Introduction
Hello there! @Saydie here, playing Splinterlands everyday!
For this post, I will not talk about card reviews or battle strategies, but I want to talk about my first year not only on Splinterlands but also on HIVE. Few days ago, I got a notification from @hivebuzz that I finally reached a year since I joined the HIVE Blockchain which only means to say that without my knowledge, it's been a year since I started to play Splinterlands and it is being commemorated with a personal badge from @hivebuzz.
TGC Background
Outside of Splinterlands I'm an avid fan of the Trading Card Game called YU-Gi-Oh! which have an Anime that if I remembered right I first watched around 2008 during my Elementary School days. I used to collect cards together with my friends, compiled it on a customized photo book and have a bragging competition about the cards that we pulled on packs. We also played some battles with the cards we have but what gameplay would you expect from children does not even reach teenage hood. It was not until I graduated Elementary that I really started to learn how to play the game when my Mom return from overseas and gives me a Playstation 1 together with some games which includes Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories, which was based on the Anime with both Single and Multiplayer modes that me and my friends enjoy then many more YU-Gi-Oh! games have been release on different platforms which for some time, we keep on playing but as we grow old and due to the increasing priorities, many of my old friends and I started to distance on playing this games. The last game that I played was Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V Tag Force Special which is playable from PSP but I am playing it on my Smartphone using an emulator and that was like 2017 but without anyone to talk play with or talk to, I started to lose interest with the game. However, I still have some of my card collections displayed in my old room.
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Some of my card collection. (Forgive the the bad photography.)
Then the pandemic starts and due to restrictions and lockdowns, I got a lot of time in my shoulders and this is were I learned about Splinterlands from a local site forum. I was actually looking for an alternative for Axie Infinity that during that time has so much hype but also cost a fortune before you can start then I come across the NFT Trading Card Game called Splinterlands under the Hive Blockchain. After watching some Youtube videos, I tried creating an account and my passion for Trading Card Game has been lit again and has been playing for a year now.
My Collections and Assets
At first, I started with only 1 account which during that time, can just jump into the game and earn Dark Energy Crystals or DEC and Reward Cards just by playing the game with only starter cards which during that time has like 10x from it's current value compared today so when I reached the ROI for my first account, I used it to create another account which I think was around a month after the creation of my first account. Then around February of this year, I was able to join an event called Crypto Carnival which I saw advertised by @bulldog1205 where Splinterlands is one of the participants and we get to have a live Q&A from @aggroed and by participating in the event challenges, I won 2 spellbooks codes from the reward pool which I used to create 2 new accounts. It was supposed to be only one but I do the forbidden technique and entered with 2 emails. And thus, I have 4 accounts right now which are @saydie, @crimepoet, @avainattempt, @agonyaccepted.
On terms of packs, during the presale, I bought 10 Chaos Legion packs using credits because it was way cheaper during that time then since I started blogging, I bought another 10 packs from the secondary market. The rest of the packs that I opened came from continuously grinding with my 4 accounts through the daily and season chest and I think I have opened more or less 200 packs for the Chaos Legion. When it was the time for the Riftwatchers presale, I also bought 15 pack by which I pulled an Gold Foil Runemancer Florre which I sold and use to buy another 15 packs from the secondary market.
I also bought individual cards on the secondary market to fill the cards I lack whether I don't have the card yet or I'm missing some BCX to level them up. I also used the bidding system to get them for cheaper price. As I checked my accounts, I have spent a total of $ 254.00 on the secondary market.
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All in all I have a total of 211,070 collection power with the price of $ 606.020 which is enough to reach Diamond 1 for modern and Gold 1 for wild format but utility wise, my deck only has bronze cap Chaos Legion and Riftwatchers cards and some bronze cap - max level reward cards. You may think that this price were very small considering the amount of investment that I poured into the game but we know that the market price of many cards have been in decline during the past year so the price of many of the cards I bought previously, were actually higher compared to their price right now.
My Influences
Just like many others that entered the game for the first time, I have close to zero knowledge about the game so in order to learn more about the game, I watched tutorials on Youtube. Some of the people that I watched were @bulldog1205, @infidel1258, @stever82 among the others but since I am still just new to the game, it was the videos from @luke-wtp that really helps me as I am still playing at Bronze and Silver League during that time. It teaches me what cards to rent and what strategies to use while playing on this league and it is well documented on his handy- dandy Spreadsheet. I only started to play on Gold League when I received my 2 accounts then started to play at Diamond above during the first season of the ranked rewards update with the introduction of Rshares and Focus Points. As I gained more knowledge about the game, I still continue to watched this people as their opinion towards the game has been a very important factor to help me make my decisions whether it is about an active proposal or the current movements in the market and the value of DEC and SPS. When I have the time, I also watched Splinterlands.tv on twitch so and learn some strategies from the streamers and take my chance on their giveaways.
Balthazar Scholarship
Eight months ago, I saw a video from @bulldog1205 partnering with Balthazar guild to open 1 Million dollars worth of Chaos Legion that they will delegate to the Scholar accounts that they offer. At that time, they were looking for 5000 potential scholars for the guild and I was one of those that apply for the scholarship in order to have additional earnings while not worrying about any rental cost. It was only a bronze cap account that was delegated to us but we were able to reach gold league by using it. There were also tournaments within the guild by which is prizes were given and are streamed during @captainwhoco's stream in splinterlands.tv. I was at the 1st place for that tournament but I would say that all the matches were close and the people that I fought against are really exceptional people. There were also last man standing and group battles that are being held so that players outside the guild can also battle us.
As time goes by, we keep on playing our scholar accounts but not many has stayed for long until we were finally given max level Chaos Legion accounts. There were a total of 30 people who were granted with a max level Chaos Legion accounts that were given which cost for more than $ 5000.00 for each account and one of them is @luke-wtp who was very kind that he's even delegating max level reward cards to those that who don't have it because having and not having one the others were also showing their help by suggesting battle line- ups and strategies to improve the performance of everyone in the guild. Overall, I can say that the community that we have in Balthazar is the best community that I ever have and this will not be possible without the effort of @captainwhoco and @yugure for convincing the guild to have max level deck as we know that combining cards were a very thought decision because once you do, it will be irreversible. My previous Scholar account was bltzr-wizard-223 with bronze cap Chaos Legion deck while my current one with max level deck was bltzr-wizard-726 so if ever that you encounter this account, please have mercy on me. Not that you will know who your opponent is until both teams were submitted.
Blogging
Another earning opportunity that Splinterlands has opened to me is through blogging. By submitting my social media and weekly media challenges, I can get cryptocurrency as my payment from Splinterlands. It was another influence by @luke-wtp that encourage me to write which up until now, I'm still doing.
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| Battle Challenge | Social Media |
Final Considerations
As we are still on the bear market, the value of the Splintershards or SPS is continuously getting lower and reaching out the peg value for DEC is still out of sight together with other big events on the Crypto World that continue to affects all the cryptocurrency. It even cause for the company to laid of 45% of their work force to ensure that they can sustain the game until the next bull run. Even so, I still believed that the game will last as the team will be able to survive this trials and when they do, I want to be there that is why I do not see my self exiting the game anytime as I still find the game fun and I am exited for what changes the team will bring to us.
If you reach until here then thank you.
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All the image that I edited here belongs to Splinterlands.
Footer and divider image made by splintercell-01
Card abilities and rulesets from Splintercards
Thank you for reading my post. If you're interested to play Splinterlands, you can join by clicking this the images below and follow me on Twitter and 3Speak for timely Splinterlands updates.
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