CREATING A DECK & RENTING CARDS!
Greetings and welcome to another New Player guide from your friendly neighborhood Psiderman!
Today is my birthday! So I figured what better a way to celebrate than to write an article and record a video for YOU, oh fair Praetorian! It feels strange to now be closer to 50 than 40, but the AI face recognition systems seem to think I look 31, so I'll take that as a win. Wear your sunscreen and you too could look as handsome as me in your old age! Hardy-har-har!
In this article we will be helping you, the freshly minted Battlemage, to create a list of cards that you'd like to rent, as well as how to rent them using Peakmonsters!
To follow along, be sure to visit our friends at @peak-monsters here: https://peakmonsters.com/
There is also a video imbedded in this article if you prefer to use audio and visual.
WHY RENT CARDS?
Rentals can be a key function of being successful in Splinterlands. There are many ways in which renting can enhance your gameplay experience, as well as lower your risk profile and reduce your costs.
Some of the benefits include:
- Lower Upfront Cost
Renting allows you to access powerful cards without spending a large amount of money upfront. Buying cards, particularly high-level or rare ones, can be expensive, whereas renting lets you use them for a fraction of the purchase price—sometimes as low as a few cents per day. This is great if you’re on a tight budget or just starting out. - Flexibility to Experiment
With renting, you can test different cards and strategies without committing to ownership. If you’re unsure whether a card fits your deck or playstyle, renting lets you try it out for a day, a season, or longer, and then swap it for something else if it doesn’t work. Buying locks you into that investment, and if the card underperforms, you’re stuck with it unless you sell. - Access to High-Level Cards Early
As a new or mid-tier player, you might not have the funds to buy max-level cards needed to compete in higher leagues (like Silver, Gold, or beyond). Renting gives you immediate access to these game-changers, boosting your collection power and helping you earn better rewards sooner without grinding for months or spending heavily. - Adapting to Meta Shifts
Splinterlands meta can shift with new updates, seasons, or rulesets. Renting lets you pivot quickly by grabbing cards that are currently strong, rather than being tied to a purchased card that might lose value or relevance over time. - No Long-Term Risk of Value Loss
Card prices in Splinterlands fluctuate based on supply, demand, and game changes. If you buy a card and its value drops, you could lose money when selling. Renting avoids this risk entirely—you pay only for the time you use it, and market volatility doesn’t affect you beyond that. - Boosting Rewards Without Commitment
Renting cards can push you into a higher league, where loot chests and SPS rewards are better. You can rent just enough cards to hit that threshold—like at season’s end—without the permanent cost of buying. Once you’ve secured the rewards, you can let the rentals lapse.
Now that you know WHY renting can be beneficial, what is the best and most efficient way to do this?
Peakmonsters is by far the best option right now, and has several functions that assist in both organizing, and renting the cards you'll want!
MAKING A LIST, CHECKING IT TWICE
In my personal experiences, before you rent cards at all, you need to determine WHICH cards you'd like to rent! But this can cause some logistical problems.
Do you write the cards in a notebook?
Do you create a spreadsheet?
Do you reference the XBot Card Research Tool?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MQK-rOrpbuLCbE35Zq4KXbA0qfqlO3kKJDNZ3vLCTt0/edit?gid=1193533510#gid=1193533510)
How do you keep track of the cards you'll be renting, make it easy to then rent them, and find the best possible price?
That's where Peakmonsters come in to help in the first step of my suggested rental process! You can build what's called a "DECK" and add cards to it that you'd like to rent!
To access your existing decks, or create a new deck, you would start by clicking "My Decks" in the top navigation bar. From there you could see your existing decks, or "BUILD" a new deck.
For purposes of this tutorial, we will be building a NEW deck that will consist of the cards we'd like to rent most often.
So, let's click on "+ BUILD" and get started!
THEMATIC
Choose "THEMATIC from the drop down so that you can see ALL of the cards, not just the summoners if you'd like to make a custom Deck.
FIXED BATTLE LINEUP
IF you only wanted to rent cards that work with a certain summoner instead, you can keep "FIXED BATTLE LINEUP" selected, and choosing the summoner will give you access to all the cards they can use.
Other filters that are handy include:
ELEMENTS
This filter lets you choose only a single Splinter worth of cards.
