Steem Monsters Sunday!: Crawling Up the Season Three Leaderboards!

After a personal slow start to Season Three due to travel and commitments, the past week has been one of dedication and hours spent trying to multi-task ask I engage around the ecosystem while playing some matches. Let me say sorry to a couple of opponents that have endured the eternal countdown waiting for me to select my team only to find out that I auto-surrendered as I had forgotten to select my team on time. At least you gets some ranked points for the patience! Those losses hurt the most as I have been enjoying watching the gameplay to learn better strategies as I have moved up the leaderboards.

You can definitely feel the impact of the changes from the season as games in all Divisions have seemed to be very competitive. Getting out of the Bronze Division has been the most difficult process I have experienced since the game has started. Given the constraints put on the cards and the teams abilities and levels, you come to miss some of the cards you had been used to using since Season One. For example, my cards from the Death Splinter seemed very weak during the Bronze Division as their poison abilities in particular were not immediately available. However, it helped me learn other team combinations that have been helpful as I have progressed in to the higher Divisions.

Screenshot taken from Steem Monsters Website

However, it has continued to be a struggle to go up consistently in the leaderboards as competition has been rough after reaching the Gold Division. However, as abilities started to increase while in the Silver Division, I saw some great momentum in wins as I manage to get an 11 win streak! This is when I felt that most of the significant abilities started to come more into play as the cards used were of higher level. I found that my best Splinters were Death and Water as the abilities of poison, retaliate and heal started to become much more powerful fo the teams. I was able to jump from Bronze to Gold in one day given the great momentum achieved during the Silver Division run.

However, competition definitely came back during the Gold Division as I could barely achieve stringing wins with each. Remember that winning streaks provide double ranked points bonus. Instead, I felt that I would get a win to lower ranked opponents only to lose even more the next game by losing to another similar rank opponent. That being said, I see the benefit of the latest changes to matchmaking as most games are very competitive as some go down to the last one of two monsters on each team. While not been able to get higher on the leaderboards quicker is sometimes frustrating, I think it is definitely well balanced as I don’t think the game is meant for everyone to achieve Champions Division every season. While I have some decent leveled cards, none are max leveled so being able to be around these levels are great given the coming rewards at the end of the season.

Screenshot taken from Steem Monsters Website

While in previous seasons Diamond Division was the tough Division to breakthrough, I think this season it is truly Gold as I have been in it for a couple of days with plenty of ups and down without progressing farther than Gold I Division. While winning is fun, I have also enjoyed reviewing the different teams being used for the different rules sets. However, once you think you have a winning team, the Mana cap changes impact your ability to have set teams for the rulesets. As I had mentioned in a previous post, the change that this season has brought to the gameplay has increased the strategic portion of the game and keeps players on their toes at every game.

This also highlights the importance of leveling cards higher as the need for power enables players to improve their competitiveness as they move through the leaderboards. Having a diversified set of cards with abilities are important if you intend to reach the higher Division of the community. While players relied on booster pack purchases in the past to construct their collection, the developers of the game have enable a great reward system to incentivize gameplay to the community by offering ways to acquire more cards for free just for playing. This has enabled me to build a stronger team of neutral monsters which have proven to be both versatile and powerful in many situations.

Despite the market conditions and the concerns that the community has had over the last couple of weeks, there seems to be no stopping the continue popularity of Hive account@steemmonsters yet. The founders and developers have truly created a great game that has quickly created a strong community that has become passionate about its potential. The feedback loop between all stakeholders has become an example for those seeking to create great projects and communities here in the STEEM ecosystem. I am encouraged about the future of the ecosystem given the ability of developers to build on these successes. Back to the battlefield for a strong finished to the Season!