From the Ground Up: A Splinterlands Journey

As a gamer I have always been a long term minded builder of things. Any time I play games I look to the long term and begin the build toward an end goal. I’ll grind out each of the objectives or missions in a game in a completionist manner before moving to the next checkpoint. So with that in mind my Splinterlands Journey has been a grind but one I have enjoyed every second of.

In January 2022, With a cough and a splutter, I was laid back in bed flicking through Youtube. Sat at home with Covid and showing the coughing symptoms, I was doing my best to isolate myself. The alarm went off just moments before in the early hours of the morning and I stumbled upon a video of Luke WTP on Youtube

As I Iive in a country which does not support crypto currency, initially I found it quite difficult to move funds into the Splinterlands ecosystem. I received a delegation of a 1000 Card Power from Luke-WTP and began earning the one to three chests a day that I could with the promise to return the delegation in the future when it was not needed.

I began to earn cards and over time I had amassed a whopping 140CP of my own. I remember my very first goal being 1000CP. Having taken time to look back over my blog posts, I have seen some real development in the quality of content that I have produced as I grew in confidence on the Hive platform. Using the earnings from my posts, I began investing in more cards and over time met my goal of 1k CP.

Fast forward a couple of months and I was well on my way to returning that delegation of cards. I was beginning to develop better strategies and got to grip with the posting on Hive with what I consider my first "Successful Hive Post" . The rest of the posts prior to this one were mostly me putting ideas out there and developing my ideas further.

This is around the time that I had figured out a way to move some funds into Splinterlands on a more regular basis should I wish to. I then joined a guild in April 2022 and have been a member of the same guild since. We have grown from strength to strength and a big driver of my staked SPS comes from guild brawls. For a small account like mine, I still get great enjoyment from earning 20 sps in the weekly brawl and this makes up the majority of the funds coming into my account on a regular basis. Slow and steady does it and I get a real thrill from this progression, as slow as it is.

By the end of April 2022 I was up to 5k card power and had begun pushing my Earth deck to level two using the funds from a Quix The Devious sale which I was fortunate to pack. Back then, I received about $27.5 for one BCX so I used this to fund an Obsidian push to level two amongst other cards. This was a real progression moment for me as I found my deck progressing and I became more competitive.

By the end of May 2022 I was upto 7.4k CP and I was beginning to delve further into blogging, posting nearly twice a week for a few months at a time when my personal life allowed. Then at the end of October I had started to Bot my account using Splintermate and had achieved my very first Legendary reward card in my daily chest. Things seemed to accelerate here with regard to card power and purchases and it has become clear to me in hindsight; Splinterlands rewards those who put in the effort. Hive rewards those who sustain effort over time. My blog rewards during this period were at their peak and I was able to move toward a new more competitive goal.

My focus was now on having a more competitive deck for Silver. By the end of December, I split my cards into two accounts and purchased a second Spellbook. This is where it really began for me using the Holdeck2 account. I started to bot with one account consistently and play with the other. The Holdeck2 account was initially kept in Bronze or Silver 3 but over time as I accumulated reward cards and began purchasing 1 BCX of each Chaos Summoner, I realised that there was a lot more potential. The botted account held a good range of cards whilst I played with the duplicate account and ocassionally rented to keep up with the bot.

In March of 2023, my main account had pushed into Diamond 3 which had smashed my previous best of Gold 2/ the cusp of Gold 1. It was then that I managed to get one of the biggest pulls yet, 5BCX of Gold Foil Eternan Brune, the new Fire summoner. Allowing me to use Gladius cards had me more motivated than ever to play in Guild Brawls. Not too much later did I manage to pull my first gold Foil Legendary in my Season rewards. These cards were on my Holdeck2 account so I made the decision to switch accounts and use this account as my main posting account and playing as well. Initially the Holdeck account would remain as a basic bot account.

Land

I hadn’t paid much mind to Land until summer of 2023 where SplinterlandsTV had massive giveaways. I began to calculate things and came to the conclusion that as a small investment player in the Splinterlands ecosystem, I was initially concerned that I could not afford to farm land which is why I ignored the "Wen Land?" hype.

And then I thought… let’s try it and grow anyway it would be an extension of the current project.

So I added funds into the ecosystem and purchased my first plot of land. A common basic plot with a Building in a Box ready to go. With that in mind, I began to figure things out a bit.

