It's been over a year since I last wrote about Splinterlands. And considering that's where half of the value of my crypto portfolio sits, I should be keeping a close watch on new features and events, as well as the current status of my inventory.
Background
I've been playing Splinterlands since June 2018 and although I had little fiat laying around to buy packs and cards during this time (the next 2 years!), I managed to buy the odd card and pack, as well as picking them up through daily quests and rewards.
In November 2019 I went to the SteemyFest in Krakow and met the Splinterlands co-founders. At the time, STEEM, the game cards, and Crypto in general, were not performing well. I was also pretty broke and looking at these assets (worth around $2000) and thinking that I might need to sell them at some point soon to fund living costs.
That weekend though, Matt and Jesse found time to speak to me and were both really confident that Splinterlands was still new, that the NFT craze was still to begin. And so instead of selling my Hive and Splinterlands assets, I returned to the UK the following summer to find work. That happened quickly, twice, (and just before Covid, phew!) which meant my crypto assets were safe.
Skip forward another year or so and those assets started to increase in value quite quickly. I was also buying packs (Untamed mainly) which has previously been slow to shift, which future boosted my total SL asset value. And then the SPS token drop arrived.
Selling cards I've never been too keen on (although I have let a couple slip away far too cheaply!), but selling some of this new token which was at times valued close to a dollar was something I would do, and did, for a reasonable part of the token drop.
In summary, the words of the co-founders and a big slice of luck has meant that I have both cash savings, and a portfolio of Splinterlands assets which are very much worth me paying attention to. Thanks guys!
Rebellion Conflicts
Is the name given to the process of airdropping the next 9 Rebellion Cards. Each conflict will be around 30 days long, and during this time players will need to stake Rebellion cards or packs using a Mage Wagon to collect points, which in turn will increase the chance of receiving an airdropped card.
At this point, I'm not too interested in my percentage chance of receiving an airdropped card, I just know that I want to be in with a chance of doing so!
Are you keen? I think so!
The points accrued (for an increased drop chance) are to be based on the Collection Power of the Staked Rebellion cards, as well as 100 CP for each Pack staked (up to 100 per wagon).
Stake everything?
My first thought, considering staked Rebellion cards can still be used in battles (delegated or on the market is no good), was to stake all my Rebellion cards. I decided though to put a min CP cap of 100 for a card (combined or otherwise), so to reduce the number of Wagons required.
As far as Rebellion packs go, it is unlikely I'll be staking any. The reasoning here is that 100 packs is a 10000 CP boost, and 1 Rebellion Gold Foil Legendary is 12500 CP. I bought 200 packs (even though I have a max Rebellion set) yesterday and went on to open them all. Sadly, I didn't get a GFL, but the GF epics (2500 CP each) and the rest of the cards should (no I didn't check!) have provided more than 10000 CP - the value of 100 packs staked in a conflict.
Buying Wagons
Meant getting hold of Credits, DEC, or Vouchers. I'll not go into detail here but as with 
How many Wagons? As stated I'm looking to stake every card with 100 CP or more. I found the number of Rebellion cards that fit this criteria using the sort and filter options in Peakmonsters - 295 cards in total. Therefore, the number of Wagons I need will be 295/5 = 59 Wagons.
This leaves 409 Rebellion cards of < 100 CP, which if I were to stake would need a further 82 Wagons. It's a slight gamble, but leaving approximately 5000 further CP un-staked, so's not to buy a further 82x50 vouchers, is the way I'm playing this one.
All set
So, I have my vouchers, any Rebellion cards previously rented are in the process of being returned, and I wait patiently for the maintenance update in two days time (January 23rd). At which point, it will be time to buy the Wagons and start staking. (I hope the interface for this means it wont take hours!)
Personally I am for experimenting with various airdrop criteria, and think this approach could work well. That's it for Rebellion Conflict talk, what else has been happening in my Splinterlands journey?
Rent
All cards not needed to play are sent to another account where their rent status/cost/etc is managed by 
Whilst the current DEC income for Rentals is nothing like what it was a year or two ago, it does seem like the market has stabilised and could even be starting to recover. I've had income as low as 2/3k DEC/day in the past year, and so I'm happy to see 5/6k DEC earned at present during the peak days of the two week Season.
Land
I'm a small land owner of just 9 plots, and this number feels like the right amount for the number of cards I have 'spare'. When I say spare, most of these cards were being rented, and only a couple of these cards should really be part of my playing deck. Ideally I'd liked to have used no 'play worthy' cards, but I suspect I'm not the only one in this boat.
As far as production goes, I've tried to focus most on Research (2 plots) but also built a mine for SPS which gives a more tangible income right now. Also, my grain production is on the slight surplus side - I'm expecting the almost worthless grain to be required in the millions at some point!
One more note on land - the seemingly random harvesting rewards known as Totem Fragments.
Two so far for me, and based on the Land Manager tool at https://www.baronstoolbox.com/, I've been pretty lucky to have been rewarded these.
Mousing over the image next to the terribly drawn green arrow will provide the information 'Estimated Token Fragment % Chance if you collect right now'. For me, these percentages range from 0.001 to 0.003% - which sounds a lot like 'no fucking chance mate!'. I'm going to Harvest now, it's been 5 days since the last...
Well that worked out OK didn't it! So now I have 3 Fragments in total, and I think keep whatever I unearth for the time being.
Play
I used to be competitive, and then 200+ further cards and many thousands of new players arrived.
These days I struggle in Modern (with most cards allowed to used being maxed 😳), and I use XBOT to play for me in Wild. I suspect that many players with a deck that can comfortably play in Wild are using one of the gameplay bots these days. I spent years battling without help (and fewer cards), and am grateful (although still with a slightly uneasy feeling of using automation) not to have to force myself to play on days I don't have time or don't wish to.
XBOT usually lands my account in Champion I or II come the end of the season.
Guild battles I do take part in ( Go Team Possible!) and generally hold my own. It will be a while yet though before I have a max Quora...
Buying cards
In addition to maxing Riftwatchers and Rebellion sets, I'm still picking up the odd card to level up some 'ancient' cards I own. My latest level up, after 4/5 years at level 8, now a max.
A quick look at Peakmonsters tells me this card was used as the tank(!) in a victorious battle 23 hours ago. It will need to win a few more to recover the cost of buying the cards I needed to max it - I can wait.
I think that is just about it for my personal Splinterlands update. Best of luck to you, my guild, and the Splinterlands team for 2024 and beyond.
Cheers
Ash