Hello to the Publish0x community! I have been playing Splinterlands, a card game running on the Hive blockchain, for a few months now. This competitive card game includes different splinters of cards - Life, Earth, Death, etc. - and hundreds of different cards with different skills and strengths. The game has a huge marketplace where you can use the game's currency, DEC, to purchase cards and card packs, growing and strengthening your deck. Overall I really enjoy the game, but a few changes to the ranking system have led me to change my strategy going forward.

What changed on Splinterlands?

A few seasons ago, the ranking system changed to be based not on your collective wins and losses, but instead on your "collection power", the value of all of your cards in DEC. This power ranking decides which league you can max out at, which changes your ability to earn quest rewards and end of season rewards. As a newer player with a small collection, this change definitely hurt me. Before this change my deck was growing, my rank was slowly grinding higher, and it was great fun. After this change, I am forced to be more strategic with my purchases because I receive fewer cards for completing quests and less DEC overall.

What have I been doing with my time and DEC?

Even though I am stuck at a lower rank, I am still playing almost every day to collect my daily quest's rewards (currently 2 chests per day). With victories come small prizes in DEC, which I have been accumulating for a few seasons, saving up for a few cards that will hopefully accelerate the strength of my deck of cards.

The cards I have purchased with my DEC over the last season or 3 have been summoners. Why? Summoners can give all of your cards buffs or your opponents cards debuffs, which can greatly affect each match. If you level them up by combining cards they can also allow you to play higher level cards which could give you a slight edge with just a little more health or higher attack value.

And here are my 3 beautiful cards:

All 3 cards affect melee gameplay through defensive or offensive abilities, which has come in handy a number of times. To purchase these cards I've been saving like crazy, but I've also sold a few lesser cards that just weren't giving me much benefit.

My most recent purchase was Camila Sungazer. To afford this card, I sold a weaker gold foil card for around 2,400 DEC that was giving me almost no benefit or advantage. This Dragon summoner lets me destroy melee opponents and gives me a great deal of flexibility when choosing the right deck before a match.

Thank you for reading!

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