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 ) My progress in daily active game-play in @splinterlands is moving steadily ahead, and I am indeed discovering which of the new Untamed cards are my favorites, using them in battles, and slowly buying additional cards to upgrade my favorites to increase the power of my cards in battle. A few of my favorite Untamed cards at this point are: "Mantoid", "Magnor", "Ice Pixie", "Goblin Thief", "Kron The Undying", and "Cornealus" -- with a few others I am "warming up" to. The nice thing is that I still have 400+ packs remaining to open (at the ~ "two packs per day" pace), and the likelihood of landing additional of my favorite cards is high moving forward. In addition, the "two packs per day" pace of pack-opening allows me to earn enough DEC from daily battling to buy the necessary potions to earn the maximum "+5 quest reward cards", AND apply mxaimum "potion-power" to all of the daily reward cards AND the Untamed pack cards (5 cards each - so 5 charges of both "brilliant legendary" and "brilliant alchemy/gold"). As you can see in this final section of this post below (the daily activity diary) I hit a "Black Dragon" (Gold - Level 2 - ~ $75.00 USD - 75,000 DEC), which provides validation to my theory that it is ultimately BEST to apply maximum potion power to ALL new cards you turn over, because even if you have a few batches of daily reward cards that are "crappy", just hitting the one "gold legendary" (like the "Black Dragon") GREATLY offsets the cost of those "crappy" draws. I also did something a bit risky this past week, and put 0.03 Bitcoin into the BitcoinVideoCasino.com site to play blackjack. I ended up winning up to 0.04 BTC, and then withdrew that, and used the 0.01 BTC to buy a 20 (+1) Orbs pack batch, PLUS had over 30,000 DEC in reserve above the cost of the Orbs packs. I know it's not ideal to risk playing blackjack, but in this case it worked out, as that 0.01 BTC worth of DEC was enough to dig me well out of the "abyss" of low DEC liquidity that I so much needed. All in all, my strategy is proving fruitful, and I am HOPING that the "crypto gods" will make their magic happen and create an opportunity for me to have a substantial airdrop of some type of crypto that I can the use to buy up more Untamed packs so that I can continue with the "two packs per day" opening strategy, which provides a nice motivation to my daily game-play, as I can look forward to turning over those 10 new cards each day, and hit some JUICY cards which will increase my ability to win battles, earn more DEC, and continue building the momentum of my larger effort (of which this weekly series post is one part).

