My Splinterlands story starts back in 2017 when I first found out about the Hive blockchain and I simply knew that I will spend most of my time here. Once I settled myself cozy within different communities at that point, I tried as much as possible to be informed about the developments from the Hive ecosystem. And one of the projects that captured my attention also because it promised to be a play2earn game, a pioneer in this field, was Splinterlands. While the game was still being developed, I've participated right away in the Pre-Sale and that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and journey within Splinterlands.
Inception
Once the game was launched back in the days and as I had few Alpha packs bought, my initial strategy was based on playing as much as possible to get Reward Cards. With consistency and gridding I could put my hands on some Legendary Gold foils that I have sold for impressive gains and traded those for other cards, mostly regular ones that I could level up higher. This way I've started having a competitive formation which would bring me more victories and those more rewards. But that wasn't nowhere I wanted to be...
Strategy
When Beta cards were launched, I identified a new opportunity to level up even higher my cards. I have traded all my Alpha cards for Beta cards and succeeded to go higher on Beta. At this point I could afford also garbing some Beta Gold Foils from the market and made even more competitive formations along with some GFL bonuses. I continued to play and get Rewards cards, from which a part I would sell and buy Beta or Reward cards that I considered are more helpful on the battlefields. At this point I was having an abundance of cards, which made me extend my strategy by adding few alt-accounts. I would be playing with up to 5 accounts on a daily basis with some good formations.
Capitalization
The bull run came and I've started selling some of my cards, but didn't capitalize on my assets which could have brought me 6 figure returns. Still, I got out of the game low 5 figure money and continue to play the game with same velocity thinking that how the cards performed in the past, Splintershards (SPS) will perform in the future in the next bull run. I am still finding myself betting on that and continuing accumulating Splintershards from everywhere that I can. I am standing at 115,000 SPS staked for the moment and hoping for a crazy $1 price point in the bull run, which probably will make me sell part of my stash. I didn't do it in the past, but probably now I will be ready for it learning from previous experiences.
Pace
At the moment I am playing with my main account and also some alts, while I "rented" some other alts to my friends for a 50% revenue share in the end. If the bull market goes crazy, that should bring happiness for all of us, thus I think it is a good move from my side. Also I don't have as much free time as before, so decentralizing my play in the game surely was worth it in my opinion.
Goals
My upcoming goals would be to reach 150,000 Splinterlands in preparation for the next bull. I have also 10 plots from which one is an amazing Keep that I have on the market for $10,000 and I will not lower it anytime soon. I have also over 700 Chaos Legion packs and a crazy number of Reward cards, both Soulbound and not. Thus I am ready for the bull run and I believe that the amount of assets that I have, will allow me to take the best strategy based on the market conditions.
Advice
For beginners what I could suggest is to plan a budget and get into Splinterlands by using it to make some competitive formations. They could get out some of the money invested through the rewards they get, or keep on growing their formation. If it was me entering at this stage in the project, probably I would buy cards from the market as are cheap enough and thus it is much easier now to level up. And Rebellion is a great option which with at least 100 packs will bring significant airdrops along the way. And who knows, the airdrops alone might make for the spent budget on them. The past proved this, but not sure if it is the same now, but I still see value in it.
I can say that I've grown with the Splinterlands and witnessed all the developments in the game. And I see how great of an ecosystem it is with many tokenomics and pioneered initiatives with different assets like stablecoins (DEC) and governance tokens (SPS). I am truly amazed by what the game founders have built and I am sure more great times are to come in the future. I am optimistic about the direction of the game in the await of a bull run where everything should improve incrementally. Bottom line, I am happy to be hear, enjoy the game and also earn from it.