Splinterlands | How playing a game became my best investment in 2021

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I have been playing splinterlands for about 5 months now (since march 2021). I thought I was just getting in to a simple game that could make me some pocket money, I liked the idea. However, recently I checked the total value of my deck and was amazed by how much my cards had increased in value.

In this post I will discuss splinterlands, a blockchain nft card game, it's still a great time to get involved!

What is splinterlands

Splinterlands is a collectible nft card game on the HIVE blockchain. It's still growing very fast and new features are added to the game very often. One of the biggest upcoming changes will include splinterlands lands. But let's stick to the basics for now.

In splinterlands you can battle other players with your NFTs. Every game only take a minute or 2 and you will only be actively "playing" for less than that. It's a semi-passive game where you have to select your lineup, but you don't have to interact or do anything while the battle is happening (therfore, the actual battle is also skippable). However, do not make the mistake of thinking that it's a boring game that feels like a gamified faucet. Splinterlands is an actual game where you need to think a lot about strategy. My main argument to consider playing splinterlands is still that it's simply a very fun game.

Splinterlands cards, packs, lands, totems, etc are all trade-able NFTs. You can either buy cards directly from the market (= from other players) or you can buy packs from splinterlands (= a limited pool) that include 5 cards.

If you are wondering how the actual game looks like, let me show you the battlefield.

Splinterlands as a game

As I already mentioned, my main argument to play splinterlands is: It's fun. They are really doing a lot of things right. It's impressive how many games I have played and I still don't feel like it's repetitive. There are multiple mechanisms at work that don't allow us to simply play the same lineup over and over again.

There are plenty of more in-depth explanations of the game out there, but let me try to explain the basics in a very simple way.

At the beginning of the game you have to chose between a splinter (consider this a "faction", these include water, fire, earth, life, death, dragon) and a summoner. A summoner belongs to a certain splinter and can grant your monsters certain bonuses. After that you will select your lineup off monsters, these have to belong to your splinter or be "neutral" (meaning they don't belong to a specific splinter). Now, every game has it's own rules (these are chosen -somewhat- at random) and this mechanism makes it important that the players actually actively think about their lineup every single game. It all sounds easy enough, but I'm actually impressed by how well this concept works and how long the game remains interesting after months of playing.

Other aspects that keep the game interesting are: leagues, daily rewards, season rewards, levelling your summoners and monsters, guilds, guild brawls, tournaments... Just to give you an idea.

The first battles you play might not seem that interesting, but trust me, it gets better!

Splinterlands as an investment

So, let's talk about splinterlands as an investment. Spoiler: I think it's great! I have invested around $100 in total, and my total deck value today is $575. Sure, I have earned a lot from playing the game, so my time can also considered an investment, but as long as I'm having fun, this doesn't count in my opinion.

For starters, you will have to pay $10 to actual be able to play the game (there is a free version, but this will not allow you to earn any money). After that you can simply start by playing and earn some dark energy crystals (DEC), these are the direct in-game currency (easy to convert if you would want to). Every day you will get a quest that will earn you a reward (can be a card, can be some DEC or something else).

If you only spend $10, the initial fase will be slow, it wil feel like it takes a long time before you can actually buy some of the decent cards. As with many games, the better you get at the game (both in terms of skill and in terms of having a good set of cards) the more money you will earn. Therefore, in the very beginning it might not seem like the best investment, but it will get better over time. You can either invest in cards, rent cards or blog on the hive network to boost your start.

Now, you don't have to play the game to invest, but it will be a huge bonus because I feel like there are better opportunities if you understand the game and the value of these cards. If you don't play, I feel like you should at least learn about the game. Anyway, I have always felt very good about my investments because I simply understood that a certain card on it's own was strong enough to boost a player to a higher league, which means he would earn more money, which means the card will be super valuable. Simply understanding this before other players do creates huge investment opportunities. But even if you are just buying average cards, as splinterlands keeps growing, the value of these cards will also go up.

As an example, I bought a Yodin Zaku for $32 dollars 2 months ago, now he is worth $120. I was pretty confident in my decision at the time because I realized how strong this card was.

Related opportunities

Being involved in splinterlands does open a door to related investment opportunities. I mentioned blogging on the HIVE network, well there are many opportunities here, especially related to blogging. Even if you don't blog, simply being active and staking crypto allows you to make a decent amount of crypto on the side.

Also, splinterlands is releasing a governance token very soon: splintershards (SPS), and this will be airdropped to players who own splinterlands related assets over the course of the next 12 months. This means it's an even better time to get involved.

Should you get involved?

So it can be a bit overwhelming if you are completely new to the concept of blockchain gaming or even just to splinterlands. However, you don't need to know every little detail about the game to get involved and make some extra crypto on the side. You ease into the game and decide later whether or not you want to invest more time & money into the game.

So long story short, yeah I think you should get involved. Prices have been going up a lot lately, but we are still early adopters here and the opportunity is huge. Also, I have a lot of faith in splinterlands as an investment because the game itself is so solid. I feel pretty safe to spend $100 on a (good) splinterlands card, because I know players will need this card to get better at the game. Getting better at the game also means earning more money, therefore I'm usually pretty confident I'm making good investments when we are talking about splinterland cards.

How much do I earn on a daily base?

I can imagine some of you are interested in specifics so let me quickly share these with you.

Let me present you my previous season rewards (every season takes 14 days) on a day to day basis.

Daily rewards: $14.35

(Average of $1.02 per day)

Day 1: $0.155

Day 2: $1.09

Day 3: $0.11

Day 4: $2.01

Day 5: $0.15

Day 6: $0.02

Day 7: $0.11

Day 8: $0.02

Day 9: $9.15

Day 10: $0.48

Day 11: $0.38

Day 12: $0.02

Day 13: $0.44

Day 14: $0.21

Season rewards: $9.05

All the rewards consist of cards and random DEC amounts:

DEC rewards

On top of daily rewards and season rewards the game also rewards you with an amount of dec for each game that you win. This way I earned another 4761 DEC ($4.76)

Potions

If you were wondering what these weird looking potions are, if you use them when you open a card pack they will increase the chance of getting valuable cards. Potions do have value, (4 or 5 cents each), but they are not directly trade-able (these are no NFTs) so I will ignore these rewards.

Total rewards

The total value of the rewards that I earned this season: $28.16 ($2.01 per day).

Not too bad for simply playing a game, right? However, keep in mind that this can vary a lot from season to season, and it also depends on your personal rating.

Conclusion

The fact that the game is solid actually provides a sort of trust for the value of the cards. There are too many players that are actively looking to build a stronger deck, that I cannot imagine cards dropping huge in value.

If splinterlands seems interesting to you, I think you should get involved now. Whether you just want to pay $10 and dip your feet, or you want to throw in the big bucks, you are not going to regret it.

I seriously believe that we are still very early in the process and my only regret is that I did not invest more into the game a couple of months ago, because my investment has grown more than 500% so far, and it's still continuing to grow.

Anyway, if you would sign up, it would be really appreciated if you use my affiliate link: https://splinterlands.com/?ref=freeztag

I know this post was a bit all over the place, but I would recommend to join the HIVE network and the splinterlands discord, you can learn all there is to know right there.