As I have now been playing "Splinterlands" for over TWO YEARS, 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, addiction science, geopolitics, forensics, law, guerilla warfare tactis, ethics, philosophy, accounting, ergonomics, investing, anger management, the occult, 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 can then do a few "bad" deeds (HEDONISTICALLY speaking) - AND have a little extra Hive to buy/upgrade some more Splinterlands cards and/or buy some more swap.btc ( #Bitcoin ) and/or swap.doge ( #Dogecoin ) . Also, feel free to hit me up on the battlefield.
1 ) Upon some meditation this past week, I realized that this series has progressed over time to the point that I don't write much about my ACTUAL daily game play (battling) in the posts of this series. I started thinking, "Well, maybe the audience of these posts WANT to see some demonstration of my game play, especially since my strategy of building my collection "one gold card per day", for several months now, has resulted in me having an increasingly powerful overall arsenal of cards." One thing I COULD do is drop a few links to my actual battles in these posts, in the same way that I drop the various reward dump screenshots into these posts. I'm talking like ONLY those "extra special" select battles which really "show off" one's cards, or demonstrate a cool ruleset, or ability of the cards, etc. I think I will AT LEAST try this small tweak starting with THIS post, and drop the following (let's call it) "battle of the post" below. I think this will add some GROUNDEDNESS to these posts, even though LOTS of other players post their battles, and my main issue is that I don't endorse "battle spam". But this new "one battle per post" would serve the PRIMARY purpose of showing the audience how my ACTUAL CARDS - and the LARGER STRATEGIES detailed in these posts which help me OBTAIN these cards - are being used in my daily activity in the game.. I hope y'all will enjoy this new tweak.
For this post's "battle of the post" here's one which showcases my newly maxed "Giant Scorpion" gold card (which I maxed out recently via the ongoing "buy one gold card per day" strategy). IN ADDITION, this battle showcases the new "poison" ruleset, which is one of the most enjoyable of the new rulesets, in my personal opinion. I am finding that with this ruleset it is IDEAL to use as many of my cards which have the "heal" and/or "scavenge" abilities, as possible. Using these two abilities seems to "run the house" in most of the battles in this ruleset that I have played so far. That may be because other players haven't fully caught on to how to best play this ruleset. Oh well, "You snooze, you lose -- DEC, that is":
"Heal" and "Scavenge" gold cards DOMINATE in "poison" ruleset death battle:
https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=db526eba9407e21692dfac19214b6ca4b7e5f2bf&ref=transcript-junky
In the above battle you'll also notice, as a result of my "buy one goldcard per day" strategy, that FOUR (out of my five cards in the battle) are GOLD cards, and as a result of this there was a 40% DEC bonus (4 x 10% per gold card) PLUS an extra 10% "gold promo" bonus for using the "Corrupted Pegasys" (gold) card. That's a 50% bonus just from the cards themselves! Then when you add in the 12% "guild bonus" we are talking some SERIOUS "bonus power" resulting from this long term strategy. This well demonstrates the DIVIDENDS which the gold cards pay off over time, and is a good reinforcing argument for my "buy one gold card per day" strategy. It's also nice when your cards line up to battle, and the line-up is chock-full of golds. It's sort of like when a peacock BOASTS its feathers.
