I joined Splinterlands: PLEASE HELP ME!

Guess who got a starter pack, you guessed it right. I did. I got in the game through an invite code from Kennet Bosak; he's a crypto influencer with 19.1k followers on Twitter. I responded to one of his tweets about @splinterlands and got a voucher.

I've heard and read a lot of good things from @mistakili and a bunch of others about this card game, so you can understand my excitement to finally get straight into it. I dived in and went into battle but due to some steem chain related issue that isn't connected to the fact that I had no idea about what I was doing, the battle went belly up.

I think I lost that fight but I also think it was a hopeless battle anyways because I mean, look at his rank. That's way out of my pay grade. Speaking of @mistakili, he sent me this fish card. I guess i can use it for undersea battles?

The point is, I'm a splinterlands idiot and while I think I've gotten the VERY BASICS of how battles work, I'm still very very dumb about everything else. I bought 5 Steem worth of DEC, which I suppose is the local currency used on Splinterlands. I'm going to use it to upgrade cards or pay for hookers and alcohol for my cards, all I know is that my monsters gotta stay happy because I wouldn't want them running ragged on Steem.

Speaking of cards, some of them look really dangerous. Just take a look at the Gandalf looking fellow called Alric Stormbringer

So he's a card I can play but he's not actually mine. That's something else I'd like to understand. How long will these cards be playable? what does it mean to "own" a card? Can my cards like, DIE? Like, If I get into a battle with @aggroed and he kicks my ass, will my cards die permanently? I hope not. I've already paid DEC for alcohol.

I won a Battle?

I decided to give the battle thing another shot and this time, I kicked ass but I'm pretty sure I don't know what I was doing. I think I was lucky.

The moral of the story is that I just got into the game and I'd really appreciate any help I can get from the community. Whether it's advice, invitations to tournaments, tricks, gifts, or vouchers. Whatever you got, please hit me with it, and help me get ahead in this game.