"Splinterlands" Power Strategy Tips #74

As I have now been playing "Splinterlands" for over a year, I've wanted to contribute something of ACTIONABLE value to my fellow players (and FUTURE players) - but NOT just fill my #Hive feed with daily images of quest reward - or battle - SPAM (no offense to those doing so). Ultimately, Hive is about ADDING VALUE to the social experience - that is the magic of blockchain social media technology. So, after some serious pondering, I decided that a weekly "Splinterlands" 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, psychology, addiction science, geopolitics, forensics, law, ethics, philosophy, accounting, ergonomics, investing, anger management, "guerilla warfare (digital and/or non-digital), and/or any other area(s) of knowledge I end up exploring (voluntarily or involuntarily) as this series naturally progresses, then I will have done my "good deed" (of providing value) for the week - and have a little extra Hive to buy/upgrade some more Splinterlands cards and/or buy some more swap.btc ( #Bitcoin ). Also, feel free to hit me up on the battlefield.

@transcript-junky

1 ) The land-presale raffle DUMP turned out to be quiet JUICY for me. I hit one free land plot (so that's one out of three for this month's land plot purchase quota ( equivalent to 15k DEC at my current purchase price from guild leader, and buddy, @nicole-st). I also placed in the lowest tier of one tournament this week, and won 15,000 DEC (with which I bought another plot of land), and then 33rd place in another gold tournament (which got me one of the "unofficial, ""E" for effort" payouts of 10,000 DEC (instead of the lower tier 15k DEC)). Each of these two tournament had the (maximum) 10 DEC entry fee - along with my new strategy of only paying 10 DEC entry fee per tournament (which is placed to minimize bot activity) - as I learned (the hard way) last week that paying anything above 10 DEC migrates into "pay for play" territory, which TENDS to lead to "negative" outcomes, in my personal experience. The good thing is that I have now recouped 25,000 DEC out of the ~ 155,000 DEC I lost as a result of last week's "descent into "pay for play" traditional gambling", resulting from losing the 5,000 DEC entry fee from that one tournament. So I now need to recoup an additional 155,000 DEC - 25,000 DEC = 130,000 DEC to offset that total significant hit. The good news is that the two tournaments I won the 25k DEC in this week were ones where my collection power was "just merely" above the requirement to enter the tournaments. Plus, in EACH of these tournaments I only won ONE battle, but still placed (or placed "close enough") to receive a JUICY payout. This REINFORCES my theory that entering ANY/ALL higher-level tournaments is well worth the 10 DEC entry fee, as JUST ENTERING these higher level tournaments gives you a good chance of winning something. To put things into perspective, 25k DEC is enough to buy NINE (9) Dice packs, so it's not "chump change".

I also landed 15 Dice packs in the pre-land raffle, and since I had accumulated enough gold and legendary potions (through quest and season dumps) to cover opening ALL 15 of those packs I opened them all. This was a way to ACTUALLY USE those accumulated potions. I hit one or two gold cards, but nothing especially JUICY. Then again, ALL of these cards were free cards. I also got 13 additional Untamed packs to add to my reserve of "season milestone" packs (now up to 25 packs (or up to FIVE SEASONS worth of milestone packs), which puts me in a good place. The gold and legendary potions which I will earn in the next month will cover all 25 x 5 = 125 Untamed cards in those 25 milestone packs.

