Greetings Praetorians!
It is I, the Psi, with my first article detailing my experiences as a "new player", and sharing some of my thoughts!
I've been playing Splinterlands since December 2020. At that time, I fumbled my way through things, not understanding some of the finer aspects nor having much guidance on ways to play or how to begin. Now that I have started a new account (thepsilence) and have been putting some of my "best practices" into effect, I feel that it may benefit some of the new players out there to have a few tips & tricks to help you avoid some of the many pitfalls that are easy to derail your account, and lessen the enjoyment you'll experience because of small and costly mistakes.
These tips and tricks are by no means definitive, and you may like some of them and ignore others, but I feel like they are at least worth considering as you progress with your Splinterlands journey.
From account management, to earnings, to generalized ways to improve your gameplay, I hope this article helps you achieve success!
1) GUILDS ARE GOOD!
Playing Splinterlands solo can be fun... BUT getting boosts to your earnings whilst also forming friendships and bonds is even BETTER! When I first started playing, I neglected to join a guild for a very long time, figuring that I didn't want to burden or inconvenience anyone with questions, or drag the team down with my amateur ways. In retrospect, joining a guild should have been the FIRST thing that I did! It gave me a place other than discord to ask questions, and unlocked many other benefits that you literally CAN'T get without being part of a guild!
Firstly, you gain access to the ARENA, which allows you participate in BRAWLS where you can earn both SPS as well as MERITS! Merits in particular have become very important in the game since not only can you use them in Brawls, but also with certain summoners and the "Are You Not Entertained?" ruleset!
Next, you get a BONUS to the GLINT you earn in every battle from the LODGE!
The last of the "major" benefits, and possibly the most important, is you gain access to the STORE which is where you can spend all the merits you've accumulated from BRAWLS as well as opened in your reward chests!
For these reasons it is imperative that you join a guild as soon as possible. To not do so, you are literally sacrificing Glint, SPS (Splintershards), Merits, and the ability to use Gladiator cards by virtue of not having access to the STORE! Don't worry, the guilds out there are HUNGRY for new players, and one of the would be happy to scoop you up and help show you the ways. You can even access the "Guild Recruitment" section of the Splinterlands Discord server and read up on a few, or advertise that you're looking for a guild, before making your choice!
Here's a link to the Discord Channel to help get you started!
https://discord.com/channels/447924793048825866/605856356167057413
2) SUMMONERS ARE THE KEY TO WINNING!
This is possibly the most important thing to bear in mind when playing Splinterlands. You will NOT be successful if you don't pay close attention to which summoners, and therefore splinters you have access to, as well as the summoner levels. You will NEED to play with high level and efficient summoners to reach the highest leagues in the game. No exception. Every aspect of a battle is dependent on your summoner. Low level summoners cap your maximum monster level, and inefficient summoners hinder your ability to win battles.
The maximum playable level of each card rarity will fluctuate based on the level of the summoner you are using. There is no point in renting an 8* rare monster if you are only going to play with a 4* rare summoner, since the level of the monster will be capped at 4*. Be mindful of what cards you are renting, what summoners you have access to, and their levels. This part can be very confusing to a new player, so be sure to check twice, and rent once, lest you waste resources on cards that you can't even play due to an underleveled summoner!
3) STINGY IS GOOD... TOO STINGY IS NOT SO GOOD.
Splinterlands has a variety of ways to spend DEC (Dark Energy Crystals), Credits, and SPS.
Minding your invaluable resources carefully is important, but doing so to the point that is becomes a detriment to your ability to win will work against you in the end. Sometimes you may want to "cheap out" on a rental to save a few DEC because you feel like it isn't worth it, and sometimes that may be the correct choice! But when you weigh the advantages of having access to abilities that will help you win games vs a small increase in costs, it is almost always better to go with the card that will help you win more. In many cases, a victory with a more powerful card will pay itself off, whereas a loss because you were underpowered will just be a waste of your limited energy, time, and a battle that was entirely winnable had you used the better card.
