As I have now been playing Steem Monsters and Drug Wars for several months, I've wanted to contribute something of ACTIONABLE value to my fellow players (and FUTURE players) - but NOT just fill my Steemit feed with daily images of quest reward - or battle - SPAM, (no offense to those doing so). Ultimately, Steemit is about ADDING VALUE to the social experience - that is the magic of blockchain technology. So, after some serious pondering, I decided that a weekly "Steem Monsters + Drugs Wars 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, and/or any other area of knowledge I end up exploring as this series naturally progresses, then I will have done my "good deed" (of providing value) for the week. Also, feel free to hit me up on the battlefield...

@transcript-junky

1 ) When the Untamed edition was released this past week (so we could all start opening the packs we bought during the pre-sale) I originally planned to open ONE Untamed pack per day (in place of the 2nd daily (evening) pack) of Orbs cards (more on this below, in #2), plus the regular Orbs morning pack (1 of 2 daily packs). However, what I found was that this slow accumulation of Untamed cards (while productive in the long-term, in terms of maintaining daily DEC liquidity) DID NOT provide me enough Untamed cards to begin to ACTUALLY start effectively USING the new edition cards in battles. So, after monitoring the situation over the week of battling, I decided that the best thing to do would be buy a SECOND 100 (+10) pack batch of Untamed cards, which I would open in one go (within 24 hours), which would (hopefully) provide ENOUGH of a BOOST o Untamed cards to enable me to more properly experiment with immediately using the cards in battles. This INDEED turned out to fulfill my goal, and the second batch got me "over the hump" so that I could begin experimenting with a nice selection of Untamed cards, and then also begin to upgrade specific preferred cards (via my daily DEC earnings from battles) while also opening TWO packs of Untamed cards per day (one "morning" pack, and one "evening" pack). I will explain below why I am no longer opening one daily Orbs packs (in #2, below).

2 ) My original (core) plan to open the first batch of "Untamed" packs in a gradual manner has proven to be ideal. Since they are all new cards I have been able to develop an enjoyable system through which to slowly "get acquainted" with each card in a comfortable manner as I add a handful (ten, to be exact) of new cards to my collection daily. Upon opening the second 100 (+10) pack batch of Untamed cards, I also realized that opening the evening pack of Orbs was getting me a lot of the same cards (nonkeepers) which I was converting to DEC, and so this was not allowing me the sense of PROGRESS desired, by having MOST of the pack cards be new cards which contribute to building my collection. So what I decided to do was simply open the remaining ~ 65 Orbs packs in one go (along with the Untamed batch), and the instead of buying more 100 (+10) Orbs pack batches, I could instead just use some of the DEC I earn in daily battles to gradually upgrade the remaining Orbs card I want to ultimately hold in my arsenal. I did, however, hit one "Corrupted Pegasys" (Gold - Level 2 - ~ $175 USD - 150,000 DEC) which I had been hoping for, as well as another "Mermaid Healer" (Gold - Level 3 - ~ $33.00 USD - 30,000 DEC). One of my main goals now is to get BOTH of these cards up to the next level, which unlocks their major "abilities" - "heal" for the "Corrupted Pegasys", and "strength" for the "Mermaid Healer". I COULD come up with the ~ $34 USD for the additional "mermaid Healer", but probably not the $175 for the additional "Corrupted Pegasys" (Gold) card. What I am thinking now is that since I currently hold one extra "Mintaur Warlord" (Gold - Level 2 - $180 USD - 150,000 DEC) I may choose to trade that card for the additional "Corrupted Pegasys" (Gold), which would bring the Pegasys up to Level 2 and unlock the "heal" ability. I would then have two of the most rare Orbs cards with full abilities unlocked, and those would be useful in daily (and tournament) battles, as they earn an extra 20% DEC bonus (for "gold promo") AND are very rare. Since I may buy some additional "one-off" Orbs packs until they sell out the remaining ~ 99,000 packs, I think it is AT LEAST wise to wait until the packs are sold out before taking any action on this major trade. I may hit another card of one, or both, of these. For now, these are valuable cards to have in my collection going forward, and I think that focusing my DEC resources on the Untamed packs is the best strategy right now.

