Behind the grind of playing and loving the anticipation with a sense of dread from trying to get to one of the highest leagues (I still think I was lucky to hit Champ) whilst having dreams of loot, I mean LOOT! The season has gotten underway again and the new grind begins where I really wanted to place a piece here on how to handle your lower level elements i.e Life for me with only lvl 1 summoners, but I decided on handling something that can net you a little more money to help purchase cards for levelling up with Tournaments

So let us take a look at where my account stands as of today, this is all public record so let us really take a look and see if my time enjoying myself possibly paid off.

As stated in Me and the Splinterlands Basic Economy, I have spent around $40 in Crypto on playing and now I am, quite a few seasons later, just beginning to find my feet.I found my way there trying to combine my love of TCG's (I love MTG in all forms and on all platforms) with Crypto and with the added benefit of making a little money for my time, that was the cherry on top.

Here is a Snapshot of my current Peakmonsters card value.

So far after about 3 months of playing, it is not a great return when I take into consideration the time put in...or is it...I play because I love TCG's, I made silly burn decisions that lost a lot of value, etc. If I kept some of the packs to sell on the market while combining other cards to sell easier, then that total would have been quite a bit higher (I want to do something on my mistakes, lets see how this goes). I still feel that it is more than worth it seeing as I have not been maximising my time there as much as I could have. I will be posting regular updates so that you can see what works, and seeing as I will definitely make mistakes, what does not work too. I will show burn's etc. as we go along in later pieces and give my reasoning, so bear with me on some of the nerdier stuff in future.

Those are my exact Coin (Thanks GCC for the referral) and DEC totals, it is not much to start the season off with but it does make sure that I can keep playing tournaments and have a shot at a bit of that sweet tournament DEC. When you first start playing Splinterlands, the tournaments can be a little intimidating, so understanding what tournaments are playable at lower levels can save you some serious buy-in costs.

My favourite tournaments to play:

• The Untamed Kobold Mining Expedition

The Untamed Kobold Mining Expedition will usually be your firs stop seeing as it has a Novice level Cap, which caps all of your troops and summoners to level 1. This gives anyone with the UNTAMED cards a shot at winning and as mentioned in Splinterlands Basic Strategy, trying to get at least one card for even your weakest splinter can win a lot of games or just lose it outright. I have won many games where the opponent was so restricted that they ended up fielding 1/2 the Mana Cap and just handed me the game. That led me to try and build up one of everything whilst still trying to keep my Playable Card Power low'ish and the benefit of giving me some 800 DEC wins quite a few times. 

It is also a good place to get started and start learning to read your opponents last plays.

Hint: I like to vary my playing teams as much as possible and many opponents got sidestepped or could not form a easy response. Do not just let the daily quest get in the way, play to win and steer towards the daily goal, you do not have to just play that element every game.

• Bronze Blunderbuss

This could be seen as the next stepping stone and here you have Bronze league capping, 

Here I have been able to compete with level 2 Summoners but there is still a lot that has to be upgraded on my side. It is still worth while to play and it has the same 10 DEC buy-in as the Untamed Kobold Mining Expedition, use it to hone your skills and see what combinations are effective. I should add that my main aim is mostly to grow my card collection and compete at higher levels. I will be seeing if I can get some good deals at peakmonsters and maybe trade a few packs but the main goal here is to grow the portfolio and then see how that growth equates into battle and tournament winnings.

That is the Basic Tournament overview and it should be more than enough to get you started for now. I will be looking at some of the bigger tournaments later, like the Gold Card tournaments but it takes a lot to play those and they are not too relevant when you first start playing.

Hint: Sometimes the gold cards are the most efficient to buy, they have higher base levels and can help hold the line (just remember those summoner levels)

GG's

Old Man Gamer

My Shameless Referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=hexian68