Steem Monsters Duels - a New (Unofficial) Way to Play Steem Monsters and Earn STEEM, without Requiring a Starter Pack!

• Are you curious about playing the game called Steem Monsters but have no idea where to start?
• Or are you interested in the Steem Monsters game but aren't sure about paying for a starter pack?
• Or have you won a few cards from free giveaways, and are disappointed that you can't play ranked battles because you don't have a starter pack?
• Or did you get a starter pack and have been playing a lot, but need to take a break to recharge your DEC capture rate even though you still want to keep playing?
• Or do you already play but wish you could earn STEEM instead of DEC?

If you answered yes to either of the above questions, then you may like this new website: Steemmonsters.club, a fan project created by @felipejoys, with the battles part developed alongside @smitop. It has a section called "Steem Monsters Duels," where you input your username in the box and get matched with someone, and after the battle, you earn STEEM no matter if you win or if you lose! So, even if you lose, it's a win! Doesn't this sound cool?

The prize money comes from referrals and rectangular ads on the site (there are no popups).

For those who don't have a starter pack, battling through the site may be a good opportunity to try the game out. And for those who have the starter pack, it is an alternative way to keep playing while earning some STEEM. Since the battles aren't ranked, they won't affect the DEC recharge.

How to battle in Steem Monsters duels?

To battle at Steemmonsters.club, you don't need the starter pack. All you need are at least two cards, one being a Summoner and the other one being a Monster. *

* Info for beginners: all Summoners can summon neutral Monsters (those with no element). Aside from that, fire Summoners can only summon fire Monsters, water Summoners can only summon water Monsters etc. The exception for the rule are the dragon Summoners, who can summon all kinds of Monsters. If you still have no cards, luckily, you can easily buy a dragon Summoner and a monster for a few cents on the official Steem Monsters market! Delwyn Dragonscale (a Dragon Summoner) is being sold for $0.08 at the moment of this writing, and Sea Genie (a water Monster) is being sold for $0.01. If you decide to go this route, to find the cheapest Dragon summoner, go to the market, uncheck the "Beta" box, check "Summoners," "Dragon" and order by price. For the cheapest monsters, uncheck "Beta" and order by price. Then, select the cards and buy them. And if you try battling but decide that the game isn't your thing, you can just sell the cards for the same price you bought them.

With your Summoner and Monster(s) in hand, you're ready to participate in the Steem Monsters Duels.

1 - First, go to the Steemmonsters.club website and input your Steemit username into the box. Tick the checkbox that says, "I'm not a robot," solve the captcha (there's also an audio captcha for visually impaired users), and press the "Get in line" button.

2 - Wait to get matched with someone. Since the website is new and not many people are playing yet, it may take a while. If a few minutes pass and no one else is in line, a popup message will appear saying that no match was found, and you'll have to begin from step 1 again.

3 - Once you get matched, the screen will show who you were matched against.

4 - Copy your opponent's username, then open another tab on your browser and go to Steemmonsters.com (the official Steem Monsters site). Select "Battle!" from the top menu, then go to "Challenge." Paste your opponent's username into the "OPPONENT" box, set the "LEVEL LIMITS" to "Bronze" so that only low level cards can be in the battle (these duels should be friendly to beginners, after all), and send your opponent a challenge. *

* Or your opponent may be quicker than you and send you the challenge instead, in which case you'll have to accept it.

5 - Select your Summoner, then your Monster(s), and let them battle! Battles happen automatically, and the position where you put your cards play an important role in the match's outcome.

Once the battle ends, both you and your opponent will receive STEEM from the @sm-duels account. At the moment of this writing, a win was giving 0.014 STEEM, and a loss was giving 0.006 STEEM.

Aside from the STEEM prizes, there is another incentive to play from Steemmonsters.club. As I write this post, @felipejoys (the website's creator) is giving @steembasicincome (SBI) shares to random people who have played at least three matches using the website throughout each day. It might be a good idea to keep an eye on @felipejoys' posts, not only to learn about the website's updates and improvements, but also because he hosts other SBI and Steem Monsters giveaways and draws too, including promo codes to get a starter pack (it's a great chance for those who don't have a starter pack yet). This is the post of the promo code giveaway running at the moment of this writing. The way to participate is to comment the username of someone who still doesn't have a starter pack. The winner will get a SBI share while the nominated person gets the starter pack promo code. So, if you don't have a starter pack yet, you'll have to ask a friend to nominate you.

Note: all images above are screenshots from Steemmonsters.club.

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