SteemMonsters speedrun - from 0 to top30 with 30 STEEM in the pocket + rental market observations

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Introduction

For the last 3 days of the season, I did not play SteemMonsters on my main account @jacekw because I just had the 1st spot and there was no point in playing. That's why I decided to make a small experiment and try to get the best place with the second account (@pomocnik), on which I did not have any cards at the beginning. I only rented the cards from the market. I spent about 30 STEEM, but this value could be much smaller, because I made several mistakes along the way:

  • I first rented a lower level of the card, but then I decided that I needed the max level
  • I left too little funds after the first day and 3 delegations contracts were broken, so I had to rent these cards again from someone else, unfortunately at much worse prices
  • I could also limit the time of the experiment to 1 day instead of 3 days, further playing did not improve my position anymore.

So I could reduce costs to about 15 STEEM.


What I achieved

  • 31st position on the leaderboard (the best position I had during the game was 22th, but I was not able to keep it, because most players had much better cards)
  • top50 = 10 beta packs (it's hard for me to determine their value, because I opened them using the main account, but I assume that was about $15)
  • champion I = 150 reward cards for season (worth about $5, could be better as you can see)
  • 3x quest = 60 reward cards (worth about $7)
  • 10k DEC = $10

Balance:

  • rental costs: $12.5 (could be reduced to $6)
  • value of rewards: $15 + $7 + $5 + $10
  • result: +$24.5 (could be +$31)

Cards

Unfortunately, I did not have all the cards at my disposal because I wanted to reduce costs. The other thing is that some of the cards were not max level because they were simply not available, or they were too expensive.

The strongest color was Red, I had here all 3 summoners, including Plado Emberstorm.


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The second in order was the Green splinter. Unfortunately, I did not have summoner Prince Rennyn, because it simply was not available for rent. The lack of this one card makes it pretty hard to fight for high position.


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I also had some cards from Blue splinter:


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Dragon splinter was pretty good:


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Neutral cards were a weak point of my collection:


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I did not have any White or Black cards at all.

Gameplay:

I played Novice and Bronze using only the Blue splinter (strong magic with Ruler of the Sea, Mermaid, Magi Sphinx, Medusa):


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I went through the Silver using mainly Plado + Red splinter:


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At Gold, Diamond and Champion level, I used mainly combinations:

  • Plado + Red
  • Selenia + Green
  • Selenia + Blue

Unfortunately, as I wrote above, the lack of Summoner Prince Rennyn made the fight at the highest level very difficult. Not to mention the fact that some of my cards were not at the maximum level and I did not have a White and Black splinter at all.

Delegation market observation

  • the delegation market is very shallow for some cards
  • it is especially difficult to rent neutral cards and legendary summoners
  • on the other hand, rare and epic summoners are easily available and at good prices
  • at the end of the season, the demand for card rental is certainly greater

Summary

  • you can enter champion I, even up to the top 50 without having any own cards, only by renting from the market
  • although the whole experiment brought about $25 profit, let's not forget that it took a few hours to play
  • the biggest obstacle was lack of cards, especially the lack of summoner Prince Rennyn
  • the experiment was done mainly for fun and to see how much you can get from an account with no cards and limited time and resources available

Experiment is over and all rental contracts will be discontinued today.



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58 comments
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Good strategy I would consinder to replicate if I only had a day with 96 hours lol - You are a Monsterplayer @jacekw - I have to admit I sometimes did doubt you are human. Keep on Battling!

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I thought he was a bot too in the beginning, LOL! I said this bot is too damn good LOL!!

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Exactly - was not only the performance but the sheer amount of fights he is able to manage :-)

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I have the impression that some people still think that I am a bot. Even when I talk to them and say that I am a human, they do not believe me. And this is sad and as a bot I also have feelings LOL :D

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I am definitely a huma.... 101010101010101 FATAL ERROR

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Oooops, I need to fix this stupid bot.

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hahaha!! I do not think that anymore as bots do not talk in Discord haha! Or even here for that matter- I would just take it as a compliment you are just too good! :-)

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I always wanted to do something like this but just too lazy.
Great effort! So one can really make some money by using only rented cards. How many days, and hours per day, did you spent in total?

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I played for the last 3 days on this account and it was maybe about 4 hours each day.
But I always play while doing something else (multitasking), it's not like I'm sitting 4 hours and I only play ;-)
Actually, I could finish this experiment after the first day, when I came to top50. Further play was already less effective and improving the result was getting more difficult. Although I was even 22nd at some point, but I was not able to keep this position.

So one can really make some money by using only rented cards

Yes, I earned about $25 total but it definitely takes time. Suppose I would end the game after 5 hours it would be $5 per hour of play. For some it's a lot, for some it's a little. For me it was just a fun experiment. Maybe I'm going to repeat it end the end of current season but I will try to reduce the total time spent to maybe 2-3 hours (it would be easier because I will start from 3400 points, not from 0 points).

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Great Information and Congrats on your Season Play. Since We are Right Here at the Very Beginning of Splinterlands I am grateful because I know the the Cards you Hold should become more Valuable as time passes............

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Thanks! Definitely it's very good that we are here at the very beginning, because cards will be more and more valuable :)

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Do all accounts have to buy a starter pack to play? I was looking at doing free leases to small accounts, but it looks like they need to spend $10 first. Of course they could soon make it back

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Yes, starter pack is necessary to play. Sometimes you can buy it cheaper, just from other players who have an extra, but do not need it.

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Nice job showing the current possibilities! Clear Resteem to spread the word :) You don't need to invest thousands or even hundreds to play at the top!

