SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): Am I Just Lucky?

NOTE: Some of this information is repeated for the sake of those who might be reading a post from this series for the first time. For those of you who have been following this eXperiment, scroll down and begin reading at the Current Status section.

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This is the next installment in my experiment in building a Splinterlands account from scratch without additional monetary investment after the initial Spellbook purchase. I am chronicling my journey so see if this is a viable activity and, if so, how long will it take to reach that level (I'm shooting for SILVER...after that, we'll see).

Brief History

In lieu of all of the recent changes in Splinterlands gameplay, a few months ago, I started an experiment to see if a new player could build a viable account without any monetary investment (besides the Spellbook, of course). I created a brand new account for my wife and started playing it (you can read the previous installment in this series HERE). Initially, I don't expect this account to make much progress, so I will work on creating a posts (or maybe two) per season. If things begin to get interesting, frequency should increase.

When I initially created this account, I was several days into a season. Even though I was playing this account with a bot, I was unable to accumulate enough points to earn a Season Chest at the end of that season. I wanted to see if it was possible to earn a chest with a bare minimum account that only contained a few cards that could be purchased with the original 3000 credits and starter cards. However, during my first full season, I was able to earn a single season chest with the few cards this account currently owns. It would have been nice to obtain a new card with that chest, but hey, SPS is progress.

I also began entering card giveaways to see if I could increase the collection before the season ended. To date, I have not been very consistent in entering said giveaways until recently. Since this is be best way for me to acquire new cards at this point, I have begun to focus more on finding the time to be more consistent in these efforts and have seen a smattering of success.

Current Status

If you read the previous post, you know I have been keeping a closer watch on the bot so I could head off the problems that arise from it blowing chunks and me not noticing for an extended period of time. I had been doing a better job from the through the end of the last season, but evidently not good enough. I once again came up short in winning enough SP to acquire a chest. Unfortunately, I am beginning to think this will not change until I move up Bronze II tier. As you can see below, I am currently at 965 Power. This means I only need 35 more to be able to reach Bronze II. Only a few more cards, and I will be there.

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In the past couple of posts, I have been able to relate my surprising success in winning a few new cards in giveaways to add to the collection. This has contributed to my slow increase of Power. At the current rate, it is possible that I will get to Bronze II by the end of the season, but not probable. If my progress continues at the same rate it has the last couple of seasons, I should get there by the end of next season, though.

In these giveaways, I am trying to focus on winning cards that this account does not already own (whenever there is a choice). This recent winning streak has encouraged me to find the time to continue my efforts in entering these giveaways. And now I am beginning to wonder if I am my winnings are consistent with that of other players or if I have just been lucky. Since my last post a week ago, I have managed to win six more cards.

First, I won this one from @dk1trade in THIS POST.

On the same day, I won this one from @lorddiablo in THIS POST.

Then a couple of days later, I hit the jackpot when I won this one from @vrezyy in THIS POST,

this one from @splintergifts in THIS POST,

and this one from @engilhramn in THIS POST.

And then a couple of days ago, I won this one, but unfortunately I do not remember who I got it from. ☹️

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Three of these cards are new Reward cards which means I am now up to a whopping TEN Reward cards (woohoo). They just keep coming!

Along with that, I have won another Riftwatchers card and replaced two more starter cards in the past week, as well. And all of this from entering about 12 to 15 giveaways per day.

AMA (Ask Me Anything)

In my first post, I stated:

If you have any suggestions on how a new player can progress without having to invest any outside influx of capital, I'd love to hear it. Also, if you are a new player that has questions about anything I am doing with this account (or anything else, for that matter), leave me a comment...

I did get a few more responses in my last post of varying types. But before I get to those, I want to address one from last time when @ijat593 introduced me to the Social Media Challenge. I followed the directions and submitted a post, but did not get an upvote or any feedback as to why 😞. I will give it one more try with this post. If I miss out again, I guess this is not the type of post they are looking for.

In new comments, I did have a few people who contributed tokens to the cause. I do forward all of those to this eXperiment account. Thank you for your support.

Also, I guess I confused a couple of folks with all of this talk of giveaways because they thought I was offering a giveaway. Sorry, but this eXperiment account does not have anything extra to give away.

There are also a couple of people who indicated that they are enjoying the progress of this experiment. Thank you for taking the time to follow my antics.

And one final question from @mypathtofire:

Could you sell the more expensive card for some of the cheaper ones?

With me being so close to reaching Bronze II level, I really don't want to lose any of the CP I have managed to accumulate. I would have to make sure I could replace any CP I lost by selling a higher level card. Since I am looking at replacing my starter cards so I don't get docked for using them, those would be the ones I would end up purchasing as replacements. Unfortunately, most of the cheap starter cards are Chaos cards and only have 5 CP each. I will do some research in this area to see if it is feasible, but at first glance, the only card I have of any significant value is the Venaror Kinjo card I just got this week. Since it has 500 CP, I would have to purchase a lot of other cards to make up for that and I am not sure they would be cheap enough to purchase them for the amount I could sell that card for. So the short answer is, "Yes I COULD sell the expensive card for some of the cheaper ones, but I don't know if I would come out ahead in the long run." More investigation is necessary.

What's Next

As always, I have set the entire Hive Rewards for this post to go to the account that is being used for this eXperiment. Also, any rewards (PIZZA, CTP, ALIVE, etc.) submitted to this post are also forwarded to this account and will be used to build toward purchasing additional cards when enough has accumulated. In addition, if anyone joins Splinterlands from one of the links in this post, they will be indirectly providing support to the eXperiment, as well.

I will keep making it a top priority going forward to enter as many giveaways as I can find. Who knows? Some day soon, I may end up winning enough to push this account up into Bronze II tier on a regular basis so that I can start making consistent progress (and actually earning something from my game play).

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." - Lao Tzu

If you missed any of the previous episodes of this series, you can find a link here:

• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): Going About This All Wrong? - It appears maybe I have been.
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): Unexpected Success - Winning multiple giveaways.
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): It Actually Happened! - Finally won a reward card.
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): I'm Getting Stronger - Added more SPS and a couple of new cards
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): I Finally Got Lucky - Get your head out of the gutter
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): Mid-season update of second full season - A surprise boost
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): The First Full Season - Results from the first full season
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): The Experiment Continues - The first update
• Starting Over - An Experiment - Setting up the experiment

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NOTE: Individual card images provided by Splinterlands developers (see Splinterlands Card Images by Level).