2 ) In the previous post of this series I detailed the recent DEBACLE by which I entered one of the "The Wealthy Gambit" tournaments by paying 5,000 DEC, didn't place in the lowest paying tier, and descended into a CASCADE of "chasing" loss which wiped out 55,000 DEC + all of my ~ 0.0018 swap.btc ( ~ $125 USD of value overall once the ashes had settled). As I also explained, I decided to NOT "get angry", but to "get proactive", and as a result I took a few days to (aside from boycotting @hive-engine) meditate on this recent loss and figure out some additional ways to "make lemonade out of lemons"). One positive thing which came out of this recent crisis is that it brought my DEC balance all the way down to ZERO (with the exception of the 15,000 DEC I put aside to pay for my "one monthly plot of land for 15k" from my guild leader, on the agreed upon date of Feb 1st, 2021). In fact, after explaining this recent crisis to my guild leader he also agreed to sell me up to 1-2 ADDITIONAL land plots per month for 15k DEC each (which we had actually briefly discussed last week, before I decided to buy any plots over the "one per month at 15k" agreed upon) using @hive-engine (which I am now boycotting). So this means I will now be able to buy up to THREE plots per month at 15k DEC each for the next year, and not have to deal with the nonsense over at Hive-Engine. Secondly, by starting at zero DEC I can begin to monitor the amount of DEC I am able to reasonably accumulate over time. This was harder to do when I had over 100,000 DEC in my in-game wallet. One adjustment I have made relative to this is to limit my daily purchase to ONLY ONE gold card per day, so that I can CONTINUE building my gold card collection WHILE ALSO replenishing the DEC I lost in the recent catastrophe ( which was ~ 155,000 DEC ). As I have said, and shown, in past posts, it is MOST IDEAL to always have some liquid DEC on hand in case new opportunities are made available (like the KOGS promo, and others), and monitoring things over time has shown me that opportunities are REGULARLY becoming available. If you don't have any liquid DEC on hand, though, you may very well miss out on such opportunities ( and resulting profit) - some of which can help offset the recent loss I had. One of the shorter-term goals I am setting is to focus on generating 15k + 15 k DEC ( so 30k DEC ) per month to be able to buy TWO plots of land from my guild leader, @nicole-st. In one way, this recent mess may have been a blessing in disguise, as tends to happen in life, and crypto. "The "crypto gods" GIVETH, and the "crypto gods" TAKETH AWAY...

3 ) In the wake of the 155,000 DEC ( DEC plus swap.btc combination) loss of last week, this week I will be focusing on sorting out the logistics of purchasing #Bitcoin DIRECTLY via @block-trades ( sent from my Hive wallet to my Mycelium BTC wallet), as well as the logistics of converting DEC (from my in-game Splinterlands wallet) to Bitcoin - using Hive-Engine to convert DEC to Hive - ONLY because that's the only way to liquidate DEC - and then purchasing Bitcoin with the Hive (again, via @block-trades), and sending it to my Mycelium wallet. This protocol seems to be the LEAST RISKY way to liquidate value out of Splinterlands and into Bitcoin, where I can more easily convert that BTC into fiat ( via online AND/OR offline channels). The recent LOSS, as well as the recent (successful) experiment of sending swap.btc to BetFury.io and then back, were actually IMPORTANT steps in this larger process of figuring out the best protocol. If I hadn't had the recent loss I may have had problems in the FUTURE if/when I end up in a cash flow crisis and have the need to convert DEC/Hive to Bitcoin, so this may have ALL been a forward-moving experience ( albeit a tough pill to swallow in real-time ).

[UPDATE] After making the above plan I discussed this issue further with @nicole-st and we did some experimentation to see how much loss would be accrued if I tried to purchase Bitcoin with Hive directly using @blocktrades. It turns out that, due to the high Bitcoin mining fees right now, the minimum amount of Hive you can EVEN CONVERT is 63.50 Hive (at the time of experimentation), and that would give me a mere 0.000006 BTC (like $0.09 USD!)

As a result of this I decided that while I try to explore some alternative options I would SLIGHTLY break my boycott, and go ahead and convert Hive to swap.btc (using @hive-engine), because that would basically be THE ONLY way to obtain Bitcoin right now WITHOUT having most of it eaten by transaction fees. The goal for now, with this strategy, would simply be to rebuild, and continue building, my swap.btc holdings until I can figure out a way to get that Bitcoin into my Mycelium account without losing an outlandish amount of the principle in fees. It is likely that LARGER Bitcoin transaction incur LOWER fees, and if that is the case then I will focus, for now, on building my swap.btc holding to, let's say, $25 - $50 USD and then attempt to send that amount of BTC over to my Mycelium wallet via @block-trades. At the same time @nicole-st has offered some alternative solutions (like buying Hive, from me, at the Hive-Engine rate for Bitcoin sent to Mycelium). The important thing right now is that I believe Bitcoin will continue going up and so I want to continue building my reserves.

