As I have now been playing "Splinterlands" for over a year, I've wanted to contribute something of ACTIONABLE value to my fellow players (and FUTURE players) - but NOT just fill my #Hive feed with daily images of quest reward - or battle - SPAM (no offense to those doing so). Ultimately, Hive 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 semi-weekly "Splinterlands" 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, psychology, forensics, philosophy, ethics, investing, accounting, and/or any other area(s) of knowledge I end up exploring (voluntarily or involuntarily) as this series naturally progresses, then I will have done my "good deed" (of providing value) for the week - and have a little extra Hive to buy some more Splinterlands cards/packs, and some #Bitcoin. Also, feel free to hit me up on the battlefield.
1 ) It turns out that buying the new 20 (+1 free) batch of Dice packs was the PERFECT solution, in terms of providing the incentive to work up to Champion I level for the season (which was the original goal). One main reason for this is that the daily battling has simply gotten MORE CHALLENGING since the new collection power feature has been integrated into the game, and so the "reward" of being able to open that one Dice pack (and the chance of hitting one or two JUICY cards) upon reaching each new level has been very effective. I have NOT yet hit any major cards in the packs, but still have 16 packs remaining, and so hopefully there is/are one or two JUICY ones in those remaining 16 x 5 = 80 cards.
2 ) It turns out that my guild leader got an unexpected windfall of Hive tokens, which had been accidentally held during the #JustinSun debacle, and he has been nice enough to offer a nice little bump of upvote ( so far it seems like ~ $0.50 USD per post ) for my posts, but more importantly, he's indicated a possible interest in using some of his Hive windfall to upgrade the Quest Lodge of our guild to Level 8, and cited that my push last month to re-mobilize the guild members' daily contribution efforts (of 80 DEC per day per member) has been helpful for him in making that decision. At the current rate we will likely be up to 450,000 DEC remaining (out of 500k since we re-mobilized last month) by the time he is ready (in two month, once the Uniswap pool is done) to make the large contribution, so he will save 50,000 DEC as a result of the guild members' contributions, and we will ALL get an addition 3% DEC per won battle ( so 12% total) once we upgrade to Level 8. That extra 3% DEC bonus per won battle can further offset the recent 57,000 DEC cost of the 100 (+1 free) Dice pack batch I bought last week. So this appears to be another "divine intervention" by the "crypto gods". Hey, it sure beats gambling in one of #JustinSun's money-laundering scam #Tron casinos.
3 ) Eureka! With some advice from some of my Homey-Homos over in the Splinterlands #Discord channel I was FINALLY able to successfully exchange some #Hive for swamp.btc, on 
4 ) Since I bought the most recent 20 (+1 free) Dice pack batch (for 57,000 DEC) last week, I have been monitoring the value of the cards in the packs. Unfortunately, I have NOT hit any ESPECIALLY high-value cards (to recoup the entire cost), but since the burn rate on even the rarer cards is usually only 40 DEC I decided trying to putting them up for sale on the market, and was pleased to see that one of the "Lorna Shine" (non-gold summoner) cards I got in a pack sold on the market for 680.440 DEC, which is WHOLE lot more than the 40 DEC burn. So now, for the remaining 16 packs I have from the batch I will sell these rarer, "(40 DEC (or more) burn" cards on the MARKET instead of just burning them immediately for much less. This will increase my chance of recuperating MORE of the original 57,000 DEC I spent on the batch. Plus, 680 DEC - 40 DEC = 640 DEC extra DEC to buy some more cards. That is sometimes even enough to buy one of the cheaper gold cards. In fact, I did JUST THAT with the extra 640 DEC from the sale of this card, and bought 1 x "Phantasm" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.65 USD - 727 DEC), which is 87 DEC over-budget, but that doesn't account for the many 10 DEC and 40 DEC cards I have burned from the six batch packs so far, so it works out. I know this may seem a bit TRITE, but each extra gold card I can add to my collection is additional earning-power in the long-term (primarily due to the 10% "gold" bonus you get for each gold card you use in won battles), and so that 640 bonus DEC from selling on the market versus burning for much less makes sense.
