In any game, the ultimate goal is, of course, winning. It does not make any sense to play any game in which you do not have any interest in winning it, that's just a waste of time right? But there are games that "winning" has a whole another meaning, it is also called "earning".
Just like Splinterlands, the ultimate goal is to win, well actually... I think it's 50-50. Winning and earning, split in a fine half.
I have been playing this game for weeks now and I am slowly getting accustomed to it. Of course, I am not yet splurging into it, but I am using some of my BCH to invest bit by bit into the game.
I believe that I am now getting the key idea of the game itself. Specifically the season feature and the ratings (ranking ).
Splinterlands is just like any other card game that is focused on collecting good and quality cards. There are several ways to get cards:
You can buy them from the market from players who are selling parts of their collections.
You can summon the cards by buying packs or dice from the shops. But if you go down this road, you are letting your luck dictate the cards that you will get, unlike in the market, you can choose the card you want, but you would have to pay the whole worth of the card or higher.
You can get them from chests. And this is my favorite way because it's cheaper. You can get chests from completing quests and/or going up the ranks.
Having good quality cards not only improves your chances of winning but also your rate of earning.
Seasons
I am not quite certain but from what I have observed, a season in the game is composed of 15 days. Within the duration of the season, you will have to battle other players to improve your rating and ranking so you can receive better and more rewards at the end of a season.
The rewards are loot chests that could contain a variety of treasures that includes, DEC, cards, potions, and etc.
The number of loot chests that a player can receive depends on the league that the player was able to reach during the season. You can see how they are listed down here :
Last season, I was able to reach Bronze II so I received 7 precious chests. Wow, right? Well, pardon me, I am just beginning to understand how this all works.
Sounds easy right? You just have to win your battles and win some more. But there's a catch, it won't even matter if you win 100 win games straight if you can't open up the next tier or level.
What do I mean?
Going up a tier or a league is based on two things. Your rating and your POWER. Your rating goes up with each win you achieve. The more you win the higher your rating will be. But it does not even matter how many wins you bag, your POWER will not increase by winning. Your power will only rise when your collection does. Yes, the power is calculated base on your cards.
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My account, for example, has only 830 Power, which means that the only tier I can possibly reach is Bronze III. I need at least 1000 Power to be on Bronze II-tier. Basically, if the season ends as it is, I will only receive 5 loot chests.
So how come I only have 830?
On my account, I own 17 cards and their quality amounted to 830 only. The power is calculated based on how many dark energy crystals (DEC) a card is worth, or in other words, it is based on how many DEC you will receive when you burn the card.
This Ice Pixie, for example, this card is worth 40 DEC. Not all cards have the same amount of DEC too. It depends on the quality of the card, the edition, and the rarity of the card.
Here's a table that contains the DEC value of all the card types :
If you look at the Ice Pixie again, you will see that it is part of the Untamed edition and it is a rare card so its value is 40.
So if you total all the DEC value of all the cards you own and you are renting, that will be your power. The higher the power, the higher the league you can reach, assuming of course, that you can win the majority of your battles. It's impossible for me. LOL
Power Up
As a newbie like me, you can also reach greater powers in a cheap and really efficient way. Of course, one way is to burn a lot of money to buy cards or packs of cards to permanently increase your power, but I don't want to do that. I can't even afford that even if I wanted to.
The way to go is to rent a card from the rentals. Not just any card though, we want a card with a high DEC value but with a pocket-friendly cost.
You can go to the market and select Card rentals.
And then find an affordable card that is with high DEC value to increase your power. While in the market, you cannot see the DEC value of a card that is why the table above will be a lot of help. And according to it, the best card is a legendary card that is part of the Alpha edition that came from a gold foil. But of course, I imagine that even renting that card will be a whole lot expensive.
For this article, I rented out an Epic card from Rewards edition and came from a gold foil.
You can notice from the photo above that the price of a card will vary depending on the user that is selling or putting it in for rent. Also, you can pay for the card using DEC or Credits. You can load credits using Paypal or other cryptocurrencies. Of course, I am using BCH for these transactions.
So then, I pressed Rent, confirmed the transaction, and got the card for a couple of days. Along with it, the power it entails is now lent to me. You can see below that it has 10,000 DEC so that's 10,000 added to my power.
So there's my power now after leasing the Onyx Sentinel card. And nope, I don't really have any use for that card aside from its DEC value. That's the beauty of it, and that's why you can just choose the cheapest card that meets your criteria from the market.
I am now ready to reach a higher league than Bronze III, hopefully, I can string some wins though. :)