3 ) The new ability to now purchase potions in "+1" increments is a GODSEND, in terms of helping manage the DEC liquidity issue. There have been NUMEROUS occasions in the past where I have not had the DEC on-hand to purchase the 500-charge "brilliant legendary" or "brilliant alchemy (gold)" potions. So the ability to now buy one charge at a time enables me to take advantage of other opportunities to strategically spend DEC, while also being able to keep maximum potion-power on ALL of my rewards, and new pack, cards. My goal now is to try to save up enough DEC to buy the LARGER "bulk quantity" potions (like the "500 charges" (+ 50 free). or "2500 charges" (+375) "brilliant legendary" bulk potion packs, or the equivalent gold ones. If you are getting 375 free charges that is essentially like getting 75% (free bonus) of the original "500 charge" brilliant packs (which were sold BEFORE the Untamed edition was released this season. And since ANY of these extra 375 charges can earn you a "super card" (ex. gold legendary) the risk for me is a no-brainer. Hitting just one "super card" more than well-offsets the intial cost of the potions, especially when you consider the long-term appreciation of the cards, and the DEC earnings (especially for the gold and promo cards).

4 ) On the "negative" side of #3 (above), it turned out that towards the end of this week (after opening the remaining Orbs packs, and the second Untamed batch), I found myself falling down to essentially ZERO DEC liquidity, and struggled daily to earn the DEC (via battles) to pay for the "+5 reward cards" and 12 x "brilliant legendary" + 12 x "brilliant gold" potions (for the quest rewards at Gold I level, PLUS the additional 10 (5 + 5) of "brilliant legendary" and "brilliant gold" potions necessary to apply maximum potion-power to all of my daily rewards cards AND the 10 cards in the two Untamed packs. In fact, I even had to convert to DEC (on by one, as needed) some of the extra "Mermaid Healer" and "Dwarvan Wizard" cards I had remaining from the opened Orbs packs. Luckily, this was actually a good way to reallocate the DEC value of those cards ( basically 600 DEC each ) since they simply weren't selling on the market, and the price was falling ( from ~ $1.80 USD to $1.20 USD ) after the Untamed cards were released. While this was AT LEAST a solution to the more immediate issue, and while it is nice to be able to now buy the "+1" charges of potions and quests, this lack of DEC liquidity has forced me to have to PLAY HARD each day (which is a bit tedious), and so this is YET ANOTHER reinforcing argument for my claim of the importance of having proper DEC liquidity at all times. Luckily, the @steemmonsters admin has added the option "turn off applying potions to daily reward cards", and since the reward cards TEND to not very often be "super cards" it is nice to have this option available for the WORST CASE SENARIO that I can't get enough DEC liquidity together to apply full brilliant legendary and gold potions to AT LEAST each of the two daily Untamed packs, which is the most important application of these potions. In fact, by selling the 600 DEC unneeded Orbs cards, there were two cases this week where this landed me the "Mangor" (non-gold (legendary) - Level 1 - $5.50 USD - 1,000 DEC), and so although my DEC liquidity is "way too low" I can AT LEAST justify converting the unneeded Orbs cards to DEC to purchase the potion, since the $11.00 USD from those two cards is equivalant to ~ 91 Steem ($11.00USD / $0.12/Steem = ~ 91 Steem = ~ 12,000 DEC). Again, if I had had the liquid DEC on hand I wouldn't have had to dip into the unneeded orbs cards, but they weren't selling anyway, so this was a productive, calculated decision.

