As I have now been playing Steem Monsters and Drug Wars for several months, I've wanted to contribute something of ACTIONABLE value to my fellow players (and FUTURE players) - but NOT just fill my Steemit feed with daily images of quest reward - or battle - SPAM, (no offense to those doing so). Ultimately, Steemit is about ADDING VALUE to the social experience - that is the magic of blockchain technology. So, after some serious pondering, I decided that a weekly "Steem Monsters + Drugs Wars player strategy diary" type series, with CONCISE and ACTIONABLE tips, would be of most value to my audience. Please let me know your thoughts (good and/or bad), and I hope that readers (now and into the future) will benefit from this series. If you gain a better understanding of blockchain, gaming, "blockchain gaming", marketing, and/or any other area of knowledge I end up exploring as this series naturally progresses, then I will have done my "good deed" (of providing value) for the week. Also, feel free to hit me up on the battlefield...
[** DISCLAIMER: The images of the two gold cards in the promo pack screenshot above didn't load fully in the original display, so I copied the images of the cards from my collection pages and inserted them into this post's main image. Proof of my ownership of these two cards can be found in the "gold" section of my PeakMonsters collection : https://peakmonsters.com/@transcript-junky/collection **]
1 ) By a stroke of "divine intervention" by the "crypto gods" I won my first gold tournament, totally by surprise! Last week I had decided (after worrying that my gold collection would simply not be strong enough) to just give a gold tournament a try. I was surprised to find that I made it through one or two won battles and then lost. But the important thing is that that experience at least showed me that it is possible to at least COMPETE in the gold tournament, although many of the players will have stronger goold decks. Then I entered the gold "The Shiny Path" tournament earlier this week, and found myself placing 16th, for a suprising high winning of 6,200 DEC! That was enough to buy two "Orb" packs, and have some leftover DEC to spend on gold card upgrades. With that first gold tournament win behind me I am going to AT LEAST TRY the upcoming gold tournaments, as placing in these provides a SERIOUS payout which can be used to buy new packs, and signifant upgrades. In fact, one of my fellow guild members 
2 ) As the last post in the series received another UBER-JUICY manual upvote from 
*** CALL TO ARMS! My "DEC Hunters" guild ( lead by 
3 ) In the previous post in this series I detailed my very positive experience buying a 100-pack (+10 free packs) of the disappearing Beta packs, and getting a very nice score of gold and legendary cards (by applying the "100% gold" and "100% legendary" potions). Having had such good results from that batch, and having now been playing against opponents with some powerful "Orb" cards, I was motivated to take the plung/risk again and I sold some BTC and purchased a 100-pack (+ 10 free packs) of the "Orb" cards, and (applying the legendary and gold potions again) I managed to score several VERY POWERFUL rare (and expensive) gold cards (one "Mermaid Healer" (Gold) Level 3 (~ $35 USD), and one "Dwarvan Wizard" (Gold) Level 3 (~ $40 USD). These were major scores, but what I didn't realize at the time of opening these cards is that they are actually MUCH more valuable than merely their market price. It turns out that the "Orbs" cards are part of the "promo" category of cards, and you earn an ADDITIONAL 10% DEC bonus per card (per won battle) ON TOP OF the +10% DEC you earn because they are gold cards. So you earn +20% DEC bonus for EACH of these cards you use in won battles! As a result, I have been hitting the 60k - 70k DEC level for battles using one or two of these cards (specifically with the "Water" splinter - which boosts their "magic" ability from "1" to "2"). Due to the serious value of these "gold promo" cards I have decided to focus on trying to earn enough DEC per day to buy at least ONE additional "Orb" pack per day, with the hope that (instead of spending big money for a 100-pack batch) I can spread it out over a longer period of time (so 100 days of play equals 100 packs), but STILL have the chance of landing some additional high-value promo cards over time, while the supply of "Orb" cards last. It is essentially the same as earning an additional 5 daily reward cards, as I purchase the one daily "Orb" pack through coverting some of the reward cards I don't need into DEC, and then earning the remainder from won battles. This strategy creates a nice flow of game-play and reward, and over time I will build a nice collection of powerful promo cards to supplement my main decks, WITHOUT having to tap into my Bitcoin reserves. As they start to approach sell-out point I may very likely go in for one more 100-pack (+ 10 free packs) batch, since those extra 10 free packs equals 50 additonal cards, and therefore 50 more chances of hitting those JUICY "gold promo" cards. I believe that any money spent on these "Orbs" is money well-invested, as the long-term DEC earnings will be substantial (especially in combination with the inflation of the value of the cards themselves).
4 ) I also went ahead an purchased one 1-pack (+ 10 free packs) of the pre-sale "Untamed" edition of cards, since by buying in during the first round of pre-sale I have become eligible for all 14 airdopped cards (one for each of the 14 phases of the pre-sale). While waiting for the pre-sale to end, at which point it will then be possible to actually open the decks, I will focus on buying the "Orb" packs (as mentioend in #3 above. The 100-pack (+10) batches are fun to open, because you get lots of surprise "super-cards", and once they are open you have a nice boost in the overall range and power of our collection, and can begin earning more DEC and learning about the functions of the new cards by actually playing them. Having now spent a good 0.10 Bitcoin on SteemMonsters cards I want to try to focus on letting my new collection generate further value WITHOUT tapping into more BTC. In fact, I would IDEALLY like to REPLENISH the 0.10 BTC I have spent on the cards through the earnings, over time, on my current collection. I could buy up Bitcoin on low swings, and in small buys, to gradually recoup that BTC. That would be ideal, and then I would have a nice SteemMonsters collection which I can earn addition crypto through via game-play, daily quests, and tournaments (especially the gold tournaments). The main obstacle has been soending the time and funds building my collection and playing-ability to the level of being able to earn a nice $5 - $10 USD worth of crypto per day ( $150 - $300 USD/month ). That would be ideal.
5 ) My 
6 ) I am now earning around 6.0 Steem and 6.0 SP from each of the posts in this series, and am using the 6.0 Steem to from each payout to upgrade my regular cards - some of which are quite cheap, and so I can usually get at least one card up one level just with the proceeds from these posts. Every little extra bit of Steem helps boost my long-term progress, and my posts seem to be being enjoyed by many readers, and drawing in a good 5 - 10 new followers per week. I am content with that for now.
I hope you find some/any of these tips useful in increasing your understanding and/or skill level in the Steem Monsters (Splinterland) and/or Drug Wars game(s). More JUICY tips to come with each weekly update, as I become more experienced and successful in the game.
See you on the battlefield...
