I joined Splinterlands on a whim a week ago. I had heard of the game before (mostly from being subscribed to 
A difficult beginning
I must admit my first few days were a fiasco. The one good thing was to buy a pack of quest potions right away. (Let's not talk about any other money I might have spent on utterly worthless items during that period.) I had no idea what I was doing and lost as least as many games as I won, staying in Bronze III much longer than I should have. Of course, the node issues we were having at the time caused some additional losses, but I blame my own ineptitude for the bulk of it. On top of the misplays, I had run my ECR down to around 50% and was playing enough that it never recovered much, so my DEC gains were minimal.
A turning point
After those first few days, I was lucky enough to get a 700 DEC drop in my daily quest rewards. By that point, I had started getting better at playing novice level decks, and I was ready to put that DEC to work renting cards to improve my decks. A level 1 Mylor Crowling was by far the most useful rental; any opponents I faced who were not playing Alric Stormbringer magic decks were instead highly melee focused, and Mylor's thorns ability punishes those melee decks hard. In additional to renting cards to play, I began scouring the marketplace for cheap gold rentals. I was quite successful, and in the few days since I began, I have accumulated almost 90,000 power from rentals for a minimal DEC investment. I am currently in Silver II, and that will be enough power for me to make Silver I, and possible climb to Gold III by the end of the season.
A rewarding finish
By the end of my first week, I had finally developed the patience to let my ECR recharge, and on the final day I earned around 200 DEC from my battles, a far cry from the fractions I was earning a few days prior. But then the game rewarded me further by giving me 2000 DEC for my daily quest. I ended the week with 3000 DEC in the bank and not much idea of what to do with it. (Please comment below if you have some good ideas on how best to start building my collection.)
All in all, I'd say it was a good first week, and I look forward to continuing my Splinterlands journey in the future!