5 ) On the #drugwars front, I have continued my 500k daily contribution of all three resources (drugs, weapons, and alcohol) to the gang buildings, and IN ADDITION, I've been tinkering with the battle units and getting better at losing LESS units relative to gain of resources. This means I can works up towards doing SEVERAL jobs each day, earn some MORE SERIOUS resources, and specifically increase my Drugs earnings, which I can then convert from DWD to DEC and buy more SteemMonsters cards! I think this is good focus for now, since doing the jobs takes little time, compared to actively seeking out new opponents to raid, or combing through old opponents to shake them down again. I simply have too limited time to do that daily, although I MAY do a "weekly sweep". I will try that this week. Although my activity on @drugwars has become a bit less of a focus this past month (because I believe the action on SteemMOnsters is more lucrative and worthy of attention right now) my goal has always been to "stay in the game" on DrugWars, and I believe this increased "jobs" activity will help me stay motivated to maintain my activity there. My hope is that DrugWars will continue innovating to add a more "live action" interactive component to the game (like the active battling on SteemMOnsters). This is the MAIN thing which I believe they are lacking right now. Hopefully that will change in the near future.

6 ) Okay. As I did in the last post in this series, the highly-detailed "diary" of my daily #steemmonsters 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 occured to me that this "diary" section is JUST THAT - a 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 of you will enjoy this information. If not, you are under no pressure to read it fully, and are free to SKIMM, 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...

December 1st, 2019

Untamed (Pack #1 - Opened early in the morning (around 2 AM), in celebration of 26 season rewards cards added for completing 1st battle of season at "Gold II" level. This pack is the 2nd out of the 10 free packs which came in the 100 (+10 free) pack batch)

keepers - 80 DEC

Orbs (Pack #2: morning pack opened BEFORE finishing daily quest. The whole quest system has had a major change with the new system, and my quest today is "Stubborn Mercinaries - Win 3 battles without neutral monsters", BUT for some strange reason even when I have one several battles WITHOUT using Neutral monsters none of those have been credited towards the 3 battles needed to finish the quest. I will send a message to the admin on Discord to hopefully figure out what's going on with this.

nonkeepers - 240 DEC

Daily Rewards Cards (** the daily quest was different in several ways, and a bit "gitchy", but I just kept doing battles without neutral monsters and finally hit the three battles needed to finish the quest. Lot's of room for experimentation and improvement of game-play skills as there is a wider range of cards, as well as wider range of mana for battles, and so it will take a few weeks to get more adjusted to all of these new variables. I will simply apply my strategy and enjoy the evolution of the game by finishing the daily quests and earnings new cards (to experiment with) as a result).

keepers - 150 DEC
nonkeepers - 210 DEC
Total = 360 DEC

** since there are so many new factors which have been introduced to the game with this new season (ex. "Untamed" cards, wider range of mana in battles, new quest parameters, etc.) I have decided to err on the side of caution and CLOSELY follow the method I have put into place over the past month or so. For the next week I will be reading the official @steemmonsters posts which describe many of the new "Untamed" cards while I simultaneously experiment (through battles) with the new cards and parameters of the game. I will also be opening the two packs per day (on Untamed pack (in the morning) and one Untamed pack in the evening). The main reasons for this are that (as I mentioned in the last post in this series) getting adjusted to the new Untamed cards will be a PROCESS which takes time - and not just for ME, but for ALL players. So there is NO RUSH to introduce a massive number of cards in to my collection which I don't yet know how to use. The daily quests reward cards, PLUS the two daily packs, PLUS any "milestone" packs (ex. opening one pack upon reaching the next higher level for the season) are enough to maintain DEC income (and liquidity) while I get up to speed with all of the new features of the game. I think this is a winning formula. [** DISCLAIMER: after writing this comment I ended up buying (and immediately opening) the SECOND 100 )(+10) Untamed pack patch, because I found, as the week progressed, that the small number of cards from the "two packs per day" was NOT enough to get me "over the hump" and properly playing the new Untamed cards **[/DISCLAIMER]

