Playing Splinterlands in 2025. How to make a profit Guide.

Hello, Splinterlands Friends and Family! 👋

This week, I'm participating in the Splinterlands Community Engagement Challenge. 🎮✨

I'll be sharing how I play Splinterlands with my secondary account, @Javiss01, aiming to help new players make smarter decisions about investment and gameplay. 💡

In this post, we’ll explore what cards to buy, which cards to rent, and a few of the best budget strategies to dominate the arena. 🚀⚔️

Get ready to dive into some practical tips and strategies to elevate your Splinterlands experience!

🌟 Introduction

2024 has brought significant changes to Splinterlands. From ranked battles to tournaments, the game has evolved, challenging us to adapt and maximize our potential.

My secondary account, @javiss01, lacks any major assets but still manages to turn a profit daily by simply playing the game. In this guide, I’ll explain how I achieve this and how you can too by following similar principles. 💰✨

This post might be quite lengthy and will consist of the following sections:

I. Can you make a profit playing Splinterlands in 2025?
II. Breaking the first barrier of play: Renting SPS.
III. Breaking the second barrier of play: Buying and renting cards. The use of rental bids in PeakMonsters. Refreshing rentals and looking for the best deals.
IV. Tournaments and Brawls.
V. What Chests Should I Buy?
VI. Monetizing Your Earnings and Reinvesting 💸💼

Let’s dive in! 🚀

I. Can you make a profit playing Splinterlands in 2025?

YES.
This is a fair question that everyone should ask themselves. After all, Splinterlands is a crypto game, and most of us are here to have fun while hopefully earning a little profit along the way. 🎮💰

The good news is that this plan is still achievable in 2025! While the game's metrics haven’t been stellar lately, that doesn’t mean a smart and patient player can’t enjoy the game or make a profit. With hard work and the right strategies, it’s still very much possible. I do it every day!

II. Breaking the First Barrier of Play: Renting SPS

One of the biggest changes in recent years has been the SPS staking requirements. These requirements can be quite expensive if not approached the right way. 💸 However, renting SPS is currently the best option because it’s extremely cheap.

SPS is the governance token for Splinterlands. Besides voting, it determines how much you can earn based on how much you have staked—the more SPS staked, the higher your earnings multiplier. 📈

• For new accounts, @Splinterlands and the @sps.dao delegate a small amount of SPS to get you started, but it’s usually not enough.

This Raises Two Questions:

1. How Do I Rent SPS?
   Renting SPS is straightforward! You can do it directly from the game platform by following these steps:

   • Navigate to the SPS tab at the top of your screen.

     

   • Click on Manage.

     

   • Go to the Market tab.

     

   • Lastly, hit the Request SPS button.

     

   By doing this, you’ll pay upfront for the SPS and place a bid at 0.001 or 0.002, which another player will likely fill soon.

2. How Much SPS Should I Rent?
   

   The chart above shows the SPS requirements for each league. Based on my experience:

   • 50k SPS is sufficient for playing in low Diamond League.
   • If you can afford 100k SPS, that’s even better.

   Currently, SPS rents for 0.001 DEC. To start, I recommend placing a bid for 100,000 SPS. Be patient, as it might take some time for someone to fill your bid. If you’re in a hurry, you can double your offer to 0.002 DEC for instant rental.

III. Breaking the Second Barrier of Play: Buying and Renting Cards

A. What Cards to Buy?

The second essential step to playing Splinterlands is getting cards. 🃏 Right now, the card market is in a peculiar state, with many cards priced slightly above their burn value.

The burn value of a card refers to the amount of DEC you’ll get back if you decide to destroy that card. For example, legendary Chaos Legion cards have a 500 DEC burn value, which increases slightly to 525 DEC if the card is maxed out. So, if you’re planning to burn a card, always max it out first for better returns.

