

I feel like this has been a pretty long mid-season update, so I'll just wrap things up by saying thank you for reading! If you have any comments, suggestions, or feedback please let me know in the comments below and I'll be back in a week with a season wrap up!