I decided to try out Splinterlands now that I'm re-upping my participation on Hive. I'm still not sure I know what I'm doing, but my first ranked battle resulted in a win. Then I had a horrible streak of losses lol.
Now I've dabbled with some card rentals to try to level up through the ranks a bit faster. When I have more time I'll need to see if I even have a positive ROI. As of now, I've rented two cards, a Crypt Mancer Summoner and Chain Golem. Before renting level 4 cards, I probably should have figured out that my league rank is too low to take full advantage of them. Considering I'm only spending about 10 cents per day of rent, it's a cheap price to pay for the learning curve.
After playing around for a couple hours, I managed to advance to the Bronze I tier.
I've poked around a little for some good beginner guides for Splinterlands, but if you happen to know of a good one, drop a link in the comments and I'll send you some PIZZA!