Humble Beginnings
Yes, we start at zero. Not just because that's what computer scientists do, but because I started with literally nothing. I bought the spellbook for 10 dollars.. I know that's not really free to play, but just give me this one ok? Don't make me wait until the season ends to claim my FIRST reward, I'm addicted to the dopamine rush, and I want to play more often than that.
The rules for my series are that, besides the spellbook everything I purchase in splinterlands can only purchased using funds that I earn on the Hive ecosystem. I'm relatively new to both the ecosystem and to Splinterlands, but I've really been enjoying hive social media!
Day 1
Got a water quest and introduced myself to the game with that faction. I earned 7 credits from the quest reward, which doesn't seem to get me much of anything. I played for a little while longer just to stack some DEC just in case there's a tourney I can compete in later on. I finished my first night with ~2 DEC to my name.
Day 2
The next quest reward was 23 credits, I was hoping for some cards or some SPS.. do chests even drop that stuff? :P
Day 3
Won two quest games in a row. My quest today is snipe. I'm also multi-gaming Axie infinity, which is a whole 'nother beast! I will say that Axie is pretty time-consuming compared to Splinterlands. You have to admit that the breeding mechanic is pretty cool though.
I'm up to 4 DEC today. Went on a 3 game streak in addition, and won an alchemy potion which seems like a good haul compared to just getting credits, as it's worth 50 DEC and getting a gold foil card would be..
Day 4
Finished my daily quest in 5 minutes today (sneak), I'm coming to really appreciate the mechanic of diminishing returns for each game coupled with the ability to skip the battle and see the results. It's such a time saver and I appreciate that a lot. Honestly, I'm really looking forward to earning some extra cards and being able to compete in tournaments once I build up my account. I should have checked out this game much earlier!
I'm up to 20 DEC, I could convert some into SPS, but for right now I want to progress in the game first, possibly enter some tournaments? I feel like I'm gonna get hammered in them though.
Closing Thoughts
While scrolling the Splinterlands Peakd, I learned that apparently SPS tokens aren't currently being airdropped? Which sucks. So I guess the only way to get SPS is to earn on posts on peakd and trade that for it? I'm in a bit of a jam here, since if I'm doing free to play I don't wanna just buy in to the pack release, but I reckon posting on peakd and earning still counts as free to play! I'm new to Hive in general, but I definitely am beginning to appreciate its robustness.
I'll finish with this: I learned some important lessons about countering magic with death. Having magic damage negation, as well as speed and sneak attackers, is deadly to the magic heavy water tribe. I went on a win streak with this and stacked +10 DEC rather easily. At this point, it looks like my best strategy will be to stack DEC, rent a gold foil card for a day, grind to silver so that my quest reward is 3 chests/day, and get some CAADs (cards in Boston accent).
Thanks for reading!