Welcome everyone to my very first post!

I started playing Splinterlands about a month ago and have really been enjoying the adventure so far. I am fairly new to the whole universe of blockchain gaming, and am really happy to have landed here in the Splinterlands! Playing this game has not only been educational, it has been really fun - and with a little luck it will eventually be profitable 😃

Season Recap

This past season was the first full season that I played in with serious intent. I did start off in the game towards the beginning of the previous season, but I was really just fumbling around for the most part trying to get a handle on how to play. This past season I was a lot more involved in the game and the community and I think it went pretty well!

To kick off the season I really focused on moving up in the leagues as quickly as possible to start earning more Daily Chests. It actually didn't take too long before I was able to fight, buy and rent my way all the way up to Silver III! I think it was a little easier in the beginning because rents are reasonably cheap at the start of each season. My basic strategy was to rent a few Legendary summoners (Chanseus, Lir and Mimosa) to help me win battles in Bronze, and once I got my rating up to 1000 I rented a couple of Epic gold foil cards for the Power to push me into Silver territory.

I know there's some debate about whether renting that much power is worth it for the extra chests, but I really wanted to get my hands on a few of the new Reward cards, so for me it was worth it for the additional chest from the Daily Quests 👍

For most of the season I just hung out in Silver III. Then, a couple of days before the season was about to end, I noticed that my rating was over 1300 and I thought - WTH might as well rent a couple more cards and go for Silver II to get a few more Reward chests!

It's always kind of a risky proposition renting towards the end of the season - rental prices start to increase dramatically, and there's no guarantee that the person renting won't cancel last minute so you lose the power right when you need it most. Especially in this season because it was the first with the new rule change that your league was the one you finished in and not the highest you obtained through the season.

Anyway, it worked out for the best this time and I was able to close the season in the Silver II league! The season reward for Silver II league is 15 Loot Chests. This is what I received:

I was pretty happy with this overall! A lot of cool reward cards which is what I was hoping for, including two rare Venari Seedsmiths (my 3rd favorite Venari Smith card 😆).

Next Season Goals

One of the reasons I wanted to write a post at the end of a season was to set goals for the next season. I really want to advance in the game, and I think there are so many ways to do that. Some goals I have for this next season are:

1. Obtain enough Power to make Silver III without renting. Between the rewards cards, purchases and those awesome giveaways I am at ~11000 power right now. I have a some credits, some DEC and will keep plugging away at the Daily quests to get my Power up to 15000 so that I don't have to rent to stay in Silver.
2. Write at least 3 more posts. Writing this was kind of fun and I would like to make it a regular thing. It's a good way to keep track of progress, have some accountability and interact with the community. Also I want to do some card giveaways to help others starting out.
3. Add to staked SPS. With the voucher system and Chaos Legion cards on their way, I am going to need to have some staked SPS to secure some packs and airdrops for future cards. Right now I have less than 50 SPS, but it's all staked and I want to get more.

Gratitude

Another reason to post is to thank and recognize some of the awesome members of the community that are helping new players like myself:

Hive account@bulldog1205 Always posts fun and informative content on YouTube that are essential viewing for new players. He also started live streaming on Twitch and I was lucky enough to win one of his giveaways. Thank you for the Bortus!

Hive account@thegcc Has a great weekly update blog illustrating his journey through the leagues. He also describes Guild brawls which is a fun read for me especially since I have not been in any myself. He was also kind enough to delegate me a Bila the Radiant card which really helped out when completing Light Quests - Thank you!

Hive account@kennysgaminglife Seems to have an endless supply of packs to open which is really fun to watch. He is also doing a daily SPS giveaway until the Chaos Legion pre-sale. Thank you for the 10 SPS Kenny!

Thank you!

Finally I wanted to thank all of you for reading this post. I always enjoy reading about how others are doing in the game as well as what they have learned along the way - and I hope you will continue on this journey with me.

Support

If you are thinking about joining Splinterlands, please consider joining through my affiliate link here: Splinterlands . To show my appreciation, I will send you 100 DEC and a couple of reward cards to help you get started after you purchase the Summoners Spellbook.