Growing Together With Splinterlands For Two Years

Hello there! I thought this week's Social Media Challenge is pretty interesting because it's very different from the past weeks! In this week's post, we will be sharing our own individual stories! With the prices gaining momentum, I thought it will be very interesting to take a step from the euphoria and chip in to share my Splinterlands journey too!

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Discovery of Splinterlands: How did you come across Splinterlands?

Two years ago, I chanced upon Splinterlands while reading up about play-to-earn crypto games. I signed up on 25 Sep 2021 and found the game interesting during the tutorial, so I purchased the spellbook the next day on 26 Sep 2021. At that time, such crypto games were a relatively new concept to me but I thought why not give it a shot and explore this space, hopefully learn some new stuff as well.

Screenshot from my email on 26 Sep 2021

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Duration of Participation: How long have you been a part of Splinterlands?

I shall let the numbers speak for themselves! Hehe!

As you can tell in my profile, I have been battling since September 2021! That's more than 2 years now. How time flies! Over 15k battles under my belt with a 57% win rate (8,600 wins out of 15,161 battles)! All played by myself!

Aside from battling, I have been in Pizza 2 Guild and have clocked over 100 brawls with the guild too! I always take some effort to write about my brawl battles so that it gives me a chance to revisit my battles and review what went right, and what went wrong so that I can continue to improve.

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Time Spent in Splinterlands: Share the amount of time you dedicate to Splinterlands daily.

For the first year, the game was so addictive and I could proudly say that I have played this game every single day for all 365 days because there's the daily mission/chest to collect. (The format has changed drastically since when I started though, but the daily chests remain.)

Unlike the first year which was relatively uneventful and smooth sailing, I must say that the second year was filled with ups and downs. I actually lost interest in the game a couple of times during the year. Oops. There was a period where there were many changes to the game, many proposals to change the gameplay, and I felt that the changes were skewed to benefitting the whales and it was really hard to find motivation. Real life got busy too. It's not entirely Splnterlands' fault that I stopped or reduced my battles as I had a lot of going on in my real life in the past year. And naturally, gaming just took a backseat.

These days, I just chill a lot. In the first year, I was more focused on outcomes, in the sense that I would calculate probabilities, compare chest rewards across leagues, time my battles to maximise battle rewards and monitor my card rentals to maximise the rental income - you get what I mean. Now, I have decided to enjoy Splinterlands as a game and just let most of the stuff auto-pilot. On days when I am free, I do some fights, and on days when I am tired, I just not log in. I just let my card rentals run on their own for most of the time, as it's just not worth the time to maximise card rental incomes at the moment given the low rental rates and my small card collection. In short, I just have fun. Hahaha!

The most recent completed season, I did 151 battles excluding brawl fights. That's about 10 battles per day.

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Accomplishments: What have you managed to achieve in Splinterlands?

Hmm, given that I am quite a small player, I don't think I have any spectacular achievements within the game itself. I think the best accomplishment from this game is getting to know so many like-minded people, who are into the crypto games! Also, playing in a guild doing brawls week in week out is definitely great fun!

If I had to mention something, one highlight for me was finishing 4th out of 253 players in one of the tournaments. I play tournaments occasionally when time permits and I must admit I am not quite the expert player, so my results are mostly around average or slightly above average. But as the saying goes, practice makes perfect, and I somehow managed to finish 4th out of 253 players in this one. Because such results were so rare, I was extremely proud of myself and it was a morale booster for me.

Another highlight would be receiving Gold Foil Legendary cards! Gold Foil Legendary cards are extremely, extremely rare, especially for a predominantly Silver player like me. I should thank my lucky stars because I have received 2 Gold Foil Legendary cards over these 2 years in reward chests, one in Nov 2021, and another in Feb 2023. Have kept the screenshots as souvenirs hehe!

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Upcoming Goals: What are your aspirations within Splinterlands?

I think my aspirations have evolved over the years, and it's not surprising because things in the crypto space move at lightning speed.

For now, I am seeing Splinterlands as a casual hobby that allows me to bond with friends so I am not really grinding battles on a daily basis or focused on maximising my rewards/return from the game.

On a personal level, I am always trying to hone my skills and improve on my strategy. It's always a work in progress as there will always be new cards or new changes in the game dynamics and given that I don't have a wide card collection (as compared to some other players), it's kinda forces me (in a good way) to dig deep, think hard, to outwit the other players.

One thing for sure, I believe Splinterlands is here to stay, and I will be here to grow with the game.

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Advice for Beginners: Imagine speaking to someone who's just stepping into the Splinterlands universe. What advice would you give to beginners, based on your experience? Share tips, strategies, or insights that could help them navigate this world effectively.

I might not be an expert player, but for a beginner who needs to navigate through the Bronze and Silver leagues, I believe I have ample experience (sadly, lol!) because 99% of the time, I am battling in these leagues.

• Practise, practise, practise: By practising, I don't mean blindly submitting teams and skipping to rewards. Watch your battles. For battles that you did well, take note to re-use the same strategy. For battles that you lost, look at what the opponent fielded. If you were outwitted by a similar level of cards, adopt the strategy for your own use next time! For example, I realised I always lost to opposing lineups with Sea Monster. So I rented one, and subsequently bought one to add into my lineup permanently.
• Don't just battle all day long: There's nothing wrong in grinding the battles and enjoying them, but I just want to share that the Splinterlands universe is much, much, much bigger than battles! Within the game, there's tournaments. You can also join a guild and fight in guild brawls. Outside of the game, there's the whole big card market where you buy/sell/trade cards and assets, or even rent them too! That's the beauty of NFTs. Go out and explore the whole ecosystem and you will be pleasantly surprised!
• Follow @splinterlands and join the Splinterlands community on Hive: It's where you can find a lot of news, as well as, discussion about the game. There are many users who do giveaways, or share battle strategies, and follow someone if you like what they are posting! You can also join Discord channels to engage people on a more personal basis too!

Finally, to everyone who is reading this LOOOOONG post and has crossed paths with me within the game, thanks so much for being part of my Splinterlands journey!

That's my sharing of my journey with Splinterlands. Hope you have enjoyed reading. If you have any comments, feel free to share them below!

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If you are interested to sign up to play Splinterlands, my referral link is here.