As I have now been playing Steem Monsters and Drug Wars for several months, I've wanted to contribute something of ACTIONABLE value to my fellow players (and FUTURE players) - but NOT just fill my Steemit feed with daily images of quest reward - or battle - SPAM, (no offense to those doing so). Ultimately, Steemit is about ADDING VALUE to the social experience - that is the magic of blockchain technology. So, after some serious pondering, I decided that a weekly "Steem Monsters + Drugs Wars player strategy diary" type series, with CONCISE and ACTIONABLE tips, would be of most value to my audience. Please let me know your thoughts (good and/or bad), and I hope that readers (now and into the future) will benefit from this series. If you gain a better understanding of blockchain, gaming, "blockchain gaming", marketing, and/or any other area of knowledge I end up exploring as this series naturally progresses, then I will have done my "good deed" (of providing value) for the week. Also, feel free to hit me up on the battlefield...

@transcript-junky

( 1 ) Well folks, the good news is that I have taken "Step 1": I am a SteemMonsters card (pack-opening) addict. I just can't stop. In fact, on a complete whim one day this past week I just decided to go ahead and sell another 0.03 Bitcoin to buy another 100 (+10 free) pack batch nof "Orb" cards. Well, it turns out that the "crypto gods" had guided me properly, as (from the images of this post) you can see that I landed NOT ONLY ONE "Minatour Warrior (Gold)" card, but TWO! That's basically $200 USD x 2 = $400 USD worth of power-cards (NOT INCLUDING the additional ~ $110 USD of gold cards in the 110 packs - I keep track of EACH of the gold cards I get (and their values) whenever I open packs, and this DOES NOT include the $2-3 USD non-gold (rare) cards, of which I got DOZENS). This is not only a VALUABLE and extremely rare card, buth the double bonus is that it is literally one of my TOP 5 favorite cards of all! In the end it cost me ~ 1570 Steem ((or 242,500 DEC) for the 110 "Orb" batch) + 19,400 DEC (~ 125 Steem) for the "Brilliant Legendary Potion" (500 "charges" (applied to opened 500 cards)), + 24,250 DEC (~ 155 Steem) for the "Brilliant Alchemy (Gold) Potion" (500 "charges" (applied to opened 500 cards)), for a grand total of of 1,850 Steem x ~ $0.15 = $277.50 USD. This is the total cost of the 110-pack of "Orbs" plus the two potions. I also keep a meticulous record of the value of the cards I open (specifically the gold and legendaries). Every time I get a gold or legendary I add it to the list, and after opening 10 packs I calculate the subtotal, and then the total at the end. The total of the gold and legendary "Orb" cards EXCLUDING the ~ $400 worth of the two Minataur Warrior gold card was around $250 USD. So those cards essentially covered the cost of the packs and potions, and then the rest is profit. However, the most important thing to keep in mind is the longer-term ROI on these gold and promo cards, which pay out 10% - 20% of bonus DEC per battle, which can end up being worth "big bucks" over time. Like, if I can earn 2,425 DEC per day via battling (which is very much possible, and commonly happens), and then buy one "Orb" pack, and hit a major card (for instance, a "Corrupted Pegasus" (level 1 - non-gold) - which is worth around $12 USD) then that additional value is a DERIVATIVE of the long-term DEC earnings from the "Orb" (and non-"Orb" gold) cards. The point is the more DEC-earning cards you can add to your collection the more earning potential you enable. This is why I am recommending to everyone I know that they buy at least one 100 (+10 free) "Orb" promo batches. As of writing this there are 118,500k packs remaining, so get them while they're still there to be gotten. It should be interesting to see if, and how much, the value of the "Orb" cards appreciate once they run out. Well, having now purchased THREE 100 (+10 free) batches of the "Orb" promo packs I feel like I am getting a lot of the same cards, and I think that it is best to revert back to simply purchasing individual packs with my daily DEC earnings, since this does not require tapping into my finite stash of BTC.

