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 tactics, 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.
[ DISCLAIM: Hey readers, I am still dealing with this NASTY back/spine issue, and this past week has been ESPECIALLY bad. I am pro-actively taking steps to treat the situation, with the MAIN goal being to be able to maintain my daily transcription work ( at the "online transcription sweatshop" out of India, which pays me up to $2.00 USD per day, if I hustle) PLUS the DEC, BTC and Doge income from my daily #Splinterlands activity. I will keep y'all updated ( that is, mainly as it relates to my ability to stay on course in producing these updates ). However, at this point I would like to ask ANY of you BOYS and GOYLS out there who CARE, and/or have enjoyed the posts in this series, to simply give me some of your prayers (like give a SHOUT to (in Kurt Vonnegut's words) "The Creator of the Universe") something like, "Hey "Creator of the Universe"! Can you look out for this 
1 ) Battle of the post:
"Battle of the Tramps"
https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=9d9a8f3e1240993cedc788498dd24a0dd4325dd2&ref=transcript-junky
Nice "Trample" battle with two gold tramplers. You can see that the combination of the "Molten Ogre" (gold) and "Giant Roc" (non-gold) totally WIPED OUT the enemy with their combined "trample" power. I have been WANTING to upgrade my "Giant Roc" (gold) card from Level 6 to Level 10 (max - like the non-gold version) - because I use it so much - but at $3.00 USD per card it is NOT of top priority right now (compared to OTHER gold cards I am working on currently - specifically the Untamed golds). Perhaps I could try to set a course to buy ONE "Giant Roc" (gold) card per WEEK, in which case it would take me 34 weeks to reach Level 10 (max). Then there is always the extra "tournament" DEC that I could use to buy "one "Giant Roc" (gold) card per week), and other unexpected DROPS (JUICY reward cards/chests/etc.) I may actually do this, because this card is one of my all-time favorites, and as I have said in the past, my Splinterlands cards are LITERALLY like my "pets" at this point, and I like to see them grow, and thrive - with the added bonus of earning me some DEC, BTC, and Doge. Maybe this week I will buy ONE "Giant Roc" (gold) card and update you in the next post in this series if I am successful at doing that.
2 ) Turns out I "had the itch" and opened all of my ~ 15 reserve Untamed packs around two weeks ago, partly to use up some of the extra potions I had accumulated. This left me with not enough packs to open for each of the previous season's level milestone achievements. The good news is that this enabled me another COMPLETE RESET of my Untamed reward packs, and so I can now, once again, monitor how fast I can accumulate more packs to open at each season milestone. It turns out that up until writing this sentence I HAVE earned EXACTLY enough free Untamed packs during the season to cover EACH milestone, and one of the packs landed me another JUICY "Mimosa Nightshade" (non-gold) cards, which is BOTH worth a nice $14.00 USD, as well as being the remaining card I needed to bump that card up to Level 3, with five more cards to go to reach Level 4 (max). I think it will be a nice challenge to see if I can earn enough free Untamed reward packs going forward each season (4-5 packs per season) to cover all of the season milestones WITHOUT having to actually buy more Untamed packs. Let's see what happens.
3 ) Some promising news related to my ongoing #Dogecoin accumulation. The most recent article by Elon Musk:
DOGE Jumps After Tesla’s Musk Promises ‘Literal’ Moonshot
https://www.coindesk.com/dogecoin-takes-off-after-musk-moonshot
proves that my predicted "pump potential" of Doge continues going strong for now, and likely into the future, and reinforces my decision to spend time each day on the https://faucetcrypto.com/ref/746118 site, where I am now generating 4.0+ Doge per week, and have climbed to Level 123. I know it may SEEM insignificant, but if Doge ends up INDEED making a HUGE pump (to, let's say $1.00 USD per Doge, or more) then all of the time and energy spent on the faucet activity will have been worth it, and I will then have a nice amount of Doge to convert to DEC to then buy more gold cards. I think it is worth sticking out this effort, which also gives me some incentive to follow the developments on Doge. At this point, if Doge totally MOONS then I currently have 106 Doge (and growing) which could turn out to produce a nice BOOST of gold cards in my collection - which will then EARN ADDITIONAL value via the "gold" bonus per gold card used in each won battle. As a FUNKY anecdote, I earned my initial ~ 1.0 Bitcoin back in 2013-2014, when BTC was valued at $200 USD - $400 USD per Bitcoin. I earned that by charging my podcast client, at the time (who was heavily into Bitcoin) a deeply discounted $50 USD worth of Bitcoin for transcribing one-hour podcast episodes (a task which would normally cost over $100 USD per podcast episode transcript). I took the risk on the discount with the intention that if Bitcoin went up in value that original $50 USD payment for each podcast would be worth WAY MORE than the original payout. Well, as Bitcoin is now valued at ~ $60,000 USD/BTC I think y'all can see that that was a good move on my part, and I ultimately ended up getting paid over $1,000 USD per transcript! This is the kind of optimistic, yet cautious, thinking which can earn one some SERIOUS value, in crypto - and in an ORGANIC manner - if done intelligently. This is how I am approaching the Dogecoin issue.
