I would like to call myself a true player of Splinterlands, whilst I venture into the Crypto Investment aspects such as Liquidity Pools, my primary source of interest and spend has always been from purchasing cards and competing in the ranked battles, thriving on the competitive nature of the game, comradery built within our Guild and Community and of course making an ROI on investment. Through recent conversation, some have said that it is not profitable if only focusing on the gameplay aspect. I beg to differ, and whilst the gains perhaps are not interesting to bigger investors, for me personally, I am happy as I am making a profit (albeit insignificant for others) whilst enjoying the game.
A few back seasons back, I decided to make use of one my alt accounts 
Within TeamPH, we have quite a few competitive players in Gold League, usually very close to the top on leaderboards. I asked questions, received answers, kept calm and carried on. The first season playing Gold, I was just shy of the Leaderboards. I said to myself next season I will get on it.
The previous season that had just passed I managed to secure 17th position, I was very happy with that achievement. I was also very happy to receive some DEC and was very shocked with the EOS rewards. I had been under the impression that Gold League earnt around 25usd per season, which when coming from Champion League did not seem impressive.
When seeing the rewards, I was ecstatic to see that I had earnt almost 65usd not to mention my earnings from brawls and the leaderboard prize. I had also received some much needed Soul bound cards (Gold Foil) that could be used. I had noticed that a win with maximum SPS could get you as much as 15sps per game (With focus and win streak and gold foil cards).
This season, I have a target to get within the Top 10 in Gold Modern. It seems achievable however from this point a win is +10 and a loss is -36. This is where the fun begins.
We now have a specific channel for trash talk, I must say, right now It is the busiest section of our TeamPH Discord, I have missed this. An area where you could really have fun, it is motivating to see that we are all on a rat race to leaderboards, who said the player base was dying… I think I heard it somewhere in Mav’s Chat. Well in our Community, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. We have now added a voice channel called “Fight Club” which is only for those who converse in trash talk and the “Real” Player experience.
I have been entering a lot more tournaments these days ranging from Diamond and Gold and even trying out Bronze League. I think there is a lot of opportunity for players should they join the tournaments, not only for the SPS that is Juicy in itself, I feel by entering tournaments, you can improve as a player. Whilst I primarily play in Champion, I am quite poor in Bronze and Silver Leagues, through tournaments you can learn a lot.
This is my alt account, right now I am trying to max out cards to suit Gold League. I have been purchasing Rift Watcher cards as people dump them on the P2P market. I personally am doing the opposite, I would rather dump my regular foils as opposed to my Gold Foils as I expect the prices to rise once land has been investigated and a trend begins. I would like to already have what's needed before that time.
Recently I have been going shopping for Gold Foil Cards, for Gold League, primarily to remain competitive for brawls with my alt account. Pictured above are my most recent purchases. I have been getting fantastic deals on cards and land and have realized the earning potential if using Gold Cards (Not to mention they are both Promo which adds an additional bonus to my rewards). My next purchase is a Gold Foil Oshuur Constantia as well as a Doctor Blight (Level 3), due to the cost (They are very expensive even with the discount), I am saving for them specifically as they play a crucial role in some of my most successful metas.
Rebellion Launches on the 5th, I am excited to begin opening packs, trying to accumulate more packs in an attempt to max them out early so that I may begin to experiment. I believe that cards will be scarce on the rental market so it is in a players best interest to get in as soon as possible. Whilst I do have land, my full attention will be on the ranked battles, without untamed, we will see who will stand triumphant.
Thank you for taking the time to read my post, should you have any questions please do not hesitate as to comment below. This is Mango Mayhem signing out, ciao for now, and I look forward to seeing you on the battlefield.
(Screenshots credits to Splinterlands and Splex.gg)