My alt experience with a free-to-play Splinterlands account | Community Engagement

By Behiver | behiver | 2 Dec 2024

In this post I will tell you the story of creating an alt account from scratch and trying to grow it through a free-to-play strategy. Well, rather free as I have chosen a path where I would still need some funds in order to make it work, but make sure that these funds are retrieved back before anything else. So, you might ask how can that be? Well, my attempt to grow a free-to-play account in Splinterlands is based on renting cards from the open market and try to make as much as possible out of it after paying the due renting for them.

Renting out cards using DEC

Renting cards is the backbone of this strategy. Dark Energy Crystals (DEC), the in-game currency, allows players to rent powerful cards from the marketplace. The idea is to carefully select cards with high utility and a strong win rate that fit the season’s meta. Balancing the rental costs with expected earnings requires planning, but it ensures that you have competitive cards without investing large amounts upfront. As I am going for a new free to play, I am focusing on making a formation with a single element - Water is my preferred one. And I add few Neutrals to that.

Earn SPS from battles

Splintershards (SPS) are earned as battle rewards when playing in ranked matches. Higher leagues and win streaks increase the SPS rewards, incentivizing strong performance. By focusing on strategic gameplay and leveraging rented cards, you can maximize your SPS income. These tokens are a key part of the free-to-play strategy, as they can be converted or reinvested for future growth.

Exchange SPS for DEC to repay rentals

The earnings from SPS are swapped for DEC to cover the card rental fees. By ensuring that rental costs are paid back first, the strategy becomes sustainable. Any leftover SPS can then be reinvested in the account or saved for long-term growth, helping you achieve profitability without needing external funding.

Free play that earns Glint which I use for buying reward cards

Free play activities such as completing daily battle based on the energy points and season-end rewards provide opportunities to earn Glint (game tokens) and other assets. These resources can be reinvested to acquire reward cards from the market, growing your collection. The goal is to reinvest wisely, building a solid foundation of owned assets over time that reduces reliance on renting.

So I've journeyed on this path with my new free-to-play account, rented some cards and created a performing Water formation and I went to battle. Climbing small leagues until Silver and even Gold sometimes provided me more earnings to cover my renting costs. I've played this for several months, but in the same time I must say that these scheme didn't make me rich. As I have already other accounts with collection starting from Beta cards forward and due to my time limitation, I couldn't continue as well with this free-to-play account, but for a newcomer I think this is a good option to start. This way he/she can learn and strategize in the game and decide later on if to take things to another level and start acquiring cards and packs from the market. But it is a good beginning in my opinion.