4 ) Here is an overview of some of my INITIAL thoughts on the Gamestop and silver short "financial guerilla warfare" revolution, how it relates to crypto, and especially how it relates to my past and current activity here on Splinterlands, which is documented in past posts of this series. To keep things grounded, lets first look at my previous strategy of using DEC/Hive earnings to buy #DogeCoin (please refer to posts in this series before and up to September 8th, 2020). Up until September 8th, 2020, when I sold the 39,624 DOGE I had accumulated over several months - as part of my well-considered plan to buy Doge regularly (under the assumption that as a "meme coin" it was subject to PUMP (as we can now see evidence of), as well as due to the low price relative to Hive)). The price of #Doge was stagnant, and I decided to sell all 39,624 DOGE to buy some Splinterlands cards (I believe this is when the "Orbs" packs sold out, and I bought some of those with the DOGE). So, at least I made a STRATEGIC decision, which HAS BEEN paying off since the sell. The bad news is that, based on the value of DOGE on Sept 8th, 2020 compared to Feb 1st 2021, I WOULD HAVE made a JUICY profit of ~ $1,470 USD had I held on through this recent PUMP. Shit happens. The GOOD news, though, is that my MAIN PREMISE was vindicated, and although I missed out on this round, I believe DOGE will CONTINUE to serve this very important function, which it is now serving, and so even at the current price of $0.03985 I will monitor the activity of this token, and LIKELY start to buying it again (weekly) with some of my Splinterlands earnings.

39,624 DOGE - Sept 8th, 2020 x 0.002748 = ~$108.88 USD
39,624 DOGE - February 1st 2021 x 0.03985 = ~ $1,579.00 USD

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$1,579.00 USD - $108.88 USD = ~ $1,470 USD

I am HOLDING to my theory that DOGE has strong long-term fundamentals (as a "meme coin", but also MUCH MORE than that - which we are now starting to understand), and at the low cost, relative to Hive, it is worth throwing some DEC/Hive earnings at DOGE weekly/monthly going forward. That is, even if "the powers that shouldn't be" crack down on crypto (and DOGE specifically) the low cost of DOGE would NOT result in a major loss if one throws $5 - $10 USD per month at it. I mean, if I would have not sold that Doge I would have been able to convert back to Hive for a JUICY profit to buy more land and/or cards, but I made the CALCULATED choice based on the info and options available to me at that time. It would have been nice to have that $1,470 USD profit (to buy some more land plots), but I believe that this is JUST THE BEGINNING, and that the MOST IMPORTANT thing is that my THEORY on why DOGE is valuable is the biggest win in this situation. At such a low price, and given the long shelf-life and underlying fundamentals of DOGE (which I would consider to be a sort of "stablecoin", with some additional functions (like PUMP-potential), I don't think it can hurt to throw a portion of Splinterlands income at this MYSTERIOUS token, long-term. Life is about finding opportunities and taking cautious risks. Also, Elon Musk has made it clear that he is a fan of Doge, and he's a pretty FUNKY guy -even if he is a shape-shifting Draconis Reptilian from Alpha Centauri, or some other other-worldly place. I like FUNKY guys (and GALS).

5 ) Okay. As I did in the last post in this series, the highly-detailed "diary" of my daily #splinterlands activity is laid out in the last part of this post, for those of you who are inclined to follow, more closely, what I am doing. It occurred to me that this "diary" section is JUST THAT - a highly detailed record of my daily activity in the game, with some JUICY "play-by-play" analysis notes, and commentary, on what works, what doesn't, and some suggestions for further tweaking and experimentation. So, with this in mind, I hope some/any of you will enjoy this information. If not, you are under no pressure to read it fully, and are free to SKIM, or even IGNORE, any parts, or ALL parts, completely - at your discretion. I lay this out because it also HELPS ME to document my progress in the game over time, and may help some people NOW, and into the perpetual future...