2 ) I have decided that for the DUAL reasons that : (1) I am not sure exactly how long I will be able to play FULL-FORCE, and daily, at these games, and ( 2 ) since I have spent a good 0.30 Bitcoin on cards in the past few months, I would like to try to begin the process of using a PORTION of my monthly DEC earnings in the game to start BUYING BACK some of the total crypo value I have spent. Ideally, I would like to buy back Bitcoin, and as Bitcoin seems to have been taking a downward trajectory (overall) in the past few weeks, I COULD do implement a "dollar cost averaging" plan to buy back, let's say, $25 USD worth of DEC (converted to Steem (via @blocktrades) and then converted into Bitcoin to return back to my Coinbase account. The main issue with that is that my current monthly DEC earnings may NOT be high enough right now to make that feasible. So, as I have pondered this, I have been thinking that I could buy OTHER alt-coins, which are at a deep discount right now (like MOST of them - including STEEM), and then HOPING that those will go up, I may be able to scoop up a LOT MORE of those coins, which would make it easier to then use then profit from those to THEN buy back Bitcoin. I will probably do a mix of BOTH, actually. The first step right now is to conduct an ESTIMATE of the actual amount of DEC I am earning per month. I tried doing the accounting for this this past week, but it is actually quite a bit more complicated than it seems. To start with a rough estimate (while I devise and fine-tune a proper accounting procedure) I think it is safe to say that I am earning AT LEAST $1.00 USD worth of DEC per day right now, which equates to ~ $30 USD per month. HOWEVER, I would ALSO like to RE-INVEST some of that DEC back into the game, which is why I am thinking that AT THIS POINT it may be best to use part of the $30/month to buy some alt-coins (perhaps XML, or some other cheaper coins which I believe have strong long-term fundamentals, AND which I can hold in my Coinbase wallet. So, on this front, for the next few weeks I will be working on BOTH evaluating more accurately my daily/monthly DEC earnings, AND researching and deciding on which alt-coins to start buying in my monthly conversion of DEC to that alt-coin. I think it's best to focus on one alt-coin at a time right now. One of the BEST coins to focus on first may likely be EOS, because although the price is higher than the cheaper coins (like DOGE, XLM, etc.) the ADVANTAGE of buying up some EOS each month is that I can then allocate that EOS into the "Prospectors" game, and use it to BOOST my intial momentum-building effort there (which is quite slow in this beginning phase (more on that below). EOS can be converted into the "Prospectors" in-game currency, PGL, which can then be used to ACCELERATE my activity on the "Prospectors" game, which may produce MORE of an ROI than if I just bought Bitcoin directly with the DEC/Steem. In fact, buying EOS would contribute more directly to the overall effort in my the larger "blockchain gaming" strategy I am experimenting with here (in this series). In fact, plugging in "19 Steem -> EOS" calculates that I get a little bit over 1.0 EOS, and since I am earning roughly 20 Steem/SP from the weekly posts of this series, it might be an good plan to use the earnings from these posts to do a weekly buy of 1.0 EOS, to then buy PGL and use that in the "Prospectors" game for a little while to see what kind of boost I can get from using that EOS in that game as I get up-to-speed with it (just like I used 20 Steem to give my initial drug Wars activity a boost). Then, after that initial strategy - especially if I can generate a nice amount of PGL income on "Prospectors" I can then choose ANOTHER alt-coin to buy weekly/monthly. Since this will also help me to develop my analysis of the "Prospectors" game IMMEDIATELY (since I am now playing that one DAILY) I think it is the MOST LOGICAL strategy right now - at least for the next month or two. So, in more concrete terms, on the payout date of this post I plan to buy 1.0 EOS with the Steem/SP I earn, and use that to buy PGL, and then convert that PGL into "gold" in the "Prospectors" game. Yup, I've decided. That's what I'm a gonna do, and I will report on the results of the first EOS -> PGL buy in the next update.

[*** Update *** Just before publishing this post I realized two complicating factors to my plan of putting 1.0 EOS into the "Prospectors" game (through my research on how to trade EOS for PGL). Firstly, these posts are earning ~ 12 Steem plus 12 SP each week, which means that I only have ~ 12 liquid Steem from the previous post payout (which is not enough to even buy 1.0 EOS). Secondly, the process of trading EOS for PGL is a LOT more complicated that I realized, requiring an ADDITIONAL wallet (not Coinbase), and then going through an exchange (NewDex -> https://newdex.io). This is enlightening because it is a good argument for the value of Drug Wars being integrated into the Steem blockchain. This "barrier to entry" is making it difficult to give my "Prospectors" activity the nice little boost it needs to really get rolling (more on this below). So what I have decided to do is simply HOLD the 12 Steem in my Steem wallet, while I spend the next week researching more properly the process of converting EOS to PGL (the in-game token in "Prospectors"). It's important to mention this here, because as you can see, this is a FORMIDABLE obstacle to me getting some "booster" crypto funds into the "Propectors" game to get things moving. This is a big deal, and a major barrier to people onboarding onto "Prospectors". For now, I will consider my objective of "using the earnings from the weekly post in this series to buy an alt-coin -- but for THIS week that alt-coin is STEEM instead of EOS/PGL -- yet another argument for the user-friendliness of the Steem blockchain overall. Hopefully I will be able to sort this out, but it surely is frustrating. If any of you readers can explain to me an easy way to convert EOS (from Coinbase0 into PGL and get it into "Prospectors" (WAX-based "Yukon" version) I would be MUCH grateful to you, and you would be helping me make progress on getting more of this JUICY information to readers through these posts. Feel free to respond in the comments.

