Just like so many other steemians, I was caught by the monster fever and started playing Steemmonsters. Collectible playing cards in the vein of Magic the Gathering, and all this based on the Steem blockchain? I just had to check it out. Also, after many months I am back where I can spend hours on-line, so why not indulge a bit in fun and games. As it turns out, I just converted a bunch of SBD to STEEM, so I was psyched to spend some of it on a starter pack, and see where it would take me. That was exactly two weeks ago.
Starting Out With the Basics
For exactly 41.018 STEEM, which was $10 USD at that time, my starter pack got me the following 30 cards, all of them level one of course: The summoners of the red, blue, green, white, and black splinters and monsters from the
- Red splinter: giant roc, kobold miner, fire beetle, pit ogre
- Blue splinter: pirate captain, spineback turtle, crustacean king, water elemental
- Green splinter: flesh golem, goblin sorcerer, minotaur warrior, stonesplitter orc
- White splinter: feral spirit, silvershield knight, silvershield warrior, peacebringer
- Black splinter: animated corpse, haunted spider, skeleton assassin, haunted spirit
- Neutral cards: grumpy dwarf, elven cutthroat, centaur, cocatrice, cyclops
Jumping Into Battle Without Practice
I have to admit that at first I was quite afraid of a ranked game, since I assumed I would lose the cards of the monsters that died in battle. As I could not find any opponents of my level who were up for a practice run, I decided that we just lived once, and marched my monsters into their first real battle. (Supposedly nobody does practice battles, and they may even get rid of that option.) I got my ass kicked royally, but I was happy to notice that I still had all my cards. So I tried again, and eventually I won.
Booster Packs: Not Worth the Bother
After playing for a couple of days, and watching the spectacular monsters my opponents used against me, I realized I needed some better cards. Seeing that my starter pack came with the bare minimum of monsters (as one would expect) I bought myself a booster pack for 8.952 STEEM worth $2 USD. The result was sobering: The five random cards I ended up with were a black spineback wolf, a white feral spirit, a blue medusa, and a flesh golem and minotaur warrior, both in the green splinter.
That’s when I learned that by combining cards you could level them up, but you could not use them in battle unless their summoner was also at their level. So I visited the market, and went on a bit of a shopping spree for specific cards I actually needed. 4.272 STEEM later I had myself a flesh golem and minotaur warrior, needed to level them up, plus two more Lyanna Natura cards so I could actually use them. I also bought a third feral spirit to level it up, but I’d need to get two more cards of its summoner Tyrus Paladium. In any case, I spent about half of what the booster pack cost me, and got the exact cards I wanted. So I don’t see myself getting another booster pack, nor do I recommend it to anyone.
Daily Quests and Reward Cards
Fortunately, there are other ways to improve your collection. Each day you can take a quest, and be rewarded with more cards when you complete it. A quest consists of having to win five battles with a certain splinter, for which the reward is one card, until you reach a rating of 1000 points, or Silver League. Since you get points taken off every time you lose a battle, reaching that stage could take a bit. For me it was about a week before I made it to Silver, but from then on my rewards for completing a daily quest gave me five cards each time, the same as one booster pack.
These are the 18 cards I’ve gained from playing quests:
- 2x Daria Dragonscale
- 2x sea genie
- 1x mushroom seer
- 7x vampire (one of them gold!)
- 8x highland archer
- 5x rusty android
- 4x hobgoblin (one of them gold!)
Finishing Season Four
So now, after playing for two weeks, I can say I’m ready for Season Five, starting tomorrow. My current rating is 1698, so that should give me a reward of 30 cards, the same as a starter pack. I could see myself buying some more cards, specifically to get my summoners on a higher level, but I'll leave that for the next season.
So is Steem Montsters worth getting into?
Well, considering the 54.242 STEEM (about $13 USD) I spent on 40 cards so far, and that by the end of the season I’ll have close to a hundred cards (including the ones I combined for leveling up), I’d say it was well worth it. The other thing is, that over these two weeks my earnings on Steemit (from blogging, commenting, etc.) were approximately the same, breaking me about even. In other words, I can highly recommend getting into the game!