When picking up Splinterlands it's easy to be overwhelmed by all the interesting options, bells, and whistles on display. When I found myself there I stuck to my TCG fundamentals picked a Splinter to specialize in and built a starter collection. My strategy at the time was to specialize in 1-2 splinters, have good exposure to staple cards in 1-2 splinters, and use 2-3 other splinters as dumps (not because they are bad, simply to narrow my focus).
That strategy was extremely effective for me and through it's use I've been able to build my collection out into other splinters through harvesting in-game rewards like Daily Quests and Bi-Weekly League payouts. I wanted to put down my findings here with some no nonsense financial numbers to help you decide where your hard earned money would be most useful.
Lets take a quick look at the total lineup:
Overview
This guide is for someone looking to build their collection. For that reason I've focused on getting the maximum bang for your back over pinching ever penny and cutting every corner to keep the bill low. I advise you to build your collection in this way. The cards are appreciating in price so quickly you'll not regret the "extra" cards you pick up along the way, especially with them contributing to your overall power.
The first decision you want to make when intentionally building your Splinterlands collection is how "tall" you want to build. It can be so cheap to play a deck with a level 1 summoner and all level 1 cards I recommend that's how everyone start their Splinterland journey. This collection is built to have level 3 summoners who will allow us to summon commons monsters at level 4, Rares at level 3, Epics at level 2, and Legends at level 2. A collection like this should help you rocket out of Novice league and start helping you learn the game enough to start setting your next goals as you see fit while also providing access to a variety of tournaments.
Goldfoil
There are a lot of people out there sleeping both how powerful and affordable goldfoil cards can be. These cards are not only fancy looking but also provide an additional 10% DEC when you win a Battle EACH. This means if you use a summoner and 6 monsters and 3 of them are goldfoil you'll get a massive +30% DEC generation. Overtime that bonus adds up. If you understand scaling you'll immediately see why that's so powerful in a game where the points are money.
Over the course of this guide I gave prices of both normal cards and their goldfoil variants. There is a large variance in the pricing all across the market. The relationship between regular card and goldfoil cards prices has not yet stabilized and, for the time being, this provides major opportunities. You can immediately see this when looking at the summoners we've chosen.
Summoners are the cornerstone of any collection and, if not properly prioritized, can throttle your entire collection down to their level. For this reason your Summoners are the absolute last cards you want to under-level. In this group Zintar will be your workhorse and safe pick, Owster will be your powerful trick (as he grants all your monsters Magic Reflect), and Jarlax will be your occasional MVP that can help secure matches on his own.
Dont overthink it. Look at the mana cost and rule set for the coming match and go down your summoner list.
Are you not confident you know what's going on? Well ever battle has a few monsters that melee attack so Zintars -1 will slow your enemy down and is a great option.
Do you have reason to believe your opponent might be playing a magic heavy deck from the available splinters, rulesets, or the info from previous matches? Osster is your best friend here and his Magic Reflect with keep all your monsters alive longer while also pumping up your damage output. Playing him at the right time can cause complete blowouts in your favor and he is an absolute steal at $20 for a level 3 goldfoil.
Jarlax is more situational mostly coming into play at very low mana caps or when a ruleset takes away all your Summoners abilities. In those situations your summoners costing 2 as opposed to 3 mana can be a serious edge to exploit. Watch for these situation and, when you get one, strike!
Jarlax is also demonstrating something that you'll see with some goldfoil cards. Because goldfoils start above level 1 it can often make sense to always check the price as you can sometimes get multiple levels for only 1 BCX. In this case the market currently has a level 3 goldfoil Jarlax CHEAPER than a level 3 basic Jarlax. This is a huge edge and opportunity.
I love the tanks in the Death Splinter. They arn't so complicated you are going to get tripped up nut all have great situational advantages. Haunted Spirit is worth it's price.
Five attack, eight HP, and healing is simple and effective. It's just kinda perfect and, as your collection grows Spirit only gets better. Got a few more points due to a large mana cap, use Rexx. Just the opposite, Corpse.
If Rexx is worth spending an extra $2 to get goldfoil. Haunted Spirit is a steal at $45, take a look at that market depth. A few copies of this are sold or removed from the market and it's price could skyrocket quick. Do not sleep on having +10% DEC on your most used cards.
Again great options here. Reaper is the best bang for your buck, Spider does amazing damage between its attack and poison, Jester is likely the most usable card here, Badger is the right size and cost to fill any holes in your battleline, and Dark Ferryman will protect your backline well enough he is a no brainer for the price. Your ranged attack slot will be your toolbox when using Death. Learn to use it well.
Speed Bumps are a role unique to battleline type games like Splinterlands. While not being the best front position tanks speed bumps can provide the time and Hp needed to outlast your opponent. It's not fancy but it's effective. Huge monsters are hard to kill and all of these are worth your attention. Phantom soldier might be an area where you could save some money but, god, I just love him. So effective. The Gorlodon is very new and has become a position 2 staple for me.
Death has one of the best specialist in the game in Vampire. There are so many rulesets that make Life Leach shine but the main one is Equalizer. Play Vampire and you will win equalizer games. Period. It's gold price being lower than it's normal price is weird but, as we have covered, sometimes it do be like that.
Boogeyman is one of Deaths few options to interact with monster speed and is worth your time.
While this guide is clearly focused on Death I think it would be incomplete without some key monsters to fill holes in your loadout. This isn't so much a problem in the Death splinter as it's just how the game works.
Remember how Vampire just plain wins Equalizer games? Gelatinous Cube wins pretty much ever single game you include it in with any rule-set that deals damage. Scavenger is an amazing ability it takes people months to notice. Grab it in gold if you can. For five dollars you can spend those months winning every battle for multiple rule sets.
Creeping ooze, alchemist, and energy are all useful in slowing things down when that's needed. I want a high level goldfoil alchemist so bad I can taste it. If someone was to send me one I would shout them out in every single Splinterlands article I write for the rest of 2021. Just saying.
Worm and archer collectively have the damage of most battlelines and are almost always safe places to spend mana.
I think it's worth taking a moment to look at a cheaper legendary monster present in Death. Ancient Lich is a supercharged Vampire and does everything it does better. While Vamp needs to get his attacks around armor to start to grow bigger Lich's magical blasts don't have that problem. If you find yourself falling in love with Vampire or needed extra Power Lich is a fantastic opportunity.
As you can see Lich is good at level 1 and great at level 2. I think there is a serious argument for both level 1 and 2. If that extra survivability feels worth $30+ dollars you'll likely find yourself using this and Haunted Spirit as the tent poles of your battle line.
Overview
Three hundred dollar. Oof yall, I'd have loved to have seen this come in $100-150 lower but this is smallest group of cards that feels like a complete death toolbox to me. I think it's just plain worth the expense. Play2Earn games are worth investing in. If you are looking for something from nothing I don't know what to tell you. I advise you pick your shots and make your money hit as hard as it can.
That said though, if you were to cut Jarlax / Phantom / Lich you're UNDER A HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS?!?! While those are three of the best cards in the list if you just have to keep your price low do what you gotta do.
A great collection of Death and Neutral staples like this for $150 with summoners proves Death is cheap if you know the right monsters to dig up.
If you are looking to stay updated and on the cutting edge of the Play2Earn scene please come and join us over in The Crypto-Gaming Guild discord. We are looking for game captains and folks who can help organize. If you are interested, please step up.
The games we are currently focusing on are:
Rising Star
Splinterlands
UpLand
Neon District
Alien Worlds
Lost Relics
eXode
I hope this is helpful and I was able to help you learn something today