What is Splinterlands?
Splinterlands is a strategy-based digital trading card game built on the Hive blockchain. Each card is a non-fungible token (NFT), so players have ownership and control over the cards they collect.
**The good, the bad, and the bullish. My initial review. **
Okay, so I’ve been playing this game for two days, not like 48 hours straight, but for a few hours here and there. My initial impression, this game is strategic, fast-paced, and addicting. That said, it is a little confusing at first for someone who is new to these types of card games. If you’ve played lots of Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, or some other card games like that, it might be less confusing, but for me, it took a few good hours of clicking buttons and reading to figure things out. I’m not good yet, but I’ve dumped some money into opening some packs and buying some cards, so I at least have a decent shot of winning some battles. The cards themselves are NFTs, so if you end up with some good ones, they may go up in value.
If you want to win regularly, and potentially earn some crypto in the game, or from your NFT cards, you’re probably going to have to spend some money, so be aware of that.
There have been a few different series of packs released since 2018. The current series is called Chaos Legion, and can still be purchased in-game, for the equivalent of about $4/pack.
The previous series have all sold out but are still available on the secondary market. All of the unopened packs have appreciated quite nicely for people that held them.
If you’re familiar with Hive Engine, you can buy unopened packs there, and transfer them to your Splinterlands account. I paid almost 400 Hive for an original Alpha pack, which I should have kept unopened, and resold in five years, but instead, I opened it and pulled like $20 worth of cards. In hindsight, I could have bought a bunch of bad-ass singles in the marketplace and improved my chances of winning battles, but I didn’t do that. You can make your own decisions, but opening packs is fun.
You do get access to some basic shared cards to start, but if you want to win, and potentially make money, get some better cards. Once you have them, you can do a bunch of different things with them.
- Cards can be used to battle in-game and win cryptocurrency.
- Cards can be combined to level up and increase their usefulness to improve your chances of winning battles. This also reduces the circulating supply of the cards, making them more rare.
- Cards can be burned in exchange for cryptocurrency (also reducing the overall supply of each card, increasing their rarity).
- Cards can be sold to other players through the in-game marketplace, or a number of third-party marketplaces.
- Cards can be rented out to other places who wish to use them in-game in exchange for cryptocurrency.
So overall, after two days of messing around and spending like a grand, I have to say the game is pretty fun. I think the in-game economy is strong. There are lots of users, last I checked it was over 375,000. The marketplace is active for buying/selling. I haven’t had to wait to find a person to play against. If the game keeps growing, I think the good cards and unopened packs will appreciate in value nicely.
I’m not sure how profitable playing the game will be, my initial take is that it is going to take money to make money with this one. That said, if you feel like getting into NFT gaming, this seems like a good place to start.
The game can be a little confusing at first, so be prepared to experiment and read a little. I’ll be writing a few articles aimed at other beginners, from another beginner’s point of view, which I think will be helpful for anyone who wants to learn to play and/or collect the NFT cards.
Let me know in the comments if you’re playing this game and what you think of it. If you feel like playing a few battles or trading some cards leave your username and I’ll hit you up.
Posted using SoMee