2 ) In line with the plan outlined in the previous post in this series, I purchased 31 swap.doge with the payout from the second-to-last post, and then when I got paid out on the previous post in this series I was CONFLICTED on whether to use the Hive (converted from the HBD portion of the payout) to buy swap.doge or swap.btc. I have been closely following the movement of BOTH coins (and will continue to do so going forward), and although I was thinking that it will likely be IDEAL to use the payout from the FIRST of my two weekly posts in this series to buy swap.doge, and then the SECOND weekly post payout to buy swap.btc (thereby continuing to gradually buy up BOTH tokens) my last-minute decision ultimately was determined by the simple fact that my 18 Hive bought me a more (visually/conceptually) substantial 66 swap.doge versus the more PUNY 0.0001 swap.btc. I know, it seems a bit ANAL-retentive, since the QUANTITY of the tokens doesn't actually matter compared to the VALUE of the holdings you have. But I know myself enough that I sometimes just have to GIVE IN to these COMPULSIONS. What I am going to do now is continue monitoring the price movements of BOTH coins, following current news related to each of them, and now that I have CONSIDERED the strategy of ALTERNATING the payouts of the two weekly posts between swap.btc and swap.doge I will need to at least SIT on this idea for the rest of the week before I can fully commit to it, in my own TWISTED mind. I think, deep down in that "DARK PLACE", I am hoping that Doge will make another major upswing which will be INCONGRUENT with the upward momentum of #Bitcoin (think "multiplier"), at which point I could then convert some of the swap.doge back to swap.hive, and then buy up a LARGER STASH of swap.btc. But in the end I think the "alternate buys of swap.doge and swap.btc" is the ideal MIDDLEGROUND strategy. My plan is to use the payout from THIS post to buy swap.btc, to launch this new strategy. I think that either way it is a "no lose" situation, as long as Doge doesn't drop back down to PRE-PUMP levels. Even if that does happen, though, the strategy of alternating between swap.doge and swap.btc will be a sort of HEDGE against loss of the Doge in that worst case scenario. However, as I showed in a recent post, my original 26,000 Doge which I accumulated at ~ 0.002/DOGE would have earned me like $1,750 USD (enough for another TRACT of Splinterlands land!), and so if Doge makes ANOTHER significant PUMP then this new strategy will have been worth the risk. I'll just keep buying some swap.doge and leave it up to the "crypto gods" to make the magic happen. The MOST IMPORTANT thing, though, is that with these purchases of swap.btc and swap.doge I am DEMONSTRATING how it is at least POSSIBLE/DOABLE to earn crypto via #Splinterlands, and then diversify that crypto value out into the larger cryptoverse, and so there is value it just the PURSUIT ITSELF. Fingers crossed.
3 ) On the day of writing this sentence we're at 46,971 (out of 50,000) Dice packs sold, before the next airdrop. The details of the upcoming airdrop are here:
Second ΛZMΛRÉ Dice Airdrop Card Revealed!
@splinterlands/second-lzmlre-dice-airdrop-card-revealed
This will be the first (out of five) Dice airdrops where I will have my new maximum 403 Dice packs to apply to the airdrop (as on the precious (first of five) airdrop I had not bought my most recent 100 ( + 10 free ) Dice pack batches. From the above post you can read:
"the chances of receiving the card in the airdrop (as well as in booster packs going forward, without the use of potions) will be approximately 0.57% or 1 in every 175 packs on average, with an average of 1 in 50 of them (or 2%) being Gold Foil."
And so with my 403 packs, 403 / 175 = 2.30, it appears that I will be guaranteed AT LEAST two airdropped cards (non-gold, and the possibility of one of those two cards being gold). Or I may get lucky and get more than the statistical prediction. Either way, this is BOTH some bonus "collection power" AND crypto value, and since I actually LIKE this card, and it is in one of my strongest splinters (death), I will surely keep any cards I get in the drop. These "1 mana" cards are VERY useful in battles, especially in the "4 mana or less" ruleset battles, which I have an special affinity for.