This creates a unique opportunity if you play smart. 🎯
Since cards return DEC when burned and you need DEC to buy them, the best strategy is to purchase cards close to their burn value. You can use these cards for as long as you wish and then either sell them back or burn them. The burn value remains consistent, meaning the card will likely maintain its value in DEC.

Of course, DEC prices can fluctuate, but DEC is already quite cheap in dollar terms. It’s unlikely that DEC will depreciate significantly, making this a relatively safe investment strategy.

So, the smartest play in this scenario is to buy and use affordable cards close to burn value. ✅

Take Djinn Biljka as an example. Currently, you can acquire it for just 7,000 DEC, which is only about 1,000 DEC above its burn value.

🛒 Keep an eye out for deals like this. Over time, these cards can effectively pay for themselves through smart usage and potential resale or burning.

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B. Renting Cards

Of course, the strategy of buying cards close to burn value can’t be applied to every Chaos Legion (CL) card. Even with deals like the one mentioned earlier, there’s always a risk if token prices drop significantly. 📉

An excellent alternative is to rent the cards you need. 🛒 Right now, renting cards for the Modern format is extremely cheap, and if you rent wisely, you’ll almost certainly earn back your investment.

Here’s my strategy for renting cards:

To rent cards, head over to PeakMonsters.com, log into your account, and navigate to the Rent tab at the top of the page. Then, apply the following filters:

• Click the icon for each card you want to rent (it will change from blue to red, as shown in the screenshot). Don’t worry about the rental prices for now—everything should be fairly inexpensive at this point. This will give you a basic set of cards to get started.

Once you’ve assembled your base deck, aim to achieve a rating between 2700 and 3200. If your account is new or unranked, spend the first couple of days reaching this range. With Lux Vega and a max-level Chaos Legion set, you’ll quickly climb to high Gold.

At this stage, expect to earn about 7-10 SPS per match.

Remember, even if your cards are maxed out, reaching the top rankings may not be achievable, regardless of your skill level. That’s perfectly fine, this guide is not focused on that. Eventually, you’ll begin losing some matches, which is completely normal. The goal is to balance your wins and losses at around a 50% rate.

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I. The Use of Rental Bids in PeakMonsters 🛒

One fantastic feature introduced by @asgarth and @jarvie through PeakMonsters is the ability to place rental bids on monsters we want. By setting a maximum price for your bid, PeakMonsters will ensure that you get the card for that price—or possibly even cheaper—if someone lists it at or below your bid. 🏷️

This rental bidding system is incredibly useful for our strategy. The main goal is to always aim for the best deal when renting cards. However, rental prices tend to vary significantly throughout the season, and if you’re not careful, you might end up paying more than expected. 😬

Now, you might wonder: How should you best utilize this feature? Should you place low bids on every single card? The answer is NO. You shouldn’t place bids on every Chaos Legion card, especially if you've already rented it. 🛑

Instead, focus on placing bids for cards outside of the Core Chaos Legion set and some specific CL summoners. This could include most RiftWatchers cards, CL promo cards, certain 4-mana and legendary CL summoners, and perhaps even some Rebellion cards if you feel confident. The trick is to place very low bids and be patient—eventually, some of these cards will be rented to you. 💸⏳

The primary benefit of this method is that it saves you a great deal of time. ⏱️ Although you could manually monitor the market every day to catch the best deals, doing so would require a significant amount of time, which, as I mentioned in a previous post, I highly value. 💼⏳

Finally, it's important to remember that placing bids on every card would backfire. If you do so, you’ll end up spending more than if you rented the cards directly. The goal is to build a solid deck with Core CL cards, then enhance it by renting other cards through the bidding system. 🏗️ However, if you bid on every CL card, you might end up with duplicate rentals, leading to the need to manually rent the cards and potentially forgetting to cancel your bid, which could result in accidentally renting another copy of the same card. 😵

At present, PeakMonsters doesn’t allow you to block rental bids for cards you already own, but if this feature is added in the future, we may need to adjust our strategy. 🤔 The key is to always find the best deal! 💰

NOTE: I want to emphasize that using PeakMonsters is SAFE (something I was initially concerned about when I started). Huge thanks to @jarvie and @asgarth for creating such a great and complete site that functions as both a marketplace and an asset management tool. If you’re new to this ecosystem, take the time to familiarize yourself with PeakMonsters because it’ll become a vital resource in the future.