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This is a fantastic case study. I would have thought you’d earn more DEC, but overall it’s a great showcase of how powerful renting cards can be.

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Thanks. I think I will get the exact DEC amount from the Steemmonsters API, because during the experiment I sold a bit of DEC + maybe burn some cards and now I am not sure if I put the correct value in the post. For sure it would be much more, if not the fact that I used up most of ECR ​​at the moment when I had few points, so I did not get much DEC per battle.

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Hi, @jacekw

May I translate this intu Russian and post it by myself?
I am some kind the admin of the community and want to discuss it our Telegram ru channel - but some of guyz busy/not familiar with English/lazy to translate or to correct understand the google translate issues in some cases.
I may not post it though and only translate into the chat.
But if you don't mind...

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Hi. Sure, of course, you can translate :)

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Wow you actually put together some pretty strong teams.
Congratulations, you did well :)

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Wow, that’s crazy. Good job!

Were you able to complete the daily quest too?

Posted using Partiko iOS

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Yes, I completed daily quest 3 times.
First one at Novice / Bronze, but I waited with claiming until I got to Champion I to get 20 cards.
And 2x at Champion. I had today another quest available, but unfortunately White / Black splinter which both I dont have ;-)

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Hi, @jacekw!

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(Edited)

I recognize the word pomocnik @jacekw :)

In slovenian it means helper, I presume it means the same in polish?

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Good job! And idea. Here is a !BEER I'm gonna look into this also than I'm also in the top 50 for once. 150 cards... 25dollar profit. Whow!

Posted using Partiko Android

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Wow, I didn't know that you can come so far just with rental cards, good work @jacekw
I have to admit that I didn't used it much and I was looking for the Prince Rennyn as well, but he is almost never available at max level, lol.

Posted using Partiko Android

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Prince Rennyn is probably the hardest to rent card. Too bad that I didn't maxed it when it was below $10 per BCX. And now I have to pay $0.5 daily just for this one card ;-)

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Great job and well-written article!

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Did you start from scratch? I mean: did you climb up from novice to champion?

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Yeah, he did 😀 Four days ago he was still in the novice league.

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Yeah, I started with 0 points :)

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But up until gold level, you hardly earn any DEC. Wasn't that frustrating?

I mean, inspired by your post, I leased some golds and alphas to strengthen my second account. The betas I sent to another account, which was in silver league before I emptied it out. 30 DEC per game... it was driving me crazy. I assumed I would be able to get a good win streak, because the cards I had there now were of a higher level than the ones that used to be in there. What I didn't count on, is the fact that the cards are capped... 😂

I'm by far not such a good player as you are (proven by the fact that you keep beating me in tourneys and ranked play 95% of the time), and I was really struggling. Took up too much time for the amount of DEC I won, so I gave up. (patience is not one of my best qualities, lol)

Your post has really triggered something, though. The rental market has never been busier 👍

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Yeah, that's true - until gold level, you earn a little DEC. But honestly, I did not pay much attention to the DEC I earned during this experiment, I mainly wanted to get the best place as soon as possible. Especially that I thought that I would not earn too much DEC total, because my ECR will quickly fall to a very low level ;-)

Rental market is pretty busy right now, which means it's getting harder to rent a card that we are interested (especially neutrals) haha :D

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Neutrals, or the level 4 Rennyn, lol

I love experiments like that. I'm glad to hear yours was successful.
A couple of months ago, I started one to see how far I could get without spending anything else than what I could earn on Steem and the dApps.
I could't get my deck to level 4 summoners... maybe I could have, but it would have required a lot of time, effort and patience.

But that was before DEC was introduced. Sometimes I wonder if I should try it again and see if things would turn out different this time... 😉

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very good job I have medium level cards and I barely managed to get to champion 3, I think I would like to try your strategy although as I have never fought with cards at the maximum level I do not know if I achieved a good position

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those are great profits in a few days, and I am suffering from buying letters and I can not raise gold, thanks for that help, I will try to gather and look for rent

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That is some truly impressive feat. And you have wrapped it into a great post. Well done and thanks for sharing!

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Hi @jacekw.
If you want to join the Crypto Class Action Knights Arise tournament you should sign up to the Crypto Class action to get your free SUFB token, rather than having to buy it.
Just send an encrypted Steem memo to @jpbliberty saying "Join Crypto Class Action. My contact details are [email/Telegram/Discord]"

More details in this post. https://steempeak.com/fundition-iqx614ch7/@jpbliberty/one-click-crypto-class-action-signup-for-steemians

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Thanks for info! I admit, I haven't carefully read the description, just looked what I need to enter, bought it on steem-engine and signed up haha ;-)

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(Edited)

Well sign up anyway now you know how easy it is. You stand to make a lot more than you win in the tournament. Congratulations BTW.

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Majstersztyk!
Mam pytanie off-topic. Czy byłbyś zainteresowany współpracą nad dapp dotyczącą ochrony zagrożonych gatunków? Kilka rzeczy działałoby analagicznie jak w monsterach. Kilka inaczej.
Jeśli na steem, znajomość javascript wydaje się być dużym atutem. Nie jest to moja mocna strona, niestety.
Dobrze wykonana, byłaby to bardziej przełomowa aplikacja niż potwory.
Pozdrawiam!

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Dziękuję za propozycję, projekt brzmi ciekawie, ale niestety muszę odmówić. Po prostu miałbym za mało czasu, żeby się w to zaangażować :) Życzę powodzenia, żeby się wszystko udało! :)

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