3 ) Since @splinterlands admin introduced the ability to pay for things like potions and Untamed packs with fiat (via PayPal), I have been considering whether there would be any advantage to doing so. After some pondering, and some experimentation with discovering some of my current "pain points" in the game, I decided that there are a FEW justified reasons why I might want to use a little bit of fiat (as I only HAVE "a little bit" these days) to buy some of the in-game SteemMonsters stuff. Firstly, using some fiat to buy crypto would give me an increasing sense that I have some "skin in the game". It would provide a sense of the RELATIVE VALUE of fiat to crypto (example below). Secondly, it would be a way to put ADDITIONAL small amount of value into crypto WITHOUT having to tap into my Bitcoin reserves (which are now down around 0.2 BTC after all the SteemMonsters spending I have done in the past 3-6 months). Thirdly, it would help me deal with some specific "challenging circumstances" in which a small amount of DEC will be helpful. To illustrate these three points, I have been describing how I - EVEN WITH all of my daily battle DEC earnings - been struggling to "keep afloat" with maintaining ENOUGH DEC liquidity to EASILY open packs and reward cards with FULL "potion power". This has literally been disrupting my daily routine, as I have on occasion been getting STUCK trying to hit the DEC goal to buy up maximum potions to apply to my daily quests PLUS the current baseline "two packs per day" of maximum potions. In fact, on two days of this week I got distracted by "life" and was barely able to play enough to even earn the amount needed for the potions, and so had to sell some of the extra Orbs cards (the ones which I already had maxed out, and which were also not selling on the market) to buy max potions to open the packs. At this point I have none of those left, and I now NEED another option for getting funds into the game. So I realized that I need SOME alternative "backup" way to load up on DEC for pack-opening, but NOT dip into my reserves. This is where the PayPal fiat comes in. One night this week, when I was "stuck", I decided to give it my "initiation" try, and used around $5.00 USD of fiat (via PayPal) to buy two Untamed packs, plus enough potions to cover those packs with maximum "potion power". Luckily, I ended up hitting the following "super card" :

"The Vigilator" (non-gold (legendary) - Level 1 - $5.85 USD - 1,000
DEC)

which you can see offset the $5.00 USD fiat, with $0.85 USD bonus. The problem is that this was basically "beginner's luck" in the sense that it is not so often that you hit "super cards" in the Untamed packs. So I began to consider how I could use my fiat more effectively, and decided that a one-off monthly purchase of, let's say $10 USD (fiat via PayPal) to buy POTIONS would be the best use of fiat in the larger equation. I think $10 USD of fiat will buy enough potions to keep me in the "comfort zone" in terms of DEC liquidity, because I won't have to worry about using daily battle DEC to buy the potions. Plus, there are also days when "life" comes up, and I can't pay full-force. This fiat will provide a buffer. Plus, this is a way to gradually put a consistent trickle of fiat into the game (and into crypto in general), which I think is healthy in terms of seeing how crypto and fiat interplay, as well as not dipping into my reserve of Bitcoin, which I am hoping will eventually "moon" (but maybe not). I think this is a sound, conservative approach which works on several levels. My plan is to do the $10 USD fiat purchase (via PayPal) in the first week of each month going forward.

