As I have now been playing "Splinterlands" (formerly called "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 social media technology. So, after some serious pondering, I decided that a weekly "Splinterlands + "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...
[DISCLAIMER: Sorry folks. This update is a few days late, mainly because I have been under a lot of stress lately, AND because I am having some SERIOUS issues with my back/spine which are making sitting up for long stretches a challenge. I hope you will bear with me, as I very much want to continue publishing this series as a weekly series - since I both ENJOY creating it, and know that many readers enjoy consuming it. Hopefully, I will feel better by resting a bit. For now, these posts will be published as soon as I can comfortably compose them , and polish them up. Thanks in advance for your understanding. Feel free to give a little extra upvote love so I can buy a few beers to take the edge off a bit while I toil away at creating these FINE posts (no pressure, of course ;->)]
1 ) I must say that my strategy of opening generally "two Untamed packs per day" REALLY HAS turned out to be an ideal one. The first reason why this was an ideal strategy decision is that the slower pace of PACK-opening allows me the flexibility to maintain adequate DEC liquidity so that I always have maximum potIon-power applied to the packs. Secondly, opening the packs gradually is more ORGANIC, in that I can "get to know" the cards at their various levels as I upgrade them in a natural manner. If I would have just opened all of the packs in one go I would have had a bunch of cards which I had no idea how to use, and in many cases would not even have had the OPPORTUNITY to use the cards at the lower levels. Thirdly, since I am also earning DEC daily from battles, I am able to SELECTIVELY buy additional individual cards to upgrade those SPECIFIC Untamed cards which I find most valuable and useful. Finally, being able to look forward to opening the "morning" and "evening "packs (and the milestone packs when I reach the next higher level for the season) ups the "enjoyment' factor of the game. There have been NUMEROUS cases in the past two months where that little extra motivation (in the form of being able to open a new pack) has gotten me through a rough quest, or the push to the next season level. I can't stress how effective this type of pack-opening pacing strategy is for my overall progress in the game.
2 ) Another positive this week has been that my gang membership in Drug Wars literally SAVED me from completely giving up on the game. I simply sent an update message to the other active gang members explaining how I was feeling like the game has hit a "plateau", but that I was willing to switch to a more passive mode (including the daily tasks of: making my daily contribution of 500k resources of Drugs, Weapons, and Alcohol, upgrading my safe capacity and drug production, etcetera). To my surprise I saw that some other gang members have been having similar thoughts. So since one of the members continues to do the gang jobs, which result in me waking up to find several thousand of each resource in my account daily, AND since Drug Wars has put out some major upgrades to the game in the past few weeks, what I have done is ADD the task of reading through the past Steemit posts detailing those updates, so that I am at least "up to date" on the new functionality of the game. One of the new additions to the game is "defense" units, which I assume exist to defend again what happened to me two weeks ago (that is, when my entire army was wiped out when I was not able to log in to the game for a few days). Other players have been complaining about that also, and I found out that there is actually a "shield" in-game item you can buy which makes you immune from attacks for two days. But my approach will be more organic, and free. A combination of building defense units large enough to cover a new army which is large enough to do daily jobs would be an ideal strategy at this point, and this week I indeed added the daily acquisition/upgrade of defense units to my current daily strategy. There is no risk, and the resources are coming in automatically through the gang jobs, which I don't have to actually spend time doing. So we have a nice distribution of labour system going on right now, and I now feel again like progress is being made. That was the main reason (before my army was wiped out) I was losing interest - because it was taking too much time to find and attack other players. Finally, I am sticking with my MAIN goal of my activity on Drug Wars, which is to use it as a marketing case study in my larger " blockchain gaming " project. I think this is a productive place to enable me to "stay in the game" at this point. One positive thing I WILL say at this this point is that - even though I have claimed that the "Prospectors" game is more IMMERSIVE, and has a stronger admin team and player base online, the main thing that I am lacking on "Prospectors" right now is the sort of tight-knit community that exists in my Drug Wars gang. If I can motivate the Drug Wars gang guys to join my efforts on "Prospectors" to get a similar momentum going there that would be ideal. We could play BOTH games, and also benefit from the WAX and EOS cryptocurrency which is paid out in "Prospectors". I'm also hoping that Drug Wars is able to continue nnovating to add a more IMMERSIVE component to the game. Another good thing I will say is that I am now earning a good 3-4 DWD (Drug Wars Dollars) per day now, and it is as easy as clicking one button to transfer that DWD to 
