You probably remember Captain Frankie; I mentioned him twice in the last few days. The first time was when one of my opponents used him in a battle and completely crushed me, and the second time was when I recently rented him. When I first saw this Archon, it was in its most powerful form because it had distributed all its powers to allied units, including an Inspire ability that granted every melee card in the team +1 melee attack. To understand its impact, imagine your team has a total of four cards, and all four are melee attackers, and let's say their default attack power is 2 melee each. Now, with Captain Frankie granting the Inspire ability to all four cards, each card's attack power increased by +1, meaning that, thanks to the Inspire ability, all the melee attackers now had 2+4=6 melee attack power (2 was their basic attack power, and +4 was added due to the Inspire ability). That's the scenario I witnessed in the battle where I first encountered Captain Frankie, and since then, I've been incredibly excited about him, so much so that I was determined to buy him.
You know, I had to spend a total of 20,000 DEC for it, but I was still very excited. This would have been my biggest purchase on Splinterlands, but the universe had other plans. Since I had to buy those 20,000 DEC first, which required me to set aside funds, I prioritized the strategy I follow for every card: rent it for a season to test it, and then decide what to do based on the results. Thankfully, I managed to rent this Archon for about 250-300 DEC. Now, I entered the battlefield with full confidence, with this Archon and my best cards. I was completely sure that there would be some big explosions in this battle, but the Inspire ability didn't activate... This was shocking for me.
Although I won that battle, it was thanks to my best cards. But Captain Frankie betrayed me, or perhaps it was my own fault for being so impressed by his performance in a battle that I completely overlooked the conditions of his abilities. Well, the story was that the Captain could only grant the Inspire ability to cards from his own bloodline, and this was very clearly stated, but an outstanding performance blinded me, and I was about to spend 20,000 DEC without thinking. You might think, "Okay, if the Captain only grants the Inspire ability to cards in his bloodline, then you could just add some of those cards to your deck later." But there's another big problem: there isn't a single card from his bloodline available on the market. And when I realised this, I felt fortunate, because if I hadn't made it a rule to rent and test any card before purchasing it as part of my original strategy, I would have probably already spent 20,000 DEC.
The essence of the story, along with a real-life example, leads to one of my greatest pieces of advice: never buy any card without knowing, understanding, and testing everything first. This applies even if the card looks incredibly attractive or the deal is for a limited time. Try to understand every stat, every power, their pros and cons, and if possible, rent the card first to test it in all weathers of Splinterlands before making a decision. Only proceed with a purchase once you are completely satisfied.
Note:
English is not my first language. So sometimes I use 'Google Translate'. Please don't think that anything I have written in this blog has been copied from somewhere or is AI-generated.
Paragraph Dividers and all the photos are from #Splinterlands.
All the other content images and words are mine unless otherwise stated.
Have a Happy and Blessed day!
