You're not a monster

As the old adage goes,

The best intentions get screwed over by the stupidest acts.

Since the crypto markets are dead and will never recover, I have been drowning my sorrows in Splinterlands a bit more than I had originally intentioned and while I am in a technical green zone and perhaps by a long way, I find myself wasting a lot more time than I had wanted to and enjoying it more than I should. I think it is a mix of things that has led to this including what is going on professionally and with my health, but I feel like a bit of a monster - as I have better things to do with my time.

Better things aside though, I was playing last night but feel that I am getting stuck, as my cards while not bad, just can't get over the hurdle into the Diamond leagues, leaving me floundering in mid-Gold 1.

Granted, my cards might be good enough to crossover the border, but I concede that I am not good enough and still make a lot of silly errors, like choosing a brilliant team for the game play, but forgetting one of the conditions, or setting my team in the wrong order and getting slaughtered. sometimes though, I am just outmuscled, and as someone who is pretty muscly (muscle jiggles, right?), it doesn't feel good.

So, I have hit the rental market in the hope to add something useful to my stables (not stable coins) and in order to do so, I have enlisted the help of three Splinterlands stooges Musketeers (@revisesociology, @abh12345 and @azircon) who have helped me all the way along. They are full of useful tips, which is fantastic, I just have to decipher what they are talking about half the time, as they use nonsensical jargon that they think is normal, but don't realize they are actually speaking a Tolkien language.

What I have found interesting is that I have an "affinity" for some splinters over others and prefer some monsters over others, even if they aren't the best ones to play. It is like I want the underdog to win, so keep playing even if it keeps losing.

One of the problems I have is that I am a terrible maximizer, meaning I am terribly bad at maximizing. This is a challenge as essentially the point of Splinterlands is to find a balance between Mana and attributes that maximize the chances of winning, whether it be through the force of attack, the strength of defense or through the many combinations of traits that can be applied to lessen or strengthen the chosen team.

In some cases, you don't even need to attack to win - you just have to fight a war of attrition.

https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_16934ebdeb45e9b7ce0a5f53b0e96bbc&ref=tarazkp

Thanks for the lesson @gtg

I am still very much in the learning phase, but at least I feel like I am making some inroads into building my own strategy and style of play. I might not win that much, but I would rather play as "me" than copy what others do. I am pretty stubborn like that and even when I ask for help, I don't always follow the advice I receive. Sorry!

But, this means that while the learning curve is steep and hard to climb, once I do learn, I am pretty good at using my strategy to my advantage. This works better in games that aren't like Splinterlands though, as it is quite calculating, so for each gameplay there is likely a "perfect" approach if someone has a full deck to play with. I definitely don't have a full deck, either in-game or in terms of brain function, but I enjoy the play enough to want to advance a bit more.

Which brings me to a question about scalability of the game itself. @azircon was saying that while my "Dice" cards are okay, I will need to rent some summoners and monsters from earlier decks, because I can't win much with Dice alone. I get this, but I wonder that if there were for example, a couple million people playing Splinterlands, does that mean that only a sliver of users will be able to compete at the top because they have a full deck from the early days?

I went in heavy on Dice because essentially, that is all that was available at the time. I have a pretty decent DICE deck, but will there be cards coming in coming pack groups that allow me to compete with the early players, or will I always be resigned to struggle in the bunny leagues?

Remembering that this is a Pay-to-Play game whether buying packs or renting from others, it can cause a problem as there is an equilibrium point somewhere that makes renting unviable (considering people want to earn) and owning useless, since people will know they can't get very far without renting old cards, which will inflate in price as more people need them in order to advance. While the rental price rise sounds great for investors (I rent a lot of my cards too), the closer it gets to the equilibrium point, the less new players will come into the game.

Again, I don't know what is in the pipeline for future packs, but I do hope that the creators understand that future investors can't just be early investors, new blood and money is needed, and that means cards that can compete with the old. Of course, there has to also be incentive and value for early supporters too, so it can't be too easy to get in late either. Most likely, @aggroed and @yabapmatt have a solution for finding this middleground across the card issues.

But one thing I would like them to seriously consider is, creating a Lengendary neutral "Jack of all Trades" card. It can have low mana, lots of attributes at a relatively low level and is able to fit in and support any team. One thing it has to have high though, is resiliency.

The "Taraz" card

Then I will be a monster for realsies ;D

Anyway, back to what I should be doing - which is not posting or playing Splinterlands....

Stupid work.

If only the crypto markets were 10x - Or I got into Splinterlands at the start.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]