3 ) I must confess that I was WAY WRONG one one issue recently, and that was my impulsive decision to make that follow-up deposit of 0.03 BTC, two weeks ago, in order to REPEAT the previous win of 0.01 BTC (so 0.03 deposit -> 0.01 win -> 0.04 (withdraw), which ended up in two weeks of HELL, ending in a final crash. Let me just say here that I have been under IMMENSE stress in my life in general lately, which fueled my decision to do the additional deposit. But in my defense I will also say that something CERTAINLY IS fish over at BitcoinVideoCasino.com , and I stand by my claim (backed by the video evidence I provided in the last update) that I was "slighly duped" out of that 0.03 BTC deposit, which (I claim) "provoked" me to chase that 0.03 BTC with ANOTHER 0.03 BTC, which lead to a two week long descent into TORTURE as I slowly (day by day) lost a grand total of around 0.07 BTC. As I believe that it is important to be honest with myself, and to my readers, I will attest that my subsequent deposits into BitcoinVideoCasino DID INDEED go through as they were supposed to, BUT I do believe that their system is NOT "provably fair", and is RIGGED, and the final evidence of this, to me, was on the final day, when I was up a bit and withdrew 0.01 BTC (and bought 40 Untamed packs, and an equal amount of potions, only to find that the blackjack hands dealt to me took a SHARP and NOTICABLE odds-turn AGAINST me, resulting in me losing my final 0.01 BTC in a suspiciously short amount of time (compared to the hours/days before the deposit). I think that the general lack of customer support, and very negative claims against this casino (all over the internet) are "convincing ENOUGH" evidence that it is just better to stay away from these operations. One of the most disheartening things about this situation is that EVEN IF you have a legitimate complaint you will find yourself having to deal with the general backlash of modern online discourse, where SOME people will be supportive, and SOME will make ungrounded accusations against you, but in the end the casino has already gotten you to hit the button to send them your Bitcoin. My belief at this point, considering all of the evidence, is that "the deposit" is the only thing these "questionable" operations care about. That is, once they get your deposit, they got it - and they've got YOU. All of the rest (ex. the casino game itself, the "inadequate" customer support, etc. is simply "window dressing" to "close the deal" on you making your deposit. I hope you will all keep this in mind. I DO NOT advise sending Bitcoin to ANY pay-for-play operation without considering that BTC TO BE gone with the wind. Hopefully, this advice will help some people in the future. Don't ASSUME that your fellow humans are out for your best interest. I have learned in life to assume the OPPOSITE, and enjoy those select occasions where people prove otherwise. Just some friendly advice. Live and learn. So, it seems like it's time to hit the ground, get down on the knees, and pray to the "Crypto Gods" to swoop on down and leave some more of their JUICY droppings. Hey, anything can happen... I am thinking that some unexpected PERKS are on the way for Tron-holders, which is why I am building up my Tron holdings with part of the payout from these posts. Fingers crossed.
4 ) In last week's post I explained how enjoyable it was to spend the "Steem" part of the payout of these series posts on new cards. But then I also mentioned a few weeks ago that I wanted start accumulating Tron cryptocurrency, which is now integrated with the Splinterlands platform. After giving it some though, I realized that I could simply use the equivalent amount of the weekly "SP" payout (using liquid DEC on hand) to buy Tron each week (so with half of the payout). Luckily, this week a new DEC/TRX trading pair became available on the https://trontrade.io exchange, and after reading 
How to Buy & Sell DEC on TronTrade.io
I gave it a shot. However, I ran into one or two initial obstacles which have delayed the first successful trade. Firstly, I didn't have any TRX to pay the "energy" and other fee for the transaction. Luckily,
5 ) Okay. As I did in the previous posts 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, for future reference, and may help some people NOW, and into the perpetual future...