I fell into that trap with my new account. I tried to be so miserly on my rentals that the cards worked against me. In this example instead of renting what I consider the "minimum playable" version of Arkemis the Bear at 7* when it gains the invaluable Forcefield ability, I rented a lowly 1* to save literally fractions of a penny. I then encountered a Possibilius water team that used a 5 attack Coastal Sentry where forcefield would have won me the match. Instead, I threw the win away, and had my win streak broken. Was it worth the extra 0.7 DEC in this case? It sure was. That win would have paid for the extra DEC cost many times over!
4) NEUTRAL CARDS OFFER THE MOST BANG FOR YOUR BUCK!
The cards you can play are limited by the summoners you are using. With some exceptions (like dual element summoners) you can NOT use a water creature with a fire summoner, nor a death summoner with an earth creature. You CAN, however, use NEUTRAL monsters in (almost) any battle! This means that having a plethora of neutral monsters in your arsenal will provide you with a base team that you'll have access to in most situations.
Uraeus will give you a constant sneak melee attacker.
Xenith Monk will give you a tank for Little League rulesets.
Gargoya Devil can take the front line in ranged only matches.
Venator Kinji gives cheap Reflection Shield in blast matches.
Magi of Chaos is a damage dealing machine at all times!
Neutral cards are so versatile that they can fill the gaps in your deck where you may otherwise be lacking, or replace the need to rent / buy multiple different cards for each splinter since they can fit in anywhere. Don't sleep on neutral cards, get them first and use them often... ESPECIALLY when you could run into the "neutral only" ruleset!
5) TRY IT BEFORE YOU BUY IT!
When I first started playing, I bought everything, I thought that's what we were "supposed to do" as "renting" wasn't an option in the paper TCGs I played before. I spent a lot of money on cards that I ended up never using, some that were too high level for the summoners I owned, and others that I just plain didn't end up liking. Had I used the card RENTAL option more efficiently, I could have avoided needless spending on cards that in the end didn't make the cut, and had to be resold into the market, often times at a loss. Before you go out and BUY that expensive card you've heard so much about, doesn't it make sense to try it first?
Let's look at the wonderful and enigmatic Brave Tofu as an example:
RENTING this card at MAX LEVEL would cost you 484 DEC / Day = $0.34.
BUYING this card would cost you $630!
... That means you could rent the card for 1852 days for the cost of owning it!
Now, there are positives and negatives to this. You take all the risk and get all the rewards when a card goes UP or DOWN in value. Should TOFU go even higher in price when Chaos Legion rotates from Modern, you'll win. If it goes down, you'll lose. Conversely, as a renter, you'll never own the card, so take none of the risk, BUT you'll rely on your battle rewards to make back or exceed the rental costs. (Obligatory "This is NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE" Disclaimer!)
6) RENT EVERYTHING AT THE SAME TIME!
While we're on the subject of rentals, it's a good idea to make a list and rent all of your cards at the SAME time. This will avoid any confusion of having to look at individual cards and when they expire, as well as allow you to stay consistent with your gameplay.
There is nothing worse than starting to play and realizing that one of your KEY rentals expired, but you didn't notice because the others are still active. This also allows you to better manage your energy and your time: you can rent the cards for 48hrs, play your energy to zero, wait for your energy to build back up, then play it all down again using those same rented cards. This is an efficient use of the DEC that you spent on the rentals, avoids confusion, and gives you a "schedule" that you can play on!
An excellent resource for managing your rentals is with our friends at 
7) MANAGE YOUR STAKED SPS EFFICIENTLY
Have you ever played a few matches, been on a huge win streak, then wondered why your GLINT and SPS almost seem to be going DOWN instead of UP? You probably don't have enough SPS staked for the rank you've achieved! Having the correct SPS staked to earn at least 8x (10x being optimal) is an important part of the game and economy. If you've got too much, you're wasting it. If you have too little, you're not reaching your full earnings potential. I just experienced this as I advanced to GOLD1 with only 20100 SPS staked and had wasted a few wins earning only 6.76x rewards!
The chart below tells you the proper amount of SPS you should have staked for each league to achieve your desired multiplier. Looking at it, you can see that in GOLD1 I should have at least 29335 SPS staked to earn 8x, with 58893 being required to earn a full 10x. You can see how excessive the requirements become to reach the 12x point!
