Welcome to another weekly update on my attempt to challenge the Splinterlands ranked leagues! Initially it was a self challenge, to see how far I could get with the initial set of cards plus whatever I could win. But, that kind of fell apart around week 30 (with the game integrating with the WAX network and users being able to buy and sell cards on Atomic Hub).
Most of my time spent related to Splinterlands this past week has been spent in its Discord channel doing support work. The mass influx of new players, combined with some server issues, have led to there being a massive backlog of issues and people that constantly need assistance. I did play a little bit, but not particularly well most of the time as I tried to rush through daily quests while also watching the support channel.
Due to the extension of the last season, the current one is shorter than usual. The big news this week is the removal of the ability to purchase quest potions with Credits. Credits are basically real money, except $1 is 1,000 credits. With the price of Dark Energy Crystals (DEC) still being high, people were making multiple accounts just to buy quest potions on all of them to farm bonus rewards that were often more than the cost they were paying.
Related to this, many of the reward cards have gone out of print. Rewards have a limited print supply, so the mass influx of new players has caused many of them to reach their total print limit. The developers have new cards they plan to replace them with, but haven’t had time to actually put them into the game yet.
As I finished last season in Gold I, I started off the season in Silver I. I didn’t buy any new quest potions yet, but still had a few for the first couple days of this season. Tournaments went pretty well, anyhow here is the breakdown of the past week:
Daily Quest Rewards:
Daily Quest # 348 – Win 3 with No Neutral. Silver is a lot rougher than it used to be, but I did manage to make it through my daily quests. For finishing this first one, I got 2 Gold potions and 76 (9 + 11 + 14 + 8 + 11 + 12 + 11) DEC.
Daily Quest # 349 – Win 5 with Earth. For completing this daily quest, I received 2 Gold potions, a Legendary potion, Ant Miners (common monster), and 77 (10 + 13 + 43 + 6 + 5) DEC.
Daily Quest # 350 – Win 5 with Life. This was such a nice set of rewards, I took a screenshot!
Daily Quest # 351 – Win 5 with Fire. For completing this daily quest, I received a Gold potion, a Charlok Minotaur, and 134 (15 + 31 + 9 + 46 + 9 + 12 + 12) DEC!
Daily Quest # 352 – Win 3 with No Neutral. This was another daily rewards with a lucky chest in it! For finishing this quest, I got 2 Gold potions, a Nightmare, and 2,056 (2000 + 15 + 8 + 5 + 5 + 23) DEC!
Daily Quest # 353 – Win 3 with No Neutral. This was where my quest potions had run out. For finishing this daily quest, I received 2 Legendary potions, a Gold potion, and Ant Miners. I meant to buy more, but got swept up doing support and then the Credits change happened.
Daily Quest # 354 – Win 5 with Dragon. For completing this daily quest, I received 2 Gold potions, Ant Miners, and a Sand Wurm (common monster). I also opened pack 22 out of 50, from my old stack of Untamed packs. I probably should sell them, considering how much they’re going for now, but the cards are also quite expensive themselves!
Tournaments:
Monday Real Time Silver League Rules Brawl: While I play in Silver league for ranked, my deck isn’t really competitive against fully leveled cards. I hung in for a few rounds before getting eliminated and managed to come in 24th place for 100 DEC.
Thursday Bronze Blunderbuss, no legendary cards, Untamed set only tournament: Well, to skip to the end I managed to go undefeated in this one, coming in 1st place with a 21-0 record, getting 800 DEC.
Sunday Zen Sports Bronze League Rules qualifier tournament: There were two qualifier tournaments this past week for an upcoming Zen Sports tournament for a Gold foil Cerberus card. I missed the first one due to traffic coming back from work, but managed to make this one. I thought it was top 16 to qualify, and I came in 17th place – just not making it to the 6th round. However, it seems it was the top 20 and I was mistaken, so I’ve qualified for the main tournament this upcoming Saturday! I also got 100 DEC for my 17th place spot.
Sunday Bronze Blunderbuss, no legendary cards, all sets tournament: I managed to go undefeated round 1, going 11-0. I barely made it in time to submit matches for round 2. I was covering support for a bit, and ended up rushing in teams right before the tournament ended. I managed to end with an 18-2-2 record coming in 11th place for 500 DEC.
Guild Brawls:
Guild Brawl #29, playing Gold foil Bronze, Untamed set only. I had two opponents this brawl, and only one submitted a deck. The guild also finished in 1st place in our grouping!
Vs JUST4KICKS46 of Loot Raiders
Guild Brawl #30, playing Gold foil Bronze, Untamed set only. I only had one opponent this brawl, and didn’t mess around. The guild came in 2nd place this time, but by only 1 point difference in the rankings.
The Rest:
The past week has mostly been a blur of working at my day job, then getting sucked into doing Discord support until 1 or 2 in the morning. No real trading of note, though someone bought all of the level 1 Alpha set Rexxie cards that were under $10, then relisted them all for $15. There was a higher level one at $3 a card that I almost picked up, but hesitated and it got relisted at the same higher price scale.
That’s pretty much been the story of my trading lately, I see something that might be a good deal – wait, and then it’s gone. I almost bought up a bunch of Gold Foil summoners, which apparently would have been a good idea as they all jumped up in price as well. I do still have a few cards listed on Atomic Hub, but nothing else has sold yet.
Speaking of Atomic Hub, the price of WAX skyrocketed after it was announced it was getting listed on Binance, one of the bigger crypto currency exchanges. Most of my WAX tokens were spent getting those cards, but it wasn’t all that much to begin with in the scheme of things. A few final words on trading, be careful out there. A few new players have been getting scammed and sending their DEC or cards off to people that never send them payment.
My InvestYGator rental account had only one exciting chest with 1,000 DEC this past week. Rentals continue to be a pain to maintain. Combined with my lack of time spent farming DEC, the account is mainly just breaking even, so mostly just playing to cover rental fees and hope to hit a good reward.
I think this is an issue for a lot of people, as complaints about prices seem fairly common in the chat. I’ve also let the account stay in Silver I, since renting enough collection power to get into Gold doesn’t really seem worth it with most of my time being spent elsewhere. I should spend some time delegating more cards to my main account as well to make it a bit easier to play.
That’s about it for this week! I have no expectations to try to do the leader board, but I’m hoping that the mass of new player issues starts to taper off soon! But, I’ll be back next week with how the season turned out. Thank you for reading, and if you have any questions or feedback please let me know in the comments below!