4 ) Now onto the most JUICY topic of this week - my activity on "Drug Wars" and "Prospectors". Firstly, the good news is that I INDEED achieved the objectives of maintaining my daily game play in BOTH of these games (to different degrees), and this has lead to some valuable insights into both games, through comparison. I had mentioned in the past that I felt that #drugwars was "losing steam" and not keeping players engaged. I will REITERATE that point again here (especially in light of my new research/analysis), and cite the lack of any substantial posting from their official account at @drugwars . The game appears to still be fully operational, and my gang is still intact, and they made one post sometimes last week introducing some new features to the game, but to be honest, the game is simply not very engaging. There is little "real-time" activity, nor much of a sense that you are actually ENGAGING in a game environment. It's more like you just "push a bunch of buttons and some stuff comes out". Having said that, there are a few POSITIVES I have realized by comparing my daily "Prospectors" game play with the Drug Wars game play. The most important of these is the fact that @drugwars has properly integrated their in-game token (the "Drug Wars Dollar" (DWD) into the game, and into the larger Steem blockchain ecosystem. That is, it just requires a few clicks to move the DWD token into and/or out of the game, through @steem-engine, and into either Steemit, or SteemMonsters, or Blocktrades (to buy Bitcoin, or other crypto), etc. This is NOT as easy of a process with "Prospectors". And this is the PRIMARY reason I am continuing to play Drug Wars (aside from my desire to support Steem blockchain-based games). "Prospectors", on the other had, is a more "engaging" game, in the sense that there is a proper "environment" to the game, where you interact in virtual world in a more immersive sense. I can't stress how important this is in keeping players engaged. Their in-game chat system provides an additional layer of interaction keeping players more engaged. In fact, one major bit of progress I made since the last post is that one of my regular readers of this series decided that he liked my presentation of the "Prospectors" game so much that he went ahead and joined (under my referral link). This has been helpful in two ways. Firstly, this dude is a serious player (having also come over from Drug Wars, and so he "hit the ground running", and has provided me a nice little daily trickle of in-game "gold" to help boost the momentum of my progress (I am currently at around 3,000+ gold (earned mostly from sending my workers out on jobs a few times per day for now). More importantly, though, this dude has been VERY helpful in informing me of some strategy tips, as he seems to be very active in the game now, and with the very efficient in-game chat, we have been coordinating our efforts in several ways (ex. sharing strategy tips, sharing some resources so we can make tools faster, and thus make faster progress in the game, etc.). This type of 'real time" interaction is another thing which Drug Wars has so far failed to properly implement. This is likely due to the absence of the "immersive environment" on DrugWars, which is another argument for the value of "immersion" in these games.

In addition, "Prospectors" has achieved MUCH more reach across the broader internet than Drug Wars. As I mentioned (and provided examples of) in the previous post of this series, if you just do a simple YouTube search for "Prospectors EOS game", versus "Drug wars Steem game" you will clearly see that the number of results of high-quality videos about the "Prospectors" game GREATLY outweigh those for Drug Wars. I can't stress how important this "visibility" is for the long-term viability of any game - especially with the amount of competition between the MULTITUDE of other games out there (those which already exist, and those which are hitting the market continuously). Only those with a effective marketing presence will survive in my opinion. On the marketing front I would say that "Prospectors" is more on par with "Splinterlands" (as evidenced by doing a YouTube search for "Splinterlands"). This is why I am predicting that I may likely end up slowly decreasing my activity on Drug Wars and move that activity to "Propectors".

"Prospectors" YouTube search results:

versus "DrugWars" YouTube search results:

I will let the images speak for themselves, and let you all do further research on you own to see my point.

HOWEVER, I would only be able to COMPLETELY make this transition if "Prospectors" figures out a more user-friendly way to get crypto from outside of their platform into the game. So, in other words, Drug Wars still has value, in terms of being a good case study for marketing analysis, and for the fact that I already have a decent amount of resources in-game and providing a passive income stream to use to subsidize my daily Splinterlands activity, and can EASILY get funds int and out of Drug Wars. For now, I will continue engaging with, and analyzing, BOTH Drug Ward and Prospectors, as I believe this is a valuable endeavor for the purposes of this series. On this front, my main goal is that by next week I will have more solid understanding of how to get the 12 Steem form last week's post, plus ~ 12 Steem from this post (assuming I get the usual upvote from @splinterlands) converted into EOS (on Coinbase) and then into a proper external EOS wallet, into the NewDex exchange, then converted into PGL and then deposited into "Prospectors". This would be a major accomplishment, because 1.0 EOS of PGL value would be a nice boost to my effort in that game, in combination wit my collaboration with the other dude. Fingers crossed.