Untamed (Pack #3 - evening pack of "Untamed" cards)
keepers - "Maggots" (Gold - Level 3 - $5.00 USD - 500 DEC) + 70 DEC
Total = 570 DEC

December 2nd, 2019

Orbs (Pack #1: Opened at 12:30 am, because I was up and a bit bored. Sometimes I just have to indulge myself. But luckily this pack was opened simply a bit earlier in the day than I would usually open in (that is, during the daily quest if I get stuck)
nonkeepers - "Dwarvan Wizard" (non-gold - Level 1 - $1.48 USD - 600 DEC -- put on sale on the market for $1.48 USD) + 300 DEC
Total = 900 DEC

** I'm starting to think that I should DISCONTNUE buying Orbs packs, and instead focus on Untamed packs, since the only additional Orbs cards I need I could FEASIBLY buy with a combination of the DEC earned in battles PLUS any Untamed cards I don't want to keep. I will make that decision as I approach running out of the current Orbs batch (of which I have 69 packs remaining)

Daily Quest Rewards
keepers - 15 DEC
nonkeepers - 825 DEC
Total - 840 DEC

** Upon completing today's quest I found myself at ~ 63% capture rate, and so started thinking of some ways to focus on some non-battle activity to allow the capture rate to go back up, and earn more DEC per won battle as a result. As I have mentioned in the past, one of those ways is to play some tournaments (which do NOT deplete your capture rate), but there are only a few of those per day, and the chance of placing high enough to win something is questionable. Another option right now is focus on learning more about the new Untamed edition cards. Luckily, the official @steemmonsters account put out five JUICY posts showcasing around half of the new cards (one week before the release), and so I will RE-READ those more carefully, since the cards are now released, and useable. Those posts are as follows (in order):

https://steemit.com/splinterlands/@steemmonsters/countdown-to-untamed-part-1
https://steemit.com/splinterlands/@steemmonsters/countdown-to-untamed-part-2
https://steemit.com/splinterlands/@steemmonsters/countdown-to-untamed-part-3
https://steemit.com/splinterlands/@steemmonsters/countdown-to-untamed-part-4
https://steemit.com/splinterlands/@steemmonsters/countdown-to-untamed-the-final-reveal

I will also read some other posts from the #steemmonsters pages. As I work carefully through each of the above posts I will also buy up a few (and/or upgrade) cards based on how I feel about each card. This will help me "put some skin in the game" on the new edition to get me using these new cards (with adequate level-power) as soon as I feel comfortable doing so. This will also speed up the process of building my Untamed card arsenal, since I am only opening TWO Untamed packs per day right now.

** Played a "Silver Nights Are Recruiting" (Silver level card max) tournament this afternoon, and got CREAMED by the first opponent who was loaded up on Untamed cards. I'm thinking it may be a good idea to sell another 0.03 Bitcoin (from Coinbase) to buy a second 100 (+10 free) Untamed packs batch to give my Untamed collection a nice BOOST (opening them all at once). I will evaluate the situation over the next few days to judge how much of a disadvantage I am at relative to the mass of players who have opened their 100 (+10) packs immediately after the release, and are now playing with them in battles.

Untamed (Pack #2 - evening pack)
keepers - 110 DEC

December 3rd, 2019

Orbs (Pack #1: opened BEFORE completing quest, as the quest is especially challenging today. I am starting to suspect that I'm at a general disadvantage right now due to many (but NOT ALL) players using the new Untamed cards, which they have probably opened many packs of. I am still gathering data to decide if it might be a good idea to buy another 100 (+10) Untamed pack batch to open all at once for a boost in power of my cards so I will be as competitive as I was before the release of the Untamed edition earlier this week. However, I am TRYING to err on the side of caution before doing that, to see if I can get by with the current strategy.

nonkeepers - 240 DEC

Daily Quest Rewards - (after the initial HUMP I blew through the quest. This is good, because it shows that I can postpone the decision as to whether or not to buy the 100 (+10) Untamed pack batch for a little while as I continue monitoring my level of disadvantage compared to other players who are loading up on (and using) their Untamed cards.