EDITIONS
This filter allows you to narrow down the options by card EDITION. So for example if you were building a modern deck, you'd want "Chaos Legion" then "Rebellion".
LVL (CARD LEVEL)
This filter let's you specify the level of the cards you're selecting. For competitive play, choose MAX to save yourself some filtering later on!
ADDING CARDS TO THE DECK
Now that you know about filters, you can start adding cards to your deck!
(Be sure to give your deck a NAME or you will NOT be able to save it!)
Simply click on the card you want to add to the deck, and it will be added based on the "LVL" that you have filtered. You will see the cards start appearing above the cards selection in the "IN DECK" section:
MODIFYING SELECTED CARDS
When the cards have been added to your deck, you may want to change the level of some of them. Maybe the MAX level too pricey to rent? Maybe you only want a 1* because it's a martyr card and you want it to die right away? You can change the level of the card by clicking the down arrow next to the level.
SAVE THE DECK!
Make sure to give your new DECK a NAME, then CONFIRM (save) it!
CONGRATULATIONS! You've just created your brand new DECK that you can use to easily RENT the cards within it!
RENTING THE CARDS IN YOUR DECK LIST
The hardest part is done!
You've got your deck list created, and you never need to set it up again! YAY!
Now it's time to RENT the cards in that list! The easiest way is to access the list itself, and simply press the "RENT" button next to either "DAILY" or "SEASONAL" rentals, and it will try to rent every card on the list for you, at the cheapest prices available!
First, choose the list from "MY DECKS" that you want to use:
Next, choose the method you want to rent the cards by, either "DAILY" or "SEASONAL".
It will show you the cost per day of the card under each respective option:
Now the fun part! Just click the Shopping cart with "ALL" next to it under either the Daily or Seasonal rental option! Peakmonsters will automatically try and rent every card on your list, for the specified amount of time, at the closest listed price!
When you click the shopping cart, you'll see all the cards you'd selected, their cost per day (Daily Rental Cost), the number of days you'd like to rent them for (Daily Rental Duration), and then a final price (Daily Rental Total).
If you agree with everything mentioned above, choose to pay in either CREDITS or DEC and those fine cards will be yours!
WHAT IF YOU NEED TO RENT A MANUALLY?
Oh no! You couldn't get one of the cards you wanted in your list, OR you thought of a 1-off that you wanted to try out. How can you get that card independent of your list? Fear not!
It's as easy as clicking "RENT" & entering the name of the card you want...
... Select the card, see what levels and prices are available, add to your CART...
... Then rent it from the Shopping CART like you would any other card!
YOU DID IT! Self High Fives all around!
If you prefer to watch a video where I stumble through these steps, you can check out my YouTube video on the subject HERE. It has a little more information on what happens when you need to find lower level cards and some other corner cases that came up as I was trying to rent, so may give you some additional tips & tricks!
Behold my dream scenario! Me, looking buff, drinking a birthday brewski, playing Splinterlands with a nice pink frosted cake to boot! You have NO IDEA how many prompts it took to even get something that looks like this, and I had to give up because generating images was taking longer than writing this article haha! Hey, at least the "cute elf girl bartenders" (TM) look good!
Back on task, Battlemage!
I hope you've found this article on how to create a deck list, and rent cards useful in your training! Knowing HOW to rent is just as important as knowing WHAT to rent, and now you can at least do HALF of that equation.
(Don't look at me for the OTHER half, I'm running at a 40% win rate right now... yikes!)
Until next time, it is I, the Psi, signing off.
See you around Praetoria!
Psilence
Don't forget about our 2x ongoing CONTESTS!!
The Psilence Social Media Challenge! I will be giving out 6x Packs of Chaos Legion at the end of every season! To enter, leave me a comment on my YouTube and/or HIVE posts and include your @splinterlands user name! You'll receive an entry for every comment!
The Streamer Challenge, sponsored by HIVEDRIP! @gatheringthemagic, @doloknight, and I, @psilence will be competing to see how large we can grow our new player accounts over the course of 4 seasons without adding external funds! Sponsored by @thorlock & @hivedrip the winner will receive a Brave Tofu to give out to their followers somehow!
Thanks for participating! <3