5 ) Okay. As I did in the last post in this series, the highly-detailed "diary" of my daily #steemmonsters / #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...

December 17th, 2019

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

Daily Rewards Cards

keepers - "Silvershield Assassin" (Gold - Level 3 - $4.50 USD - 3,000 DEC), "Undead Minotaur (Gold - Level 4 - $0.72 USD - 750 DEC), "Prismatic Energy" (Gold - Leve 3 - $3.04 USD - 3,000 DEC) + 375 DEC
nonkeepers - 75 DEC
Total DEC: 7,200 DEC

Notes: For some reason the battling has been especially difficult for the first two days of this new season. This quest was tough to get through, but as you can see, the persistence has paid off with THREE JUICY gold cards! You can also see here yet another example of why I insist that it is important to always have maximum "potion power" for ANY/ALL cards (ex. packs, rewards, etc.) You never know when you are going to hit a "super card" which greatly offsets the ongoing cost of the potions, and often several-day-long RUNS of crappy card dumps.

Untamed* (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - "Mantoid" (Gold - Level 3 - $1.15 USD - 500 DEC) + 70 DEC
Total = 570 DEC

December 18th, 2019

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 100 DEC

Daily Rewards Cards
keepers - 90 DEC
nonkeepers - 180 EC

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

December 19th, 2019

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 100 DEC

Daily Rewards Cards
keepers - 195 DEC
nonkeepers - 60 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - "Pyromaniac" (non-gold (rare) - Level 1 - $1.00 USD - 200 DEC) + 40 DEC
Total = 240 DEC

December 20th, 2019

Daily Quest Rewards
keepers - 195 DEC
nonkeepers - 70 DEC

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

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

December 21st, 2019

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Thunderbird" (non-gold (epic) - Level 1 - $1.82 USD - 200 DEC), "Orc Sergeant" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.70 USD - 200 DEC) + 60 DEC

Untamed Pack #1 (bought with PayPal fiat (detailed explanation in "note" below) - $2.00 USD)
keepers - "The Vigilator" (non-gold (legendary) - Level 1 - $5.85 USD - 1,000 DEC) + 40 DEC
Total = 1,040 DEC ($5.85)

Notes: I got lucky on the first experimental $4.00 USD (PayPal fiat) purchase of 2 Untamed packs, BUT since I don't think I will have the same luck if I buy more packs with my preciously limited fiat, I have decided that the fiat will be a good "backup" (perhaps ~ $5.00 - $10.00 USD/month to buy enough "brilliant legendary" + "brilliant alchemy" + "+5 quest rewards" potions to not have to worry about struggle to earn enough DEC through daily battling to keep those properly topped-up. This time was a lucky try, and I surely had "beginner's luck") but buying the POTIONS with fiat (instead of packs) will last longer, and likely produce some JUICY legendary and/or "gold legendary" cards from the remaining 436 unopened packs I have in the my account (as of writing this note). Since one of the struggles I have been having is maintaining a proper level of "potion power" (and so having to STRUGGLE with daily battling to keep all potions at max), using fiat (via PayPal) for a monthly boost of DEC will help eliminate this problem. In fact, earning the necessary DEC from daily battles has been quite stressful, and so this will also be a HEALTHY strategic use of the fiat. LUCKILY, I recouped the $4.00 USD (fiat) + a little profit ( $5.85 USD ("The Vigilator") - $4.00 USD = $1.85 USD, but that was realy just LUCK. I think that using the fiat for potions is more strategic, and longer lasting. Plus, it helps me put some "real world" money into the game, which has a positive psychological effect.

