I made it to Diamond I the other day. Today, on the last day of the season, I'm hoping to make it back up to Diamond I. There's essentially no chance at all that I'll make it to Champion League this season, which has been my goal for the past few seasons. I used to make it to Champion League every time.

My highest rank ever was 7. I made it to 7th place once. It wasn't in the very beginning of the game, either. I didn't play that early on. When I got 7th place, I had essentially every Beta card and Reward card available at the time at max level. Life got in the way and I thought I'd be better off selling my collection for the money. It did help a lot at the time, but my financial situation changed almost immediately afterward and I regretted it. Never again. I'll take a second job before I'll sell my Splinterlands cards now.

I need more Beta cards

At the Diamond I level, a lot of people are still using a lot of earlier Beta and Reward cards against me. The Untamed and Dice cards I have in my deck now are powerful in their own ways, but none of them are good substitutes for some of the trusty old Alpha or Beta cards. I refer to them as Beta now because there's definitely no way in hell I could ever afford to buy max level Alpha cards at this point.

Why don't I just rent them?

I don't want to, I guess? Maybe that'll change when the new rental system goes live, but I don't like renting with Hive or HBD because the prices of those coins changes so drastically over time. I do like playing the game, but it's probably an investment more than it is a game to me. If I could get some of those useful Beta cards now, I am certain the value would only go up, at least in the near term. Is that a word? I even know anymore, bro. ha.

I'll keep trying

I'll admit that I'm not as confident in my ability to choose the best cards now as I was back when I was "better" at the game. Until very recently, I've only been playing a little bit every day. Getting my quests done and usually not much more. My employment situation has changed and it looks like I'll be playing the role of student instead of employee in the near future. For now, I have plenty of time to work on my Splinterlands skills. I'll try to figure out better combinations of my Untamed and Dice cards and figure out which ones work best for which rule sets and mana caps and whatnot.

One place I really struggle now is low mana cap battles. Unless I can use the Scarred Llama Mage and just one powerful tank. That works a lot of times.

Good luck out there! Take no prisoners. Mercy is for the weak!