keepers - ("Highlannd Archer" (Gold - Level 4 - $0.73 USD - 750 DEC) + 90 DEC
nonkeepers - 75 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2: Evening pack)
keepers - 140 DEC

December 4th, 2019

Orbs (Pack #1 -morning pack)
nonkeepers - 240 DEC

*** After monitoring my game-play this week, and opening only the "one pack per day" of the new "Untamed" edition cards, I concluded that I needed a boost of the cards in order to more actively get aquainted with them, through play. I only had around 20 cards up to this point, and concluded that a "booster" 100 (+10) Untamed packs would be helpful in "getting over the hump" in order to REALLY start integrating the new Untamed cards in my daily game play. So I bought another 100 (+10) Untamed pack batch and opened it within 24 hours, for the reason of building my Untamed deck to be "big enough" to be able to start playing the cards. In the process of doing this I also realized that the "one pack per day" of Orbs cards was giving me a lot of "nonkeepers", and so I decided to just go ahead and open the remaining ~ 65 Orbs packs in one-go. I ended up hitting one (1) "Mermaid Healer" (Gold - Level 3 - ~ $33.75 USD - 30,000 DEC), and the MAJOR hit of one (1) "Corrupted Pegasys" (Gold - Level 2 - $175.00 USD). Since opening the Orbs packs is becoming a bit tedious (as I only have a few more cards I want to hit), and since there are now ~ 100,000 Orbs packs remaining for purchase, I have decided to PAUSE in buying additional 100 (+10) Orbs packs, although I MIGHT do so again if I hit any especially JUICY rewards, or Untamed, card (which I don't partularly want) - at which point I could sell that card and buy up another 100 (+10) Orbs pack batch, before they run out. Instead, I will now change my daily strategy to opening TWO Untamed packs (one in the morning and one in the evening), as ALL of those cards, right now, will be keepers, and so there will be more of a sense of "progress" upon opening each pack (instead of with the Orbs packs, where I have been converting MOST of the cards to DEC). I may also use some of my daily DEC earnings (from battles and "nonkeeper" quest rewards) to purchase the remaining gold Orbs cards I want to finalize that collection. Also, with the one "Corrupted Pegasys" Gold card I need to consider if I might want to sell that card in order to buy the last "Minotaur Warlord" (Gold) card I need to max that card out. For now, I still have some time to decide on that.

It actually takes some TIME and ENERGY to upgrade all of the cards from the 100 (+10) pack, AND to begin using them in the daily battles, and so what I may likely do is continue my monthly sell of Bitcoin to buy one monthly 100 (+10) Untamed pack batch, which will serve my DUAL goals gradually moving a significant amount of my BTC off of Coinbase, AND building my Untamed cards power - with the extra benefit of converting Bitcoin to Steem, as I believe that Steem is on a significantly upward long-term trajectory, which would also make BUYING BACK some Bitcoin with my SteemMonsters earnings easier.

Untamed (Pack #2: evening Pack)
keepers - 240 DEC

December 5th, 2019

Untamed (Pack #1: morning pack)
keepers - "Elven Mystic" (gold - Level 2 - $2.05 - 2,000 DEC) + 230 DEC
Total = 2,230 DEC

Daily Rewards Cards
keepers - "Sea Genie" (Gold - Level 2 - $0.72 USD - 750 DEC) + 105 DEC
nonkeepers - 195 DEC

** bought "Ice Pixie" (Gold - Level 2 - $1.99 USD ~ 2,400 DEC) - it will be faster to upgrade the gold version of this card (than non-gold), and earn some nice extra DEC bonus (10% "gold" card bonus per won battle), and at "2" mana it will be useful often. This is also a way to get more "skin in the game" with the Untamed edition.