Starting DEC : 6,260 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 77.90%
Ending DEC - 9,902 DEC
Ending Capture rate : 74.14 ~ %
Balance = 3,642 DEC
Daily Earning = 3,642 DEC = ~ 18.038 Steem x ~ $0.14 USD/Steem = ~ $2.53 USD
Spent:
7 x "Gremlin Blaster" - 453 DEC
12 x "Albatross" (non-gold - 3,105 DEC)
Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Biceratops" (Gold - Level 3 -$0.50 USD - 500 DEC) + 200 40 40 10 DEC
Total = 790 DEC
Placed 9th in a tournament
Won - 1,000 DEC
Placed 18th in gold tournament
https://steemmonsters.com/?p=tournament&id=0fc14cd7f36f7dd98cfcfb51fc328f3c122d82a5
Won - 1,250 DEC
Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - "Cornealus" (non-gold - Level 1 - $8.00 USD - 1,000 DEC (bumped up to Level 2)) + 40 DEC
Total = 1,040 DEC
Daily Quest Today is "win one tournament battle in any splinter". I am too tired to stay up another two hours (until 12 am), so I will do it tomorrow)
Untamed (Pack #3 : celebration pack for reaching "Gold I" level - +4 season reward cards (total season cards = 30))
keepers- 80 DEC
Starting DEC : 6,291 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 85.75%
Ending DEC - 7,612 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 81 %
Balance = 1,321 DEC
Daily Earning = DEC = ~ 6.906 Steem x ~ $0.147 USD/Steem = ~ $1.02 USD
Notes : Due to both the glitch in the battling system, AND me taking advantage of a good discounted price on the 13 Albatross cards (detailed below) the calculations are a bit off today, since I also won some tournaments, and brought some DEC in from my
Spent:
13 x "Albatross" (non-gold - 2,205 DEC total)
I saw 13 cards on the market at a deep discount ($0.12/card versus single cards selling for $0.18/card, and so I bought them up (in violation of my rule of only "going shopping" once per day (at the end of the play day). However, buying at a $0.06 discount works out to a savings of 13 x $0.06 USD = $0.78 USD, which can be used to buy some other much-needed cards to increase my chance of winning battles, and cards)
2 x "Battle Orca" (non-gold - 130 DEC total - to get this card up to Level 5).
13 x "Maggots" (non-gold -1,160 DEC -- now working on buying up the 24 additional cards necessary to get this card up to Level 6 and unlock the powerful "scavenger" ability. I should be able to do this within the next 2-3 days).
Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 110 DEC
Daily Quest Rewards (this is YESTERDAY'S "win one tournament battle in any splinter" completed quest which I didn't have the time/energy to complete yesterday)
keepers - 240 DEC
non-keepers - 90 DEC
Tournament
Won - 750 DEC
Untamed (Pack #1 : evening pack)
keepers - 80 DEC
Daily Quest Rewards
keepers - "Spirit Miner" (non-gold (legendary) - Level 1 - $1.31 USD - 1,500 DEC) + 405 DEC
nonkeepers - 120 DEC
Notes: I had a major issue starting last night, with either the Splinterlands server, or my client connection, glitching out, and this resulting in a series of 5-10 losses, and inability to properly play with a smoothly functioning battle system. The good news is that the tech-support people in the Spinterlands Discord channel were extremely helpful, and fast, and together we at least got me back to being able to battle properly, and I was able to finish the daily quest in the late morning (although I had to do so one level down, and so lost a few reward cards - but DID get a cool legendary card. So in the end it was a learning experience (the hard way), and I am now setting up a protocol for if/when this issue happens again (ex. update browser, run CCCleaner and anti-virus programs, etc.) since this sort of issue can really throw my routine off. I also waited to calculate today's "starting" and "ending" and "spending" calculations until I finished the quest (which "was tommorow" - relative to this comment). This made the record-keeping less complicated.
