Welcome to the final article of 2023, or first of 2024, where I write about my journey playing Splinterlands! It has been quite a year for the game, with the introduction of the first two phases of Land, the C.E.O. of the company being replaced, the Modern set of card cycling out Untamed, and Rebellion adding a new phase of gameplay. I know that many of us have criticized the company for over-promising items in the past, but looking back, quite a lot has actually been delivered over this past year.
From what was said on the last Town Hall chat with the developers, it sounds like 2024’s roadmap is going to primarily be Land Phase 2.0 and improving the new player experience. The latter can cover quite a wide range of topics, from a tutorial that more accurately reflects the current state of the game to improving the mobile phone compatibility of the game’s website. I expect an official roadmap for 2024 will come out sometime next month.
With the holidays, there haven’t been any updates to the game since my last article. It sounds like the Rebellion Conflicts system for doing airdrops won’t be released until the middle of January. That being said, I did get a few Rebellion packs as a holiday gift. Here’s the contents of the first two packs I opened:
I haven’t talked too much about the Rebellion set, but the new art style shows off the card art more than the previous sets. The background showing the Element of the card can be a little confusing to players used to the old style. I’ll try to start talking a bit more about specific cards in the new year, but I don’t want this article to go too long.
Brawls
Guild Brawl #187, playing Bronze League Gold Foil Only. I forgot to record all of the matches or the final standing of the guild, again. I recall we came in near last place, though I personally had a pretty strong win-to-loss record.
Vs. HEXIAN68 of SPLINTER ELITES
Vs. NAIVE-PANDA of THE VENARIBUSTERS – missed copying the battle
Vs. SPLINTERAMERICA of ANG BATANG QUIAPO
Vs. DIRTYCHEETAH of SIAMTHAILAND
Vs. SMARTSTART of SPLINTERLANDS-RU – missed copying the battle
Guild Brawl #188, playing Bronze League Gold Foil Only. I remembered to check this time, and the guild came in 5th place, which is basically smack in the middle.
Vs. OROSOS of LEGENDARY WARANE
Vs. SPLINTERNEWS of ACOLYTES OF HELIO
Vs. ATOM-SMASH of TRANSFORMATION-X
I also opened two Gladiator packs:
The Rest
I was able to climb up to Diamond II in Wild on my main account, while I got up to Gold III in Wild on my alternate account. I also played up to Silver I in Modern on my alt. account, and didn’t play Modern at all on my main. Sadly, I had much better luck with cards on my alt. account, though I got more Splintershard tokens (SPS) on my main.
For the upcoming year, I need to figure out what to do with my 3 unused land plots. Selling them comes to mind, but it seems like with the 2.0 release, they might become more useful. I would still need to get the Dark Energy Crystals (DEC) and cards to work them.
As far as the main game goes, my primary strategy seems to be to hope that I get the more overpowered reward cards and Gladiator cards. I will probably start slowly picking up some Rebellion cards, though probably more for my Silver league deck. It gets pretty expensive to get them leveled up for Gold, let alone Diamond league play.
In hopeful news, as 2023 rounds out it seems that SPS tokens are going to end the year up on the positive side of the charts, being back at over 3 cents each. DEC has also been hovering around the soft-peg of 1,000 DEC = $1. With some signs of cryptocurrency being headed in a bit more bullish, than bearish, direction, we’ll see if things keep moving that way in 2024.
I hope that anyone reading had a good year! Have a safe and happy New Year. And, I’ll be back in a week or so with an update covering the first half of the first new 2024 ranked season.