Untamed Pack #2 (bought with PayPal fiat - $2.00 USD)
keepers - 80 DEC
Note: Here you can see the MINISCULE return of DEC on a typical Untamed pack, against the cost of $2.00 USD of fiat. This reinforces my belief that the fiat is more productively used for potions.

December 22nd, 2019

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Goridax Guardian" (non-gold (summoner) - Level 1 - $6.90 USD - 1,000 USD), "Herbalist" (Gold - Level 3- $0.88 USD - 500 DEC -- (bumped up to Level 5)) + 90 DEC
Total = 1,590 DEC

Notes: I will now start experimenting to find an effective method of recording the amount of DEC I am earning per day, as part of my new task of estimating the amount of daily/weekly/monthly DEC I am earning, so that I can determine how much (in percentage terms) to use to buy EOS (or other alternative crypto tokens) on a weekly/monthly basis) [**UPDATE : This has turned out to be more complicated than I assumed, so it will take a few weeks to devise a proper accounting method for this task **]

Daily Quest Reward Cards
keepers - 45 DEC
nonkeepers - 165 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - "Bortus" (Gold - Level 1 - $4.99 USD - 2,000 DEC) + 40 DEC
Total = 2,040 DEC

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

December 23rd, 2019

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Pyromaniac" (non-gold (rare) - Level 1 - $1.19 USD - 200 DEC) + 70 DEC
Total = 270 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2 : celebration pack for reaching season level "Diamond III")
keepers - "Kobold Bruiser" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.74 USD - 500 DEC) + 70 DEC
Total - 570 DEC

Daily Quest Reward Cards
keepers - "Black Dragon" (Gold - Level 2 - $76.00 USD - 75,000 DEC), "Spirit Shaman" (non-gold (rare) - Level 1 - $1.19 USD - 300 DEC), + 210 DEC
nonkeepers - 75 DEC
Total = 75,585 DEC!

Notes: Here again, folks, is YET ANOTHER example of why I keep maximum "potion power" at ALL TIMES. Hitting a "super card" like today's "Black Dragon" (Gold) card offsets the DEC cost of potions for the ENTIRE MONTH! Even if I converted this card immediately to DEC that would result in 75,000 DEC, which could buy me ~ 2 x "500 charges" (+50 free) of "brilliant legendary" potions, PLUS 1 x "500 charges" (+50 free) "brilliant alchemy (gold)" potion, plus another 275 "brilliant gold" potions = ~ 75,000 DEC.

Untamed (Pack #3 : evening pack)
keepers - "Serpentine Sky" (Gold - Level 1 - $2.13 USD - 500 DEC), + 70 DEC

December 24th, 2019

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 110 DEC

Daily Quest Rewars
keepers - "The Kraken" (non-gold (legendary) - Level 1 - $4.90 USD - 1,500 DEC), "Screeching Vulture" (Gold - Level 3 - $1.15 USD - 750 DEC), "Creeping Ooze" (Gold - Level 4 - $0.90 USD - 750 DEC) + 15 60 60
Total= 3,135 DEC

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

Note: Since I am publishing this post several days late (due to some unforeseen "life issues") I have included the extra days of playing diary entries, instead of adding them to next week's post. I think this is best.

December 25th, 2019

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 300 DEC

Daily Reward Cards
keepers - 150 DEC
nonkeepers - 195 DEC

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

December 26th, 2019

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 140 DEC

Daily Reward Cards
keepers - "Fire Spitter" (non-gold (rare) - Level 1 - $2.24 USD - 300 DEC) + 105 DEC
nonkeepers - 165 DEC

