What you need to know
Hello dear reader. Nice to see you again. I hope you found the previous episode useful. So you know the basics of the game, purchased the spellbook and since last week you know what it means to level cards. Now you need a nice interface to manage your collection? You want to improve your game, learn how a battle could have been won? And maybe even want to keep up to date with all the changes that are applied to the game from time to time?
What you will learn today
We will have a look at external tools to improve your overall experience and game play. Do not worry, this has nothing to do with cheating. Quite the opposite. Splinterlands is a blockchain game so we will find out what that means and why it is useful. We will find a nice little market place to buy and sell cards, discover where all the hot news topics are being discussed and start learning from our mistakes in battle.
Welcome to Hive
In a nutshell: Hive is a blockchain which means everyone can connect to it and everything is public. Everything happening in Splinterlands is written into a block and becomes public knowledge.
When you purchased the spellbook, Splinterlands created a Hive account with your ingame name. To make use of that (and most of the tools connected to Hive) you need to connect to the blockchain. For that you need a set of private keys. They will authenticate you and your actions (renting/buying cards, even writing a comment to this post).
So go ahead, click on your ingame name in the upper right corner and then on "Request Account Keys". Follow the instructions and at the end of that process you get an email with your account keys.
Keychain
The first tool you need is essential to access most of the others. Go to https://hive-keychain.com/ and install the keychain plugin for your browser.
After installation it will ask you to give it a local password. This is for you to choose. After that it will ask you to input your hive username (which also is your Splinterlands name) and the keys you just got via mail.
Now that you are set up, you can even log in to Splinterlands using the keychain extension. From now on every site based on the Hive blockchain can authenticate you.
PeakD, Ecency and Splintertalk
Everyone can post on Hive, this post you are reading right now is also on Hive. To read what is on the blockchain you need a front-end. There are several, I will introduce you to three of them.
There is https://peakd.com/, which is my favorite for its author tools and wallet management options.
Then there is https://ecency.com/, which has a more leaner design and also comes with a mobile app version so you can read the blockchain on your phone all the while earning ecency points for the usage.
Especially for Splinterlands content there is https://www.splintertalk.io/, where you can earn Splintertalk tokens for posting, commenting and voting.
Whichever you choose, you can log in with the keychain and the content will be the same.
To keep up to date you should follow the Splinterlands account. Whichever front-end you chose, since all your actions are written into the blockchain, the other front-ends will pick it up as well, so you can switch at any time.
Peakmonsters
Now that you have all the news about game updates and development, we should start managing your card collection. Head over to https://peakmonsters.com/ and log in with the keychain.
All your information is already there, you now have a nice frontend to take a look at your cards. You can buy and rent cards or sell those you do not need anymore.
The balances shown are your Splinterlands ingame balances. All payments for purchases and rentals are subtracted from that.
Your own card collection can be sorted, filtered and altered. All actions related to your cards can be performed with this interface, the result is available ingame within a few seconds (depending on how long it takes Splinterlands to evaluate the blockchain content).
Splintertools
In https://splintertools.io/ you can analyze your past battles. Or even that of someone else. Just enter your name and the site will grab your history from the blockchain.
We learn from our mistakes and when you lose a battle the question might rise, what you could have done better. Now you have the chance to find out. Rearrange your monsters or select different ones. Splintertools will then simulate the battle outcome and give you a winning percentage.
It is only a chance given because monsters might miss or the randomness of who attacks first in a tie might decide a battle. But getting a loss from 0% to 90% is already a big improvement and should sharpen your skills a lot.
Splintercards
If you want to learn more about the cards and their levels, go have a look at https://www.splintercards.com/. They have made an extensive compendium of the most useful game play information there. Research the abilities or discover all the different rulesets you might encounter. For the rulesets you might even pick up some tips if you read carefully.
You also get an overview of all the card levels at different league caps, as well as some nice calculator and analysis tools. Take your time and peruse a little bit.
Baronstoolbox
When you join a guild you can get a lot of information for guild management or just for snooping around at https://www.baronstoolbox.com/.
Even if you are not in a guild you should give it a try, there is some nice statistical data for your account presented. Take a look at your card collection and find out if you own cards you never or very rarely use.
And as a bonus you can design your own card and then download the image. Looks nice, doesn't it?
Splintershare
To keep track of your rewards and compare them you can use https://splintershare.info/. Your reward information is condensed into neat little packages and they also included a screenshot button so no more need to start up the sniping tool. Share your reward screenshots in discord or on your own blog with just one click.
Additionally you can find statistical data on the overall printing and distribution of all the reward cards.
And since it is all public data from the blockchain you can even look up other people's data, it is all there.
Oh, You are just reading but not playing Splinterlands yet? You can sign up by just clicking
and off you go into the wonders of Praetoria. Enjoy the ride.
That is it for today. Go on out there, start reading the update notices from the Splinterlands blog on the front-end of your choice. Find out what cards are for sale or sell some of your own. Or maybe put in a bid for a rental to try them out first. And if you lost and wonder how to improve, simulate another team or positioning and finish the day by admiring your rewards and stats.
Thank you for reading.
Did I make a blunder? Please help me correct it by leaving a comment.
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Header background and Splinterlands logo from Splinterlands homepage.
Special Opps logo used with permission.
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