( 2 ) The strategic combination of daily quest reward cards, plus DEC earned in battles, plus weekly steem series post income, plus a few tournament winnings has generally been now allowing me to achieve my two current goals of buying one "Orb" pack per day, AND saving enough DEC (let's just say 1,000 DEC per day) to be able to comfortably replenish my gold and legendary brilliant potions when they run out (roughly once a month). I've also found that if I get "stuck" trying to complete the daily quest, buying and opening my one daily "Orb" pack usually rejuvenates my motivation to finish off the quest, especially if I land one or more high-octane 'Orb" cards. A I said, I am a "pack-opening addict" at this point, and if I go too long without my "fix" things start to get messy. For instance, I can buy (and open) one "Orb" pack around half a day between quest completions, which allows me to consitently get my JOLLIES by satiating my "addiction" to opening packs - especially if I am having trouble completing the quest. Being stuck on a difficult quest is one of the situations where you have to be careful not to throw your laptop out of the window. Having the "coping strategy" of opening the "Orb" pack mitigates this risk significantly. And if I just so happen to be lucky, on a given day, to pull an UBER-JUICY "legendary gold promo" card (like the "Minatuar Warrior (Gold)" cards in the images of this post (and described in #1 above)) then that one day of DEC earnings from playing ends up being mega-amplified. This also allows me to reinvest my daily play earnings WITHOUT having to tap into additional BTC.

( 3 ) I have mentioned in the past that my interest in the "Drug Wars" game has fluctuated over time. The main issue is that it's not as "dynamic" as #steemmonsters, where there is a more "real-time" playing component. That being said, for now, it CONTINUES to be an interesting game for me, in terms of the marketing evolution of the game, AND as a way to primarily generate some more "Drug Wars Dollars" (DWD) which can then be converted into "Dark Energy Tokens" to buy more SteemMonsters cards. Since I have joined the new gang, and since my production of all DrugWars assets was already at a decently high level, I have found some renewed interest in the game in terms of being able to now contribute 500k of all three assets (drugs, weapons, and alcohol) to the gang buildings daily. This one easy thing I can do each day which helps move things forward, and with my current resource production it is not a big loss. It also helps me maintain a sense of community with my other gang members, which is an antidote to the general sense of boredom I have had with the game. Thhis week I did some browsing around the gang Discord server, and it appears that the members ARE quite active, and everyone has been sharing some interesting and valuable strategy tips. Since my production value is higher than many of the other gang members I have decided to take on more of a "support" role. That is, I can make my large daily contribution towards upgrading the gang buildings (which helps everybody) AND ALSO continue building my army so that if one of the other gang members gets hit hard I can immediately help replenish their forces. This strategy also makes me less prone to be attacked, since my main activities for building my production capacity come from finding undefended prey and "helping them use their resources more productively" (by taking them ;->) Hey, I consider it a form "community service" by making unused resources USED again. I am now trying to log in to the gang's Discord server every 2-3 days to stay abreast of any new information and/or strategy initiatives.

( 4 ) I finally figured out how to get my ~ 7,000 SteemHunt (HUNT) tokens out of the SteemHunt wallet, into MetaMask, and after a major goof of depositing the tokens into ProBit (which turns out NOT to enable you to trade HUNT for BTC) I ended up connecting with @holovision, who is a regular contributor of interesting product "hunts" which I upvote via @steemfollower ( https://old.steemfollower.com/?r=4088) daily, and we struck a mutually beneficial deal by which he made me an offer for a deeply discounted rate for the HUNT tokens (paid in Ethereum), and since I had a good feeling that the amount of ETH offered for the trade would get me significantly further along with my SteemMonsters effort, I agreed. It turned out to be a total win-win deal, since he made it easy for me to liquidate those ~ 165 Steem worth of HUNT tokens (after spending hours unsuccessfully trying to achieve that goal), and I was able to buy a new "Brilliant +100% (Gold) Alchemy" potion (500 charges), and then continue opening the remaining 13 packs I had from the recent 100 (+10 free) batch of "Orb"cards. I was also able to buy seven (7) additional "Orb" packs with the leftover Steem from the HUNT sell, and after opening all 20 packs I ended up with over $30 USD in valuable SteemMonsters cards (all of which were "promo", and a few "gold promo" - which means a nice long-term boost in DEC earnings, since "promo" cards earn an extra 10% DEC per won battle, and "gold promo" cards earn 20% (10% for "promo" PLUS 10% for "gold"). I continue to earn HUNT tokens daily, and this recent sell included the original airdrop of HUNT tokens, so I was long overdue to liquidate them. it was good to also try (and succeed) at going through the process of liquidating the HUNT tokens, and I think there is a good chance that @holovision will be interested in buying some more HUNT from me in the future (perhaps once a year), which I can then use to buy more SteemMOnsters cards. It's good that I was able to reallocate that crypt from the more stagnant HUNT token into the more dynamic SteemMonsters cards, which pay an ongoing "dividend" via winning battles using the cards. Overall it was a good move.