Untamed (Daily Pack#2 : evening pack-- Two golds!)
keepers - "Serpentine Sky" (Gold - Level 3 - $1.84 - 500 DEC), "Pyre" (Gold - Level 2 - $3.50 USD - 2,000 DEC) + 30 DEC
Total = 2,530 DEC

Untamed (Pack #3: Celebration pack for reaching "Gold I" level
keepers - 80 DEC

** It turns out that purchasing the extra 100 (+10) Untamed pack batch INDEED well-served the goal of helping BOOTSTRAP into being more able to play and analyse the new edition of cards (as I now have ENOUGH of a collection to have a nice number of cards to choose from and ACTUALLY USE in battles), AND to then be able to start deciding which current cards I want to upgrade, and which ADDITIONAL cards (which I don't yet have) I may want to purchase. I have made a list of a few of the cards which have already impressed me, and even went ahead and purchased my first gold card ("Ice Pixie" (Gold - Level 2 - ), because I could see - right away, upon winning one battle with this card - that it will be an important card in my arsenal going forward. I purchased the gold version of the card for the DUAL reasons that ( 1 ) it requires LESS actual crads to upgrade this specific card to unlock the additional "shatter" ability (only SIX gold cards ( ~ $2.10 each / ~ 2,500 DEC )), versus the non-gold, which actually works out to cost SIGNIFICANTLY MORE, and you don't get the added advantage of earning 10% DEC "gold" bonus on won battles when you use the card. I will likely do this for a bunch of similar cards (buying up ONE gold card every day or two), using the DEC earned through battles to fund the purchases.

December 6th, 2019

Daily Quest Rewards Cards
keepers - 90 DEC
nonkeepers - 480 DEC

Untamed (Daily Pack #1: morning pack)
keepers - 80 DEC

Untamed (Daily Pack #2: evening pack)
"Soulstorm" (non-gold - Level 1 - $1.15 USD - 200 DEC) + 70 DEC

December 7th, 2019

Daily Rewards Cards
keepers - "Sea Genie" (Gold - Level 4 - $0.72 USD - 750 DEC) + 180 DEC
nonkeepers - 240 DEC

Untamed (Daily Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Serpentine Sky" (Gold - Level 3 - $2.20 USD - 500 DEC) + 70 DEC

Untamed (Daily Pack #2: evening pack)
keepers - 80 DEC

December 8th, 2019

Daily Rewards Cards
keepers - 60 15 15
nonkeepers - 90 30 300

Untamed (Pack #1: morning pack)
keepers - 80 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2: evening pack)
keepers - 110 DEC

December 9th, 2019

Untamed (Daily Pack #1: morning pack. Opened after "hitting the wall" and selling one "Mermaid Healer" ( 600 DEC ) to afford the +5 brilliant legendary and +5 brilliant gold potions necessary to apply to the five cards. This turned out to be a good decision, as I hit another "Mangor" legendary.

keepers - "Mangor" (non-gold (legendary) - Level 1 - $5.50 USD - 1,000 DEC), + 70 DEC

Daily Rewards Cards (after selling 2 x "Mermaid Healer" (non-gold - Level 1 - 600 DEC) cards to load up on potion. This pull was generally another dud, but when you factor in that I got the two "Magnor" legendaries, the $100.00 USD from those WELL-OFFSETS these "dud daily rewards drops".

keepers - "Goblin Mech:" (Gold - Level 4 - $0.70 USD - 750 DEC), + 90 DEC
nonkeepers - 150 DEC

Untamed (Daily Pack #2: evening pack)
keepers - 80 DEC

Okay. This concludes the detailed weekly diary of activity. If you have attempted to absorb this information, I hope you were able to gain some strategy insight from my activity record and analysis.

I hope you find some/any of these tips useful in increasing your understanding and/or skill level in the Steem Monsters (Splinterland) and/or Drug Wars game(s). More JUICY tips to come with each weekly update, as I become more experienced and successful in the game.

See you on the battlefield...

@transcript-junky