4 ) Upon writing this section, it is 01 day 05 hours before the end of the season, and the 15th of the month (the day which I am schedule to buy the 2nd (of two monthly) land plot from my guild buddy, for 15k DEC/plot. You can see from the screenshot that my in-game DEC holding is 10,604 DEC, and I have been FIGHTING to get it up to 15,000 DEC, against the clock, and down to ZERO "quest" potions - so I need to spend 705 DEC for the last quest of the season before the season rewards dump. As I mentioned, after the major loss of 155,000 DEC two weeks ago (explained in the series post at that time) I was forced to RE-START at "0" DEC. But I also mentioned that this was a BLESSING in disguise, as the struggle to now build up 15,000 DEC twice monthly (so 15,000 DEC by the end of each season) would give me a more REALISTIC metric on the progress I am making, in terms of DEC earnings, per day. Since I haven't hit any major high-value cards which I could sell, or burn into DEC, it has been a good "heathy challenge" to reach the "per season" DEC earnings goal of 15,000 DEC, and my decision to make the goal to buy "one plot at the end of each season" (so two plots per month, as each season basically lasts two weeks) is proving to have been a wise, and practical, strategy. I also need to purchase quest potions for each quest of the season, as well as try to keep up with my "buy one gold card per day" strategy. For two or three days of this past week I had to PASS on buying the "one gold card per day", for the sake of being able to maximize the chance of reaching the season goal of getting 15,000 DEC together for the plot. The good news is that if I hit anything JUICY (in the daily quest and/or season reward dumps) I can simply buy 2-3 EXTRA gold cards to make up for the missed days. And since the current gold card I am working on ("Maggots" (Gold - Level 3)) is currently selling for ~ $0.85, or ~ 1,000 DEC per card, it is AT LEAST POSSIBLE to make up for the lost days if I hit some high-value cards, and/or large DEC loot chests in the season dump. I will report on my in-game DEC balance AFTER the season dump in the next post of this series.
For now, the goal for the next 01 day 05 hours is to get up to AT LEAST the "Champion III" season level, so I can at least get 80 season loot chests. The "bad" news is that for the past two seasons I have had trouble climbing beyond "Champion III" level for some reason. I am wondering if this is because there are more players participating in the game? Well, if that IS the case then that is ALSO good news in the GRANDER scheme of things, even though the cost is less season loot chests in the shorter term - a price I am willing to pay. I plan to play harder next season to get back up to "Champion II" or ultimately "Champion I" level (as I tended to do in most of the past seasons), as 120 season loot chests (at the "Champion I" level is a nice, JUICY dump which would make it MUCH MORE likely that I can get the 15,000 DEC needed per season to buy the 15,000 DEC land plot. Fingers crossed.
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...
Note: This week, the recordkeeping got slightly mixed up, so I took three days from EARLIER in the week, before the mix-up. It's no biggy, as the point of the daily records is to simply show my accounting and investment on a daily basis - REGARDLESS of which specific days those are.
Starting DEC : 9,972 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 83.13%
Ending DEC - 10,621 DEC
Ending Capture rate : 77.86%
Balance = DEC Earning = 649 DEC = 2.998 HIVE x ~ $00.168 USD/Hive = ~ $0.50 USD
Spent :
1 x "Maggots" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.70 USD - 838 DEC -- seven (7) cards remaining to Level 10 (max))
earned 423.891 DEC from sale of " " (non-gold) card from recent milstene Untamed pack.
Daily Quest (today's "death" quest)
keepers -
(+) 210 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 30 DEC
potions - 3 legendary potions, 1 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 113 DEC
converted 1.929 HBD to 13.318 Hive
Starting DEC : 9,783 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 95.00%
Ending DEC - 10,940 DEC
Ending Capture rate : 88.22%
Balance = DEC Earning = 1,157 DEC = 5.03 HIVE x ~ $00.190 USD/Hive = ~ $0.95 USD
Spent :
1 x "Maggots" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.71 USD - 887 DEC -- six (6) cards remaining to Level 10 (max))
Daily Quest (today's "water" quest)
keepers -
(+) 270 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 20 DEC
potions - 4 legendary potions, 3 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 730 DEC
Starting DEC : 10,053 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 99.25%
Ending DEC - 10,994 DEC
Ending Capture rate : 86.50%
Balance = DEC Earning = 941 DEC = 3.642 HIVE x ~ $00.186 USD/Hive = ~ $0.68 USD
Spent :
1 x "Maggots" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.71 USD - 895 DEC -- five (5) cards remaining to Level 10 (max))
Daily Quest (today's "fire" quest)
keepers -
(+) 00 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 20 DEC
potions - 1 legendary potions, 6 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 360 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 semi-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