IV. Tournaments and Brawls.

Tournaments:

With the recent changes to tournament entry fees, participating in tournaments can be a bit risky. Only join if you're sure of your abilities. Look for tournaments ranging from Novice to Diamond—sometimes there are fewer participants than available prize spots, ensuring rewards unless you lose every match (which is rare).

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Brawls:

Brawls are a must-play. There are no entry fees, and all you need is to join a guild. Many guilds just require you to show up and play. Brawls reward you with SPS, and some guilds don't ask for significant contributions. You can find free guilds or join one like mine (Team Posible Hackers—here’s the link to the Team Posible Discord).

V. What Chests Should I Buy?

This is probably one of the toughest questions to answer because it’s somewhat personal—what you choose really depends on how much Glint you’re earning each season and how high you can climb in the ranked ladder.

To give you an idea, here's a screenshot of the chest screen from my alt account @javiss01:

As you can see, I’ve already purchased batch 1 of Common draws, Epic draws, and Major chests. This is about all I can afford per season on this account. I’m sure some top accounts can buy double what I can, but the goal here is to maintain a budget. That means my rewards will be more limited, and my account won’t be at the top or the most rewarded in the game. But that’s okay—we're not aiming for the top; the idea is to slowly build up a deck made of soulbound assets that will make life easier down the road.

For these reward cards, I’ve focused on Epic cards across all my accounts. I believe Epic cards are the strongest in the set, and my priority is to collect them as quickly as possible. I also bought Common draws because they’re quite affordable (60k Glint), but if you can’t manage that, you can skip it.

Finally, I recommend buying both Minor and Major chests. These chests (especially the Major ones) provide a lot of energy, which is crucial for continuing ranked battles and earning more Glint.

It’s important to note that with this account, I never buy anything beyond batch 1. I simply can’t afford it, and the prices increase quickly.

VI. Monetizing Your Earnings and Reinvesting 💸💼

A key aspect of this guide is explaining how the account can sustain itself over time. 🕰️ The core idea is that by starting with an initial small investment, we can rent a Chaos Legion (CL) core deck. 📦 Based on current rates, this would cost approximately 500 DEC per day or less, though it may vary depending on the deals you find. 📉📈

This means, with current prices, we need to earn about 60 SPS per day just to cover the rental costs. 💰 Considering we’ll win roughly half of the battles played, and each fight rewards about 8-10 SPS (with around 100k SPS rented), this results in approximately 100 SPS per day, or possibly more. 🏆 That’s more than enough to cover the cost of renting cards.

At first, it may be a bit tough to hit these targets, but trust me, you'll get there over time. 😎

Conclusion

In this guide, we’ve explored how to effectively navigate the current state of the game, focusing on building a sustainable strategy that balances both short-term and long-term goals. By making smart decisions on which cards to buy or rent, and understanding the importance of utilizing rental bids and tournaments, you can ensure a steady growth of your account without overspending.

Keep in mind that this type of guide are always the most useful when they come out. Eventually some of this things will change and the guide will be outdated.

We’ve also discussed the process of reinvesting your earnings into your deck and how to use rewards to maintain and improve your performance. With a solid understanding of how to manage your resources, play the market, and adjust your strategy based on your progress, you can maximize your efficiency and enjoyment of the game.

Remember, the key is consistency, patience, and knowing when to make the right moves. Whether that means renting cards, placing bids, or carefully selecting which chests to purchase. It’s all about gradually building a strong deck, improving your gameplay, and enjoying the journey while you watch your account grow.

Stay smart, stay patient, and most importantly, have fun!