Introduction
Hi my name is Sascha. I live in Germany near Frankfurt and started playing Splinterlands a few days ago. The game challenged me in many ways, I did not think before. Since other new players may have similar challenges I decided to write this post.
I came to Splinterlands, because I wanted to combine a nice gaming experience with an investment case. So I will focus on both parts of the game. What I am going to write here is no rocket science, but for a new player like me it was. Some things I have done, must seem pretty stupid to more experienced players, that is why I would like to help other newbies not to do the same mistakes.
First steps
As most players I started with the tutorial which showed me, how to play. Afterwards I was sure to know what to do. Have a tank in the front, place a unit with the Range Ability behind and help with maybe one opportunity, magic and ranged unit. Sounds pretty easy.
You can expect, my win rate, was maximum 30 %. I even struggled reaching bronze level. I was killed by nearly every deck, be it Forest Mage, Water, Death / Thorn or specialized Fire decks.
I was able to overcome this after getting some more information from YouTube. Thanks to 
- Have a strong tank upfront
- Have some good hitters with Opportunity / Sneak in the back row
- Most important secure your back row hitters with some meat before and behind them.
- Rent a few cards with DEC to improve your decks and get special tactics workable
How to buy DEC and SPS with Fiat cheaply
Point 4 made me struggle again. How the heck could I buy DEC? I bought some Bitcoin and Etherium via a German broker, but these are stored there and I did not know anything about a wallet, crypto trader. Tools like "Metamask" or "Pancakeswap where absolute unknown to me.
I found many websites and hints how to exchange HIVE, or SPS into DEC, but not how to buy any of these currencies with FIAT money. I did not know splintertalk.io at this point. On the splinterlands page I have seen, that I could buy things at gate.io. That sounded a lot more serious than "Pancakeswap". I wanted to invest and not to make jokes.
So I created an account at gate.io an bought some USDT per credit card. There were big differences in the providers to do this credit card purchase. Between the best and the worst has been a difference of over 20$ for a 100 € purchase. I ended with Banxa and was proud owner of around 106 USDT.
I could not buy DEC directly at Gate.io so I decided to buy some HIVE and move it over to Hive-Engine and then swap it there for DEC. But how to do this? What is the correct wallet ID? I tried to find out over the hive-engine site and clicked on deposit, but I did not get any information there. I was pretty frustrated. To be honest I do not know up to now, how to send Hive to the Hive wallet from gate.io. I will use another way by now, which I may share on a future update.
I then decided to create some SPS out of the hive directly at Gate.io, maybe this is easier to transfer to HIVE or into the game. I did, and was stuck again. I already spend a lot of money on fees, but had no chance to get the tokens into the game.
Getting help via discord
I than got some help in the German discord - thanks to @Chamil. I finally created a metamask wallet. Changed it to work with BSC by using the information from this link MetaMask BSC.
I transferred my around 400 SPS from Gate.io for a fee of 36 SPS to my Metamask wallet. I am not sure, if I made a mistake here, but 36 SPS as fee is way too much. Therefore I would never again buy via gate.io.
Now I finally could move my SPS to the game. I linked my metamask wallet to Splinterlands, clicked on transfer and the next problem came up. I had no BNB in my wallet and therefore could not pay the gas.
Binance, PancakeSwap and finally getting Tokens into the game
In the next night, I opened the next account - this time on Binance. Verifying again. Buying BNB - again via credit card. Transferring the BNB to Metamask. The cost for the buy via credit card are 2%, which is ok. I could have used Advcash to send FIAT money to Binance via SEPA for way less cost, but it would take days. I wanted to start renting cards now.
The transfer to metamask was way cheaper, than on gate.io. I payed 0,0005 BNB which where around 0,27$. In addition I used a referral key during sign up saving me a lifetime 20% on fees. Than I could finaly transfer my SPS finally to Splinterlands. If you have no Binance account yet, you can use my referal link at the end of this article and get 10% reduced fees as well (Because I have less than 500 BNB in my account at Binance, I cannot provide you with more).
From the rest of the BNB I bought some DEC and some more SPS via Pancakeswap.finance and transferred them to Splinterlands. I will not describe, how this is done, since there are good videos and articles already on the net. For example this one:
Let the games begin
The whole process took me 4 nights. More than once I wanted to throw my computer at the wall. But at the same time, this new world of crypto I was discovering was so interesting to me. I am sure, the information is available somewhere in the internet. I was just not able to ask the correct questions.
Now I am ready to start. I staked all of my SPS to increase their amount, as well as to get some vouchers for the Chaos Legion pre sale. Through the DEC I can now rent cards move up in the league and get more SPS in the daily SPS Airdrop.
The game makes a lot more fun, when renting just a few cards. Playing in higher leagues is more fun, because the challenge is higher (the rewards as well).
In my next post I would like to tell a bit about the way I am spending my DEC, which cards I bought, what to do with my vouchers and generally my next steps.
If you would like to read more from a newbie like me, leave a comment. If you know a better way to get tokens cheap into the game, please let me know via comment :-)
Happy gaming and investing
Yours
Kheldar1982
Referals
Splinterlands
If you do not have a Splinterlands account yet, and would like to join feel free to use my referal link, when you set the account up: https://splinterlands.com?ref=kheldar1982 I will send you a few DEC to rent your first cards and if you wish we can stay in contact via discord.
Binance.com
Binance.com is in my opinion a good balance between user friendliness, available coins, and good cost. At least for me it is currently the best choice, when buying crypto. As written above, signing up via my referral link will reduce your life-time fees only by 10 %. There are links in the internet that reduce you fees by 20%. But maybe you just want to support me, and still use my referral 😉: https://accounts.binance.com/en/register?ref=F0TTZHYB