If you don't have enough SPS you can easily BUY or RENT it. Using the in game RENT feature you can typically have someone rent you the required SPS at 0.002/SPS fairly easily, and in my case to get back to 8x I would need around 10000 more SPS. To rent that amount for 1 week would cost me 140 DEC (currently $0.10) and would look like this:
You can also try your luck and use the XBOT platform to rent your SPS where you may be able to do so for longer periods of time, at a lower price. You can explore that XBOT functionality here: https://xbot.app/spsmarket
8) BUY GLINT REWARDS AND GLADIUS CASES FREQUENTLY
I get it, I'm a hoarder too! I love to see large amounts of glint or merits in my account gathering dust just to say that I've "got it". However, there is an opportunity cost to just stashing your rewards without spending them. Every glint saved are less cards that you could be playing with, and every merit could be another gladius pack where you open that Quora that could win you infinite games!
Not only that...but it's FUN to open chests! It adds an element of reward to your play and gives you something to look forward to, and strategize. Should you save your glint to buy 1x EPIC draw, or blow your load on multiple COMMON draws to build your collection?
Maybe you want to save up for Merits, or gold pulls, legendary draws, or go big on Ultimate chests in the hopes of getting a JACKPOT prize! Those are all fine and valid ways to play the game but be aware that the longer you wait (especially as a new player) the less time you have to actually USE those cards in battle!
9) PARTICIPATE IN THE GREATER HIVE ECOSYSTEM!
That's what I'm doing right now! And if you read my little "note" at the top of this article, HIVE is big time and can be even more rewarding than Splinterlands if you devote some time and energy to learning about it and participating! I'm sure the "sheriff" 
On top of writing your own articles and blogging, you can also receive HIVE by curating / voting on OTHER peoples work, and leaving comments. There are also many Splinterlands contests that you can compete in that will earn you upvotes, and therefore HIVE rewards. The rules have recently changed for the Splinterlands contests, so be sure you are up to date with them by reading this article: @splinterlands/splinterlands-social-media-challenge-new-rules
A very well written post by 
10) DON'T GET DISCOURAGED AND KEEP LEARNING / PRACTICING!
Splinterlands is a complex and challenging game with a high learning curve.
There is so much that you can do between playing the card game, entering tournaments, working land plots, reading and participating in HIVE, buying / selling / trading, liquidity pools, SPS fundamentals, etc. It is easy to become overwhelmed and confused by all the myriad of options that exist, or to think that you're not making any progress in the game for a variety of reasons.
I am here to tell you: DON'T GIVE UP!
We ALL started somewhere, and we've all made mistakes.
The good thing is, there are plenty of people here on HIVE, and within the Splinterlands discord that are happy to help new players learn and succeed! We WANT you to have a good time playing, the same way that we are! So hang in there! Get support when you need it, ask questions, join a guild, and look for more articles from the plethora of content creators that exist both here, and on YouTube! The more you know, the better your experience will be and more rewarding you'll find the entire Splinterlands universe!
If you prefer to watch a video, or would like to hear me drone on and on at depth about this topic, you can watch a video I created on this topic for YouTube here:
So there you go, faithful BattleMage!
Some tips and tricks to get you started on your journey! I hope this has helped you, and you can look forward to more articles like this aimed at helping new players in my "Path to Power" (P2P) series as I also navigate the new player experience with you! Feel free to drop me a comment and let me know what topics you feel I should cover next if you've got any suggestions!
Until next time, I'll see you around Praetoria!
Your guy, The Psi!
******* NOTE TO FELLOW HIVERS *******
As some of you may be aware, I started a new account (thepsilence) and have dedicated myself to playing it using ONLY the initial Spellbook investment. Other funds that I put into that account have to be generated from within the game, or the HIVE ecosystem. As such, a portion of rewards from blogs that include the P2P (Path to Power) tag in the title will be devoted to this new account, and that includes this post. At first I was going to write these blog posts using the new account, but I feel that would overcomplicate things as maintaining 2 separate blogs as the same person about relatively similar content felt.. strange. PLUS I wouldn't want to invoke the ire of those who frown upon multi-accounting, and may treat the new account negatively knowing that it was a secondary account. As such, I will find a way to distribute a portion of the rewards from these P2P posts into he new account, but will not be blogging from the new account itself as it would start to look like an "extraction" account since I want to reinvest it's earnings back into the game. I hope this makes sense to the HIVE community, but I am always open to feedback or suggestions!