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

December 27th, 2019

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

Daily Rewards Cards
keepers - 185 DEC
nonkeepers - 75 DEC

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

December 28th, 2019

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

Daily Quest Reward Cards
** Unfortunately, I got distracted by "life" issues, and missed this quest. I usually don't miss daily quests, but I should be forgiving of myself every once in a while. It's not easy to play every single day. Plus, I saved myself the ~ 1,200 DEC required to apply full "potion power" to the daily quest. This is actually another good argument for why it is good to do the $10 USD fiat (via PayPal) injection each month, as there WILL SURELY be days where I simply can't play and earn enough DEC to maintain maximum "potion power", and so the fiat will help with this. It's not the end of the world to miss a day or two, but my main concern is that the one daily quest I complete is my sole contribution to the guild at this time, so I want to try to do one per day, since we older members of the guild have stopped making DEC contributions until we decide that it is worth it to begin upgrading to the next level. So that "one completed daily quest" is a way for me to continue contributing to the guild, in fairness to the other members. Another positive, however, is that not playing full-force for a day or two allowed my capture rate to go way back up to 100%, which is always a good thing.

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - "Bone Golem" (Gold - Level 2 - $1.85 USD - 2,000 DEC) + 40 DEC

December 29th, 2019

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

Daily Quest Reward Cards
keepers - 420 DEC
nonkeepers - 60 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - "Coral Wraith" (non-gold (epic) - Level 1 - $1.55 USD - 200 DEC), + 230 DEC
Total = 430 DEC

December 30th, 2019

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Serpentine Spy" (Gold - Level 3 - $2.00 USD - 500 DEC) + 70 DEC
Total = 570 DEC

Notes: I ended up forgoing the "complete one tournament battle" quest today, and ended up with the most challenging "complete 5 "life" battles", as life is my weakest splinter. In fact, last year I sold off my entire Life splinter because I simply didn't like playing the life splinter, and used the DEC to upgrade my other decks. So this puts me in a situation of having to FORCE myself to get acquainted with the life deck again if I refuse the first daily quest and end up with the "complete 5 "life" battles" quest. In terms of the "learning factor" here, though, the best strategy when playing such a weak deck is to play a bunch of battles with the stronger decks, and then when you lose a run of several battles you can play the weaker splinter, as you won't sabotage the "streak" DEC bonus. Psychologically, this also protects you from excessive frustration due to losing several battles in a row with the weaker deck, which you are much less skilled/experienced with playing. I am NOT even EXPECTING to complete this "Life" quest today, but if I do it will be a good thing. In fact, instead of striving to complete the daily "Life" quest today, I am focusing on climbing as high as possible in the season levels before the season ends and the rewards cards are paid out. Two other important tools (for dealing with playing a weak deck) are that: ( 1 ) you can turn on the option to enable you to win battles if your opponent quits the battle. This is sometimes the only thing which enables you to complete the daily quest when you play a weak deck, assuming you play enough battles. Also, ( 2 ), your neutral monsters become ESPECIALLY valuable when playing a weak deck, since you are more familiar with them, and that can help "pick up the slack" which results from your weak skill/experience level with that weak deck. Finally, I found that when playing this quest, the new Untamed "Life" splinter cards performed especially strongly. I guess this is partly because other players have LESS of the Untamed cards (and some players have NONE of them!), AND because my Untamed life cards tend to be of equal or high level than my Beta "life" cards, since I sold off all of my betas a while back. Going forward, I plan to keep ALL of my Untamed life cards, and possibly even start gradually buying up (and/or upgradng) some of my preferred life cards, justso I have "enough" power in the life deck when I need it (like today). So I think it's good to sometimes challenge myself to play the life deck and slowly get familiar with the cards. You never know when this aptitude will come in handy (for instance, during "gold" card tournaments, or "complete 5 "life" battles" quests).

Whew! These posts are growing dense - but that's okay. This week has been especially chaotic for me, and it's actually a bit of a MIRACLE that I finally got this post done and published. I hope this one is "helpful ENOUGH". 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 SteemMonsters (Splinterlands) and/or Drug Wars, and/or "Prospectors, 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