With the start of land, I have slowly begun to accumulate enough resources to begin making some returns. I had picked up a Max copy of Djinn Biljka and of Venari Wavesmith to begin the farming. The returns whilst small (around 920 Dec at time of writing), they are incremental and thus far I have really enjoyed the grind of becoming a farmer in my small Common River plot. Every sale has been reinvested into land and as things go each sale is becoming more frequent.

Land Mistakes

I have made many mistakes along the way to this point. My first mistake was purchasing a Power Core. When I purchased my current Kinpath 29 plot, I purchased it with a Building in a Box which for those versed in such things, will know that a Power Core is included. With the Power Core being soul bound, I had effectively wasted 5K Dec of the 10K I had saved ready for land.

My second mistake was obtaining Grain. Having not been a member of the Splinterlands Discord channel, I was not aware of the massive discount that could be achieved through the Peer market. Instead of paying 1Dec per Grain, I could have been paying 0.065 per Grain (at least this was the price for my first 10K Grain sale). That was a very expensive mistake at least now I produce Grain for myself and remaining amounts can be sold to reinvest.

My next question is how do I expand from here?

Well, having considered this, I have noticed that the base price for a plot of land sits at around $40USD but how will I do this without injecting another $40USD into Splinterlands through FIAT? -this is something I actively avoid unless absolutely necessary.

My options

• Purchase another land plot while prices look pretty good
• Some plots are going for around $32 while a plot in my region is selling for $65 (ouch!)
• Purchase another Gold Foil Rare at Max BCX (Ideally Earth or Water to synergise and gain an extra 10% production)

The Problem & Solution

The real issue for me is always the same; liquidity. How can I overcome this?

• Fiat not really an option for me at the current time

Just recently, I did dip into my FIAT wallet to purchase a max level Gold Foil Venari Seedsmith. Alone, the Seedsmith produces 4K production power or a whopping 88 Grain per hour. (Considering I was generating 75-80 prior to this purchase I was impressed). This is the main driving factor behind the thought of expanding my little farming enterprise.

• Unstaking DEC - a viable option but would hinder production rates and returns in the immediate short term.

When I Stake DEC on land it does not have an unstaking period so it becomes immediately available. So one solution to potentially moving forward is to unstake some DEC from my Kinpath plot and use this to help fuel another plot purchase. While this would be one step backward, it would give me the option to take a few steps forward. Throughout this I would maintain 10K DEC on the plot to allow the Venari Seedsmith to continue producing for my team, rather slowly.

• Selling assets - This is something I have started to do with my unused higher level cards. I no longer play much beyond Bronze or early Silver. I will be keeping my Gold Foil cards as I use those in the Guild Brawls.

The last option available to me is the one I have taken, as I am moving more toward the land aspect of Splinterlands for the time being (and the fact I own almost all of the Rebellion summoners in regular foil) I have taken the decision to sell my Chaos Summoners. I do still have some BCX remaining which I will retain for the time being but the sale of these will allow me to expand my land efforts.

So at this point, I have 33K Dec staked on land and a potential $40 USD incoming.

So that dear reader is where I am at right now. I am awaiting my next Grain batch to finish and the sale of three more cards and then, I’ll make a decision. At this moment, I am quite tempted to add another Gold Foil Rare at Max level which by my calculations would speed up production almost 50%.

To date my Holdeck Hive account began with initial RC delegations which allowed me to transact and post since then I've grown to...

Snapshot

Hive total: 320 Hive Power (Holdeck2 only)
SPS Staked: 4966.281 SPS (Holdeck & Holdeck2)
DEC staked: 33,483 DEC
Card Power: 113,350

My goals right now are:

1K Hive power
5K SPS (10K is next)
50K DEC staked (And max level cards on plot)
Card Power: - I no longer really have a goal in mind for this value

This is why I believe in Splinterlands and why I continue to invest my time in Hive.

Join Splinterlands:

https://splinterlands.com?ref=holdeck

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Join Splex

...and rent out your cards for some juicy DEC rental fees. Save yourself the hassle of listing and relisting and let the Rental Golem take over for you:
https://splex.gg/?ref=3s5haoqkjteadpf8

How to invest without FIAT in a bear market? : https://peakd.com/hive-167922/@holdeck/how-i-am-investing-for-after-the-bear-market

Setting and redefining goals in a bear market: https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@holdeck/setting-and-redefining-goals-in-a-bear-market

Splinterlands Earth divider by freeztag
Splinterlands Icon Divider made by holdeck and available here

All card, icons, Splinter images and stats courtesy of Splinterlands

Ability and Ruleset blurbs taken from Splintercards

Splinter Element Icons taken from Splinterlands
I have reformatted them into PNG files which you are welcome to use here