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Day 2: Build an Elite Starter Deck

Yesterday, I created and funded my new Splinterlands account (Hive account@follow-notswizz) and now it's time to battle.....almost. Splinterlands gives you a starter deck, complete with a summoner and monsters for every Splinter, so that you can battle without having to buy any cards...but you don't actually own the cards you initially play with.

Not owning the cards means that you can't transfer/sell any of them, but you'll always be able to use them in battle. You can check what cards you own by filtering your collection by "owned".

So, the 1st step is to buy some cards and fill out your deck for domination!

The 2 cards every Splinterlands player MUST have

I highly recommend buying these 2 cards from the start because they increase the strategic skill cap of your deck (buy lvl 1). According to the legend Hive account@jacekw in his win rate/usage chart, Furious Chicken and Creeping Ooze are the 2 most played cards in the Bronze league and boast win rates > 50%. Both cards are in the Neutral splinter; that means they can be played with any Splinter (except during the non-neutral ruleset). That makes them valuable and versatile cards to own.

Furious Chicken is obviously very special because it costs 0 mana to play. It never hurts to add more meat to your lineup; especially when it costs nothing to play! If you have an open spot, summon the chick to take the initial blow or protect your back from sneak attacks.

Creeping Ooze is another valuable card because of it's mana. Speed determines order of attacks, and the Ooze's ability is -1 to enemy monsters' speed. If you've set your optimal lineup and still have 1 mana left, throw in the Ooze to slow down your opponent and come out on top.

Navigate to the in-game Market and filter by Neutral splinter, Rare (blue) rarity and Reward edition to select and buy the Furious Chicken.

Creeping Ooze is a Neutral, Common, Reward card

Next, new players should go to the "shop" and take the first hit of opening a pack. Opening packs is probably the most thrilling part of Splinterlands (although winning a battle decided by a coin-flip of which monster attacks 1st is pretty sweet) and the goal is to hit a home run and flip over Gold or Legendary card...or better yet a Gold Legendary Card 🤑. Untamed packs cost 2000 DEC/Credits and give you 5 Untamed cards with at least 1 being a rare or better.

Once you purchase the pack, navigate to the "Potions Shop" page. Potions can increase (double) your chances of flipping a Gold or Legendary card. Feel free to buy however many, but I'm going to buy 5 of each because I'm flipping 1 pack of 5 cards.

Next, go to the "Open" tab where you can drag your pack into the portal to reveal what cards you got!

Say a prayer to whatever higher being (Lord Arianthus perhaps)

I've had a better, I've had worse...
But I OWN these cards. Just like buying the chicken and ooze from the market...these are mine! When SL pops and common cards soar to > $20 I can sell these cards because I OWN them.

Ok, now that you bought the 2 most important starter deck cards and experienced the drug of opening packs...it's time to fill out your deck with some low level studs.
In the lower leagues, you're not restricted to specific splinters in the rulesets, so i'm going to focus on the most dominant low level splinters (imo): Fire & Water