Prelude
Hi all, good day to all of you. It's time again for Community Engagement Challenge. Today's challenge topic is something that helps us remember how we first started and look back at how it all began when we embark on this journey of playing Splinterlands.
Where It All Began
November 2021 was the date I decided to put in some cash to purchase a spell book and start my Splinterlands journey. All the while I had been playing mobile games and also physical card games like Magic The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh. But all of these be it buying in-game boosters or even physical booster pack in the card games, it all cost quite abit of money and my mum used to ask me, spend so much money are you getting anything back? This set me thinking and somehow during the COVID-19 years, I came to know about the concept of play2earn. After running various youtube videos about various available play2earn games, I finally set my sight on Splinterlands and things went from strength to strength and I am still here today.
This journey wasn't easy, it is all thanks to my buddies from metafrens discord that sustained me till this day. Special thanks to all of them for jump starting my Splinterlands journey and answering all my odd questions about how the game works and what are viable strategies to use to win matches. And such support is instrumental in helping me to carry on to become successful in playing the game and it is the growing with them that helped me to who I am today. Special thank you to my buddies 
First Card Purchase
I was a little worried about what to buy when I first started the game and rummage through video after video for the most value for money card. While it can be obtainable through rewards, the first card that I bought was Venari Wavesmith.
While it is not some out of this world card that is super strong, this was a good enough card that I bought after considering the price and utility of the card. Back in the days when Chaos Legion had not been released, this card certainly serve me well against some of the heavier melee match up and Alric was free to use to make this a 2 magic attack card and this card will give the whole lineup 2 additional armour to keep them on the field longer.
And now that we have moved on and new meta is formed, Venari Wavesmith has slightly lost its position like before and strategy that I deploy is a little different though time to time I will still call upon Wavesmith into the lineup.
From then on, the strategy had been mainly on boosting Djinn Oshannus withe matyr card Venari Marksrat. Then subsequently reviving it using River Hellondale to give Djinn Oshannus a double boost, making it hard to be hit with both high speed and phase in effect. And this strategy had served me really well since coming to the new meta with martyr ability. Hopefully in time to come, there might still be utility for Wavesmith in the future and do me proud again.
Future Plans
Conclave Arcana will be upon us very soon and Chaos Legion will now take a backseat and move into the Wild battleground. Many of our favourite card combinations of favourite cards from the Chaos Legion era will no longer be available in modern gameplay and this will be a massive shake up for many players as bulk of the players have a big pool of Chaos Legion cards in their possession and with Chaos Legion moving out, to play in modern format, players will have to look into stocking up Rebellion or Conclave Arcana cards.
On my end, I trying my best to ramp up efforts in gathering Soul Bound reward cards while trying to watch the market to get more Rebellion cards especially summoners as most of us are still using Chaos Legion based summoners. Rotating out of modern will cause us the need to use new Rebellion summoners or any other summoners that will come about with Conclave Arcana.
While we embrace the arrival of Conclave Arcana, remember to study up the various cards in Rebellion and start getting them into your hands as a new storm is upon us with new strategies, new combinations and new rulesets that will add so much excitement to the existing gameplay. Splinterland players, are you ready for it? I am excited but at the same time hope to have additional time to accumulate more DEC/cards in order to not get overwhelmed when the new set arrives.
Wrap Up
The whole journey of Splinterlands since I first started 4 years ago had been nothing less than awesome. With each new set, new cards, new ruleset and newly formed meta and strategies, there is just so much to learn and it doesn't get stale. Not only on the card front, much have progressed in terms of land play and exciting times are also coming for land where new resources can now be traded. New players whom haven't experienced all these, fret not as there is so much resources available for you to read and catch up. Otherwise, you can always reach out to other players like us to help you familiarize and get steady with the game like how I previously gained helped from my fellow friends.
Thank you for reading my post and let's all look forward to the arrival of Conclave Arcana.
I am currently part of PIZZA, an active gaming and creative arts crypto community on the HIVE blockchain and part of PIZZA guild. Popular cryto games such as SPLINTERLANDS, RISING STAR and HASHKINGS are actively discussed in this community.
Many events are being organized from time to time. Join the PIZZA DISCORD. This is a place filled with 💰🍕🎁GIVEAWAYS & AIRDROPS💰🍕🎁 and most definitely consisting of a friendly community to be in.
Till my next battle sharing, take care, stay safe and happy battling!
If you are keen on playing Splinterlands, feel free to join me via this link: https://next.splinterlands.com/register?ref=vaynard86