4 ) The Guild Brawl system rolled out earlier this week, and I was pleased to find that my "buy one gold card per day" strategy enabled me to BOTH be most eligible for the "gold bronze Untamed" fray, and to win BOTH of my two battles in that Fray. I then went on to win BOTH of the two battles in the SAME FRAY in the second Brawl. Then, for some strange reason (seemingly a glitch) the original Fray 12 I was placed in by the guild leader, in the third brawl, was changed (none of us in the guild did it) and I ended up in Fray 3, where I lost the one (out of one) battle. Hopefully, in the fourth brawl, that glitch will be sorted (as admin is doing ongoing updates to the system), but overall the brawl system is looking VERY promising, and our "DEC Hunters" guild placed 4th and 3rd in the first two brawls, earning us a JUICY DUMP of 15 crowns already. That is a good start. My strategy for the brawls is to continue with the "buy one Untamed gold card per day" strategy so that I can continue to CRUSH IT in Fray 12. The "one daily Untamed gold card" purchase is ALSO simultaneously, con progressively, boosting my power in the Untamed gold tournaments, so this strategy works on multiple levels - ALL of which increase DEC earning potential.
5 ) Okay. As I have done in the previous posts in this series, the highly-detailed "diary" of my daily #splinterlands activity is laid out in the last part here, 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 : 201,475 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 100.00%
Ending DEC - 202,902 DEC
Ending Capture rate : 85.54%
Balance = DEC Earning = 1,427 DEC = 2.385 HIVE x ~ $00.517 USD/Hive = ~ $1.23 USD
Spent:
2 x "Sniping Narwhal" (Gold - Level 3 - $1.56 USD - 1,698 DEC -- five (5) cards remaining to Level 10 (max))
Daily Quest (today's "water" quest)
keepers -
(+) 60 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 50 DEC
potions - 2 legendary potions, 2 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 1 packs
DEC - 48 DEC
Untamed (Season Milestone pack for reaching "Diamond II" season level - + 10 loot chests + 60 season loot chests) Note: Luckily I got one free Untamed pack in last night's quest, as I was down to zero packs. That pack enabled me to open this "milestone" pack without having to buy another pack for 2,000 DEC, or skip opening the pack altogether.
keepers -
1 x "Fire Elemental" (Gold - Level 2 - $2.87 USD - 2,000 DEC -- bumped up to Level 4 (to decrease "health" from "+3" to "+2", but increase "range" from "+2" to "+3")
(+) 00 DEC
non-keepers -
(+) 100 DEC
Daily Quest (today's "death" quest)
keepers -
(+) 80 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 30 DEC
potions - 4 legendary potions, 2 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 1 packs
DEC - 281 DEC
Starting DEC : 201,204 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 88.37%
Ending DEC - 202,660 DEC
Ending Capture rate : 78.27%
Balance = DEC Earning = 1,456 DEC = 2.478 HIVE x ~ $00.610 USD/Hive = ~ $1.51 USD
Spent:
2 x "Sniping Narwhal" (Gold - Level 3 - $1.61 USD - 1,716 DEC -- three (3) cards remaining to Level 10 (max))
earned 199.769 DEC for sale of "Khmer Princess" (non-gold) card.
Daily Quest (today's "death" quest)
keepers -
(+) 70 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 550 DEC
potions - 3 legendary potions, 3 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 18 DEC
Starting DEC : 200,944 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 91.12%
Ending DEC - 202,758 DEC
Ending Capture rate : 95.00%
Balance = DEC Earning = 1,814 DEC = 2.664 HIVE x ~ $00.634 USD/Hive = ~ $1.69 USD
2 x "Sniping Narwhal" (Gold - Level 3 - $1.79 USD - 2,031 DEC -- one (1) more card remaining to Level 10 (max))
Spent:
Daily Quest (today's "earth" quest)
keepers -
(+) 50 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 70 DEC
potions - 6 legendary potions, 2 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 335 DEC
Untamed (Season Milestone pack for reaching "Diamond II" season level - +00 season loot chests)
keepers -
1 x "Mimosa Nightshade" (non-gold (legendary) - Level 1 - $13.00 USD - 1,000 DEC -- bumped up to Level 3 (with five (5) cards remaining to Level 4 (max))
(+) 50 DEC
non-keepers -
(+) 20 DEC
Starting DEC : 200,727 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 100.00%
Ending DEC - 201,949 DEC
Ending Capture rate : 92.13%
Balance = DEC Earning = 1,222 DEC = 1.926 HIVE x ~ $00.633 USD/Hive = ~ $1.22 USD
Spent:
1 x "Sniping Narwhal" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.88 USD - 924 DEC -- bumped up to Level 10 (max!) - to increase "health" from "+6" to "+7" and add the "pierce ability))
7,050 DEC -> 1 x 10 (+ 1 free) "quest"potion
got 15 x "Goblin Firemage" (non-gold - Level 1 - $1.00 USD x 15 -> $15.00 - 200 DEC x 15 -> 3,000 DEC) -- 11th Untamed airdrop cards.
Daily Quest (today's "earth" quest)
keepers -
(+) 100 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 60 DEC
potions - 2 legendary potions, 3 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 148 DEC
Daily Quest (today's "sneak" quest)
keepers -
(+) 50 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 90 DEC
potions - 2 legendary potions, 4 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 87 DEC
As you can see from the "daily earnings amount (in USD)" I am now earning a SOLID $1.00 USD (at LEAST) per day, which is a NOTICABLE improvement to the "barely $1.00 USD per day) a few months ago ( which you can check in the diary section of previous updates in this series earlier in the year. I am now working on getting that up to a "SOLID $2.00 USD of earnings per day". I believe this is significant, continuous progress). Let's see what affect the Land rollout will have on this daily income. The future looks bright.
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...