Starting DEC : 4,128 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 82.00%
Ending DEC - 4,456 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 77>09 %
Balance = 328 DEC
Daily Earning = 328 DEC = ~ 1.546 Steem x ~ $0.147 USD/Steem = ~ $0.23 USD
Notes : This calculation DOES NOT include the DEC value of the quest reward cards, which I simply didn't have the time/energy to complete today, and will include in tomorrow's update)
Spent:
2 x 'Failed Summoner" (non-gold - 397 DEC total -- using some of the value of the nonkeeper reward cards from recent quests)
Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 80 DEC
Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 80 DEC
Starting DEC : 4,059 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 84.96%
Ending DEC - 5,200 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 80.00 %
Balance = 1,141 DEC
Daily Earning = 1,141 DEC = ~ 4.922 Steem x ~ $0.163 USD/Steem = ~ $0.80 USD
Spent:
12 x "Maggots" (non-gold - 1,128 DEC --just five (5) more cards to go to reach Level 6 and unlock "scavenger" ability)
Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Tower Griffin" (Gold - Level 2 - $2.54 USD - 2,000 DEC) + 40 DEC
Total = 2,040 DEC
Daily Quest Reward Cards (from yesterday's quest, which I didn't have the time/energy to complete)
keepers - "Exploding Dwarf" (Gold - Level 4 - $0.68 USD - 750 DEC) + 375 DEC
nonkeepers - 135 DEC
Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 110 DEC
Daily Quest Reward Cards
keepers - 375 DEC
nonkeepers - 105 DEC
Notes: This daily "fire" quest was absolutely HELLISH. It took me over two hours to complete, I lost around 150 points, and used up around 0% capture. I should have followed my rule of mixing other splinters in with the "fire" battles, as "fire" is NOT my strongest splinters (in fact, it is THIRD (followed by "life", which I never play and have few cards). The rewards cards are nothing special, but at least I completed the quest, and can try to win some more battles before the end of the day, so I can have a decent shopping session with the daily DEC I've earned. No every day is a great one. Such is life.
Notes : The value of Steem made a MAJOR jump from ~ $0.14 $0.18 USD in the past 24 hours. This was instructive, in that it will show (if the the new higher price holds) how a rise in the value of Steem will affect the number of cards I am able to buy with the payouts from the post in this series. As I wait for the Steem payout of this post, for the next four days, I will take screenshots of the market prices of some of the cards I am interested in buying (along with the screenshot of the pop-up window which indicated the amount of Steem required to purchase that specific card. I should have done this in the past, when the price of Steem was $0.11 - $0.14, but then again, the price can continue to go up, or move down again, so it is a worthwhile task. If there is indeed an increase in the number of cards I can buy with roughly the same amount of payout from these posts ( ~ 12 -15 Steem per post), then this would provide additional incentive to continue writing, and boosting the exposure (and income) of these posts).
