Splinterlands: Rag to Riches, Week 1

Hello everyone, my name is Goliathus and I am brand new to Splinterland. I decided to track my progress in my self-defined rag to riches challenge. The idea is simple, I only spend $10 to buy the summoner's handbook and not spend another cent from my pocket. As a F2P gamer for a very long time, I genuinely enjoyed the grind and the farming process to accumulate items slowly. Some might think I am weird, as F2P games are largely there to encourage you to spend money to accelerate your progress, but I am just too frugal to really play that way. At some point, going with that way I feel empty after I bought the...cards or whatever, cuz I felt like I didn't earn it.

Thus, I decided to be my own true self in this game as well. To start from the bottom and grind with free cards only and see how much time I need to get back my $10 investment and then go beyond that. After all, it had given me a good topic to write about.

Let me be clear first, and it's weird for me to say this as I feel like most of the people who read this are going to be better than me as an investor, but it's actually a very smart move to spend an extra $5-$10 to accelerate your progress. I am pretty sure one can go above gold and more with the cards one can get with an extra $5-$10 and the rewards you get from gold and above are so much higher than silver and below on a daily basis. My way is slower, and not a "smart" move from an investor's perspective. I am ultimately a gamer at heart so I don't really mind it this way, but I truly recommend you to invest a few extra bucks for the startup boost if you really liked the game.

So, How Did I do in My First Week?

As you can see in my very basic Excel sheet, I got very lucky with the 1% roll on the Untamed pack with very limited chest count and I also learn that Ant Miner reallllly loves me. I really don't mind opening a lot of common cards cuz that's to be expected, but I was really hoping I can open different ones to at least have more cards to play. I don't even care if those are not the cards often played by anyone, I just want more options than what I have with the starter set.

I also participated in all the giveaway I can find but I haven't won anything so far. I participated in my first tournament, a free entry 256 players tourney by Monster Burner. Of course, I can't beat anyone who actually played but I got matched with 4 inactives so I won 30 DEC just by being there. In the "rag" phase, I believe one has to take everything one can get, and I will participating in anything for free just to get that extra value.

I am going with the safe route of selling the pack and then using the DEC to buy cards, I just haven't done so.

I think I am doing fine with just the starter set and 3 extra cards: Ant Miners, Warrior of Peace, and Creeping Ooze. I also bought a Goblin Mech, but I was dumb and didn't see the cooldown timer, so I have to wait for few more days to be able to use it.

I think the best you can do with starter cards are like Silver I to Gold III(if you really push it). There are a lot of players with upgraded cards and better collection around the Silver I range, so I expect myself to be stuck there for a while in this grind, if I make it there.

What'd you learn in your first week? Is Splinterland a good game in your opinion?

Here's the thing I am most amazed out of all these -- Splinterland is actually great, by design. There are a lot of blockchain games out there that would be 1/10 on Steam - Steam the digital video game distribution service by Valve, not Steem - but Splinterland certainly looks like 8/10(or above) so far for me.

I was skeptical as the artwork is very simplistic to me and looking at the cards with 4 stats, I thought this is a simple game mainly for blockchain purpose.

But I was wrong, so wrong.

I really like the strategical part of it. In an equal matchup with both players having an equal level of collection, it's truly a battle of wit. I also like how the game sets it up to be simpler for the newbies and more complicated later on. I had read around and checked out some of the 4K+ rating battles. I know these 1.5-1.8K battles are child's play compared to that, yet they already provided depth.

To really give myself the best chance to win with just the starter cards and potentially against better collections, these are the factors I have to think about in the 3 minutes roster construction time:

1. Opponent's previous matches(A lot of one trick pony at this range or maybe questing users, so you can easily scout their main team and composition)
2. The rules and mana pool of this match(Really like this design, making people adapt every single match and provides extremely high replayability)
3. Abilities of the common cards used in this range(At this range, it's only a few like Opportunity, Snipe, Sneak, Dodge and etc. However, these are important to know and predict how you should position your monsters. For instance, if your opponent's previous matches are all Earth, you can expect Goblin Thief to be backstabbing your party, and you have to consider putting the key ranged attackers in the middle and have a high HP one at the back)
4. Possible lineup(Just like the explanation in 3, you have to figure out how the opponent would position his and how you position yours based on how you think he would position)
5. Speed(I really like this mechanic)

And possibly more that I cannot think of right now. To play this game efficiently, one has to take all these factors and then plan out the best team in a proper line to give himself the best chance to win -- all within just 3 minutes! It's very skill-intensive in my opinion, if the collection is fairly equal. It's obviously not the case if the opponent's cards can just overwhelm you with raw stats and don't even need to think, but that's just the nature of games like this.

What's your plan for week 2?

I will continue the grind(no shit) and I think I am aiming to get all the cheap cards I had seen a lot. When a card is played by nearly everyone in my range, it usually indicates it's a staple card that everyone should have. Cards I see commonly used but not in the starter sets are:

Fire: Kobold Miner, Pit Ogre
Water: Sea Monster, Pirate Captain, Water Elemental, Crustacean King
Nature: Goblin Sorcerer, Stonesplitter Orc
Life: Silvershield Warrior, Feral Spirit, Silvershield Knight, Divine Healer, Peacebringer, Silvershield Paladin
Death: Skeleton Assassin
Neutral: Creeping Ooze, Goblin Mech, Grumpy Dwarf, Gremlin Blaster, Furious Chicken, Centaur, Elven Cutthroat, Cyclops
Summoners: Tyrus Paladium, Lyanna Natura, Zintar Mortaus, Malric Inferno, Alric Stormbringer

That's actually quite a few dollars to get all of them, so it will probably be some time before I can acquire all of them.

That's all for this week, see you again in my next report and thanks for reading.

---