( 5 ) I must say again that we have quite a nice collaboration going on within my SteemMonsters guild "DEC Hunters". With the new Discord server dedicated to the guild it is easier to chat, and share photos of card drops, and promote some related posts (like the one in this series), and have a more fluid conversation than the more basic chat feature offered in the guild "Tavern". I ended up having a very enlightening exchange with @costanza a few days ago, who brought up a few thought-provoking ideas that got my intellectual motor running. Firstly, he made the claim that "all games eventually fizzle out" (in terms of their popularity and activity of players). This is actually a very profound point. How long will SteemMonsters be "hot" into the future? My original question to him was whether or not I should invest more Bitcoin (converted to Steem) into SteemMonsters to buy cards, and therefore up my DEC- earning capacity. My MAIN goal has been to earn back ALL of the original Bitcoin (now around .13 BTC I have used to buy the 5-6 batches of 100 (+10 free) packs in the past two months. If I can earn back that 0.13 BTC by predicting how long SteemMonsters will be a "hot" game (where card values are both appreciating AND liquid) then I could then calculate a MONTHLY amount of DEC (from battle earnings) to convert to Steem and then back to Bitcoin. So, if 0.13 BTC is valued at roughly $9,200 (as of writing this post) then that's an initial investment of ~ $1,200 USD. The current value of my card collection (on PeakMonsters : https://peakmonsters.com/@transcript-junky/collection ) at AT LEAST $2,000 USD, and so if I were to liquidate all of my cards NOW I could easily recoup the initial investment. But why do that now when SteemMonsters is just getting warmed up - especially if by selling my main cards I lose the ability to BOTH play the game AND earn additional DEC to buy more cards, etc.? This also doesn't account for the appreciation of value of the cards, NOR the flutuation in the value of either Bitcoin and/or Steem. This is why it's probably best to use a more gradual recuperation of the original $1,200 USD investment. So, if we predict that SteemMonsters is just beginning to get "hot" then I don't think it would be outlandish to assume that it will be viable for the next five years (at least). So based on the numbers --> 5 years x 12 months = 60 months. So $1,200 / 60 months = ~ $20 USD/month (Whoa! Look at that cool round number!). So, if I can stick to converting $20 USD worth of monthly DEC from SteemMonsters into Steem, and then into Bitcoin, by the end of five years I will have recouped all of my initial investment, but STILL have a full collection of core cards, and be able to continue to earn DEC untilthe games becomes less viable. I can also sell my collection at that point, and it will all be profit. But ANOTHER important thing is that SteemMonsters is JUST ONE of the growing MASS of blockchain games hitting the mass market, and so this means that it is likely that I will be able to HEDGE/DIVERSIFY some of my crypto (DEC) gains into OTHER games, and strategically take advantage of the "life cycles" of the new games as they are launched, give out airdrops, etc. Ultimately, @constanze made another profound point, by saying something like, "It's the "meta" aspect of the game I really enjoy." I totally agree with this, which is the main purpose of me starting this series to begin with. This series (in combination with my weekly "blockchain gaming" series) is intended to explore the wider "blockchain gaming" INDUSTRY, since I am now convinced that "blockchain gaming" will be the MAIN catalyst propelling crypto to the masses. It's fun, and intellectually stimulating, to PLAY these games, AND to analyse the INNOVATION and MARKETING aspects of these games, AND to become more deeply "crypto/blockchain literate" through the daily USE of these blockchain-based games. I mean, who doesn't like games, right? Do you think that the cavemen of the prehistoric era just sat around their caves doing nuthin' but huntin, gatherin', humpin' and fightin'? I think it would be safe to assume that they got more enjoyment out of their primitiv GAMES then the more tedious tasks of bare-bones survival. Just something to consider.

I hope you find some/any of these tips useful in increasing your understanding and/or skill level in the Steem Monsters (Splinterland) and/or Drug Wars game(s). More JUICY tips to come with each weekly update, as I become more experienced and successful in the game.

See you on the battlefield...

@transcript-junky