Starting DEC : 4,072 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 88.44%
Ending DEC - 4627 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 82.72 %
Balance = 555 DEC
Daily Earning = 555 DEC = ~ 2.377 Steem x ~ $0.168 USD/Steem = ~ $0.40 USD
Spent:
5 x "Maggots" (non-gold - 469 DEC -- bumped up to Level 6 to unlock scavenger ability)
Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 80 DEC
Daily Quest Reward Cards
keepers - 90 DEC
nonkeepers - 135 DEC
Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 280 DEC
Starting DEC : 4,150 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 82.13%
Ending DEC - 5,534 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 66.28 %
Balance = 1,384 DEC
Daily Earning =1,384 DEC = ~ 5.666 Steem x ~ $0.174 USD/Steem = ~ $0.99 USD
Spent:
18 x "Gremlin Blaster" (non-gold - 1,446 DEC - eight (8) cards remaining to get to Level 7)
Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 80 DEC
Daily Quest Reward Cards
keepers - "Ettin Spearman" (Gold - Level 4 - $0.69 USD - 750 DEC) + 60 30 15 60 30 15
nonkeepers - 60 DEC
Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - "Crystal Jaguar" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.55 USD - 500 DEC ) + 100 DEC
Starting DEC : 4,150 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 75.18%
Ending DEC - 7,372 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 87.05 %
Balance = 3,222 Earning = DEC = ~ 13.92 Steem x ~ $0.172 USD/Steem = ~ $2.39 USD
Spent:
48 x "Gremlin Blaster" - 2,200 DEC
Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 80 DEC
Daily Quest Reward Cards
Untamed (Pack #2 : celebration pack for reaching "Diamond III" level - +10 season reward cards (total season cards = 40))
keepers- 240 DEC
Converted 11.5 Steem of payout from last week's series post to 2658 Steem
Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 80 DEC
Starting DEC : 4,109 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 87.52%
Ending DEC - 5,521 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 68.78 %
Balance = 1,412 Earning = DEC = ~ 6.048 Steem x ~ $0.157 USD/Steem = ~ $0.95 USD
Spent:
14 x "Gremlin Blaster" - (non-gold) - 941 DEC - this card is now maxed and has maximum "+2 melee" power
3 x "Gelatinous Cube" (non-gold - 129 DEC -- to reach level 7 and unlock "heal" ability
10 x Biceratops (non-gold - 342 DEC - 23 cards remaining until Level 6 (to unlock "thorns" ability)
Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 80 DEC
Daily Quest Reward Cards (from yesterday's "fire" quest)
keepers- "Sea Monster" (Gold - Level 4 - $0.70 USD - 750 DEC) + 45 DEC
nonkeepers- 465 DEC
Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 80 DEC
Daily Quest Reward Cards (from yesterday's "water" quest)
keepers- "Creeping Ooze" (Gold - Level 4 - $0.84 USD - 750 DEC) + 135 DEC
nonkeepers- 120 dec
Starting DEC : 4,109 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 80.19%
Ending DEC 5008 - DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 70.63 %
Balance = 899 DEC Earning = 899 DEC = ~ 3.87 Steem x ~ $0.156 USD/Steem = ~ $0.60 USD
Spent:
21 X "Biceratops" (non-gold - 889 DEC) plus
2 X "Biceratops" (non-gold - 88 DEC) - the extra two cards ( 88 DEC ) bumped this card up to unlock the powerful "Thorns" ability. The extra 88 DEC can be justified by the slight UNDERSPENDING on previous days.
Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Diamond Dragon" (non-gold) - Level 1 - $3.70 USD - 1,000 DEC) + 70 DEC
Total = 1,070 DEC
Daily Quest Reward Cards (from yesterday's "water" quest)
keepers- "Spirit Miner" (non-gold (legendary) - Level 1 - $1.36 USD - 1,500 DEC) + 435 DEC
nonkeepers- 165 DEC
Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - "Tortisian Tortoise" (non-gold - epic - Level 1 - $1.21 USD - 200 DEC) + 70 DEC
Total = 270 DEC
Starting DEC : 4,031 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 81.41%
Ending DEC - 4,816 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 66.48 %
Balance = DEC Earning = 785 DEC = ~ 3.363 Steem x ~ $0.155 USD/Steem = ~ $0.52 USD
Spent:
4 x "Cursed Slimeball" (non-gold - 763 DEC)
Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 100 DEC
Daily Quest Reward Cards (from today's "dragon" quest)
keepers - 240 DEC
nonkeepers- 180 DEC
Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 260 '
Grand Total Of Daily Earnings From All Days = $10.43 / 10 (days) = ~ $1.04 USD/day
Whew! These posts are growing dense - but that's okay. 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