5 ) Okay. As I did in the last post in this series, the highly-detailed "diary" of my daily #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...
Starting DEC : 1,235,671 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 90.04%
Ending DEC - 1,236,859 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 89.63%
Balance = DEC Earning = 1,188 DEC = -> 8.139 HIVE x ~ $00.135 USD/Hive = ~ $1.09 USD
Spent:
2 x "Goblin Dartling" (Gold - Level 3 - $1.59 USD - 1,705 DEC -- nine (9) cards remaining to Level 10 (max))
Daily Quest (today's "fire" quest)
keepers -
(+) 120 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 45 DEC
potions - 3 legendary potions, 2 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 107 DEC
Starting DEC : 1,235,144 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 89.71%
Ending DEC - 1,240,222 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 68.90%
Balance = DEC Earning = 5,078 DEC = ->33.242 HIVE x ~ $00.142 USD/Hive = ~ $4.72 USD
Spent:
3 x "Goblin Dartling' (Gold - Level 3 - $2.62 USD - 2,884 DEC -- six (6) cards remaining to Level 10 (max))
4 x "Phantasm" (Gold - Level 3 - $2.53 USD - 2,785 DEC -- bumped up to Level 5 (to decrease "health" from "+ 8" to "+7", and add the "return fire" ability)
Daily Quest (today's "dragon" quest)
keepers -
(+) 800 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 55 DEC
potions - 2 legendary potions, 3 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 78 DEC
1,276.884 DEC - transferred in from Hive-Engine (converted SPT to DEC)
converted 13 Hive to 2,000 DEC
Starting DEC : 1,234,474 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 86.20%
Ending DEC - 1,235,820 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 70.01%
Balance = DEC Earning = 1,346 DEC = -> 8.782 HIVE x ~ $00.150 USD/Hive = ~ $1.32 USD
Spent:
28 x "Battle Orca" (non-gold - Level 1 - $1.83 USD - 1,895 DEC -- bumped up to Level 8 (max) - to increase "melee" from "+3" to "+4")
Daily Quest (today's "dragon" quest)
keepers -
(+) 40 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 95 DEC
potions - 5 legendary potions, 2 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 88 DEC
Starting DEC : 1,233,845 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 79.69%
Ending DEC - 1,234,443 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 68.06%
Balance = DEC Earning = 589 DEC = -> 3.964 HIVE x ~ $00.140 USD/Hive = ~ $0.55 USD
Spent:
15 x "Fineas Rage" (non-gold - Level 1 - $0.78 USD - 830 DEC -- bumped up to Level 5 (to increase "health" from "+9" to "+10" and add the "Oppress" ability)
Daily Quest (today's "fire" quest)
keepers -
(+) 40 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 55 DEC
potions - 3 legendary potions, 3 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 72 DEC
Starting DEC : 1,233,613 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 68.16%
Ending DEC - 1,235,134 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 60.00%
Balance = DEC Earning = 1,521 DEC (before buying the Dice pack batch) = -> 10.276 HIVE x ~ $00.146 USD/Hive = ~ $1.50 USD
Spent:
1 x "Goblin Dartling" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.75 USD - 778 DEC -- five (5) cards remaining to Level 10 (max))
1 x "Phantasm" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.66 USD - 685 DEC --
bought 20 (+1 free) Dice pack batch -> 57,000 DEC
Dice (free pack ( from new 20 (+1 free) pack batch)
keepers -
(+) 50 DEC
non-keepers -
(+) 30 DEC (total DEC = 80 DEC)
Dice ("Diamond II" season milestone pack ( + 50 season loot chests )
keepers -
(+) 240 DEC
non-keepers -
(+) 30 DEC (total DEC = 270 DEC)
Dice ("Diamond I" season milestone pack ( + 60 season loot chests )
keepers -
(+) 260 DEC
non-keepers -
(+) 10 DEC (total DEC = 270 DEC --- subtotal -> 57,000 DEC - 620 DEC = 56,380 DEC)
Daily Quest (today's "earth" quest)
keepers -
(+) 200 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 80 DEC
potions - 2 legendary potions, 1 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 303 DEC
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 Splinterlands 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