January 26th, 2021

Starting DEC : 3,721 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 96.25%
Ending DEC - 14,892 DEC
Ending Capture rate : 89.38%
Balance = DEC Earning = 11,171 DEC = 62.748 HIVE x ~ $00.136 USD/Hive = ~ $8.53 USD

Spent :

1 x "Giant Scorpion" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.62 USD - 808 DEC -- six (6) cards remaining to Level 10 (max))

Daily Quest (today's "neutral" quest)
keepers -
(+) 70 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 50 DEC
potions - 2 legendary potions, 2 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 56 DEC

January 27th, 2021

Starting DEC : 14,085 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 100.00%
Ending DEC - 14,982 DEC
Ending Capture rate : 83.64%
Balance = DEC Earning = 897 DEC = 4.884 HIVE x ~ $00.139 USD/Hive = ~ $0.68 USD

Spent :

713 DEC - 1 x quest potion

1 x "Giant Sorpion" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.62 USD - 801 DEC -- five (5) cards remaining to Level 10 (max))

Daily Quest (today's "death" quest)
keepers -
(+) 50 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 100 DEC
potions - 5 legendary potions, 4 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 1 packs
DEC - 30 DEC

Untamed (milestone pack for reaching "Champion III" season level - + 20 loot chests -> 80 season loot chests)
keepers -
1 x "Gloridax Guardian" (non-gold (legendary) - Level 1 - $1.45 USD - 1,000 DEC
non-keepers -
(+) 40 DEC

January 28th, 2021

Starting DEC : 13,468 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 93.60%
Ending DEC - 14,393 DEC
Ending Capture rate : 64.00%
Balance = DEC Earning = 925 DEC = 4.896 HIVE x ~ $00.138 USD/Hive = ~ $0.67 USD

Spent :

705 DEC - 1 x "quest" potion

Daily Quest (today's "earth" quest)
keepers -
(+) 130 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 10 DEC
potions - 2 legendary potions, 6 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 70 DEC

January 29th, 2021

Starting DEC : 13,688 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 73.53%
Ending DEC - 15,957 DEC
Ending Capture rate : 72.38%
Balance = DEC Earning = 2,269 DEC = 12.034 HIVE x ~ $00.138 USD/Hive = ~ $1.66 USD

Spent :

1 x "Giant Scorpion" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.62 USD - 871 DEC -- four (4) cards remaining to Level 10 (max))

Season Rewards ( "Champion II" season level - 120 loot chests )
keepers -
350
(+) DEC
nonkeepers -
1,030 DEC
(+) DEC
potions -
12 legendary potions,
8 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed -
0 packs
DEC -
1,425 DEC

Untamed (season start milestone pack - "Diamond III" level - +40 loot chests -> + 40 season loot chests)
keepers -
1 x "Scarred Llama Mage" (non-gold (legendary summoner) - Level 1 - $19.90 USD - 1,000 DEC -- bumped up to Level 2)
(+) 0 DEC
non-keepers -
(+) 40 DEC

January 30th, 2021

Starting DEC : 15,086 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 83.94%
Ending DEC - 28,047 DEC
Ending Capture rate : 65.13%
Balance = DEC Earning = 2,961 DEC = 15.767 HIVE x ~ $00.136 USD/Hive = ~ $2.13 USD

Spent :

1 x "Giant Scorpion" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.68 USD - 957 DEC -- three (3) cards remaining to Level 10 (max))

earned 10,000 DEC for placing 33rd in the "The Wealthy Gambit" tournament
https://steemmonsters.com/?p=tournament&id=f796246a7885012aaf57ab2d44c97142827429ac

1 x 10 (+1 free) "quest potion - 7,125 DEC

bought one plot of land from nicole-st for 15,000 DEC

Daily Quest (today's "water" quest)
keepers -
(+) 20 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 30 DEC
potions - 3 legendary potions, 4 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 44 DEC

Untamed (milestone pack for reaching "Diamond II" season level -> + 10 loot chests --> + 50 season loot chests)
keepers -
(+) 90 DEC
non-keepers -
(+) 20 DEC

Whew! These posts are growing dense - but that's okay. Take what resonates with you,and leave the rest. I hope you find some/any of these tips useful in increasing your understanding and/or skill level in the Splinterlands and/or any other game(s) - and the " blockchain gaming " industry as whole - which I end up exploring as this series evolves. More JUICY tips to come with each weekly update, as I dig deeper into this whole REVOLUTIONARY PHENOMENON, and become more experienced and successful in the game(s).

See you on the battlefield...

@transcript-junky