What's New Wednesdays! - Introducing Splinterlands TCG on STEEMit blockchain!

Starting Out like a Punching Bag on Splinterlands.io

But that Won’t Stop my new found Addiction to BoosterPacks!

Introducing Splinterlands.io, a TCG battling card game built on the STEEM blockchain. They were originally branded as SteemMonsters, however with the game branching out and integrating compatibility with other chains such as Tron, it has made the game more available to a wider audience, and since STEEM is no longer the only chain that can play, a name change was due! I think the new name makes the game seem more mature and fits more with it’s theme style.

I’ve wanted to play this game since it’s inception, I remember their pre-sale at launch but at that time I had just discovered crypto, just discovered STEEM, and was not yet familiar with dApps…

Well as it turns out, Splinterlands became a very popular game and has set the bar for any and all TCG’s before or after it.

As usual, I’m always late to the trendiest parties online. It took me 7 years to jump on the cryptocurrency bandwagon; imagine if I started collecting from faucets 7 years ago! Not only that but I read that majority of faucets all those years ago gave out huge rewards! And no one had heard about shortlinks!!
I am suffering a huge case of FOMO and have been frantically trying to play catch up, being as broke as I am I have been adamant about only pursuing avenues that allow me to earn for free. Every coin that I’ve earned thus far has been from faucets, task sites, publishing, tips, and more recently trading on exchanges.

Publishing has always been a dream job/hobby of mine, but I never had any luck getting paid for my poetry or blogs when I was writing for fiat-based reward systems.
STEEMit was the first ‘earn crypto for publishing’ platform that I came across, and it may actually be the pioneer for this industry. However, I am not a strong influencer and don’t have a large following of loyal fans. No one is falling over themselves trying to get me as a guest writer, so bottom line, I am a hobby writer still - with lots to learn and more to experience before I can turn the word “blogger” into a viable career.

When I joined SteemIt back in late 2018/early '19 I found it to be rather confusing and difficult for a new publisher such as myself to get on my feet and actually start earning something that I can actually cash-out and use.
I posted a few posts on Steem but shortly after I discovered a new platform where I was able to see value, improvement, and withdraw real earnings a lot quicker than the pace I was getting from Steem. That is of course here at Publish0x, a place where everyone, even readers, can earn as equally as writers. It still has it’s flaws and especially during it’s BETA time it will not be perfect, I hope one day maybe it can build onto a few different blockchains!

Returning to STEEMit

I went back to STEEMit recently because I re-discovered one of the oldest games built for it’s blockchain - Splinterlands; or as you old timers may know it originally as STEEMmonsters!
I will say the only reason I became interested in it is because I saw it was compatible with TRON’s blockchain, and I was looking for dApps that were as interesting as the ones on the ETH network but which were more affordable to play!

I always wanted to play STEEMmonsters since the day I first joined on STEEMit but there was a large barrier for entry; each player needs to buy a starter pack which costs $10 USD and there is no way around this, you need a starter deck to start playing. When I saw it on the TRON chain I just assumed that, like most game dApps, there was no way to start playing without paying upfront - but I decided to peek my head into their Telegram Group and asked if there was any types of promotions going or discount codes for people to try out the game… To my my amazement, one of the amazing players, (admins?), decided that they were running a promo to get new players involved and gift new users a promo code for a FREE starter pack*!

Now this is great, because really all you need is the starter pack and you can earn more cards through playing the game. The starter pack gives you a selection of 30 beta cards, and you can earn single cards from winning tournaments, purchasing single cards in the card market, or you can buy beta booster packs of 5 cards each - with STEEM tokens or a multitude of tokens on the TRX chain as well. One thing to note: It shows in the game market when you go to buy a booster pack with Tron that it would cost 60 TRX at time of writing, however you can currently buy a booster pack for 44 TRX right from the tronwatch.market - this is also the place where you can exchange your earned DEC (in-game token) for TRX.

I still do not really understand everything about STEEM, and sadly I am still not convinced on turning it into my full-time blogging platform :( . There does seem to be a little bit of need to be active there though - especially if wanting to participate fully in dApps - earning tokens and taking part in contests all involve being an active STEEMian on STEEM, or at least a sub-section of the platform, like Splintertalk.io.
I don’t completely understand the workings about delegation and voting power yet, all I know is my voting power is nothing right now so I don’t know how useful I will be for anything there. But, maybe in time I will be! But, now for the purpose of this post!

Introducing: BetaPack Unwraps

As I mentioned, right now the best way to purchase Beta BoosterPacks {if you’re using TRON} is to use the tronwatch.market exchange! It’s also where you can swap the DEC you win from ranked matches, into TRX if you so desire!

The great things about Splinterlands cards is that they are collectible, tradeable and live on the blockchain. Once owned, they belong to you and you can do with them as you please!!

There is so much more to explain about the game but I’ll save that for upcoming posts and for those of you who wish to pursue the game and jump right in to playing!

My excitement when I unwrapped Enchanted Pixie was like a child in a toy store! But what I almost didn't see was that gorgeous purple colour, a low-circulating legendary, she puts up a great fight too!I must make a separate thread and get an artist to create an OC character for me, so if any artists out there are taking commissions - hit me up! ;)

Here we have the Death Splinter, and a very strong Crocodile monster who at first I thought was rather bland but using it in battle I found it can be quite powerful.

*One thing to mention that was driving me crazy these past few days was that they have made a change to Starter Packs redeemed from free Promo Codes. Now, all 30 cards of the starter pack are phantom cards that can only be used for battles, not traded, combined or given away. Once receiving a ‘real’ card the phantom card is replaced but if you then trade away the real card, the phantom starter returns so that a player will always have the starter deck to play with. More details can be found here.

So, when I opened these boosters I thought I had some cards to combine, and then went to combine them only to think I was going insane! The community on Telegram also thought I was missing some cards, and there was a bit of an uproar about it all until someone came in and was like “hey dumb dumb, you are playing with phantom cards, duh! see post:” – ahaha, I felt even more crazy than before, but I think it highlights the need for a more prominent reminder that this is the case for starters redeemed with Promo Codes - if I didn’t realise, there are many more who also will be pulling their hair out who may not be as social as I so will forever think they are going insane until the day all their phantoms are replaced.

I agree with the new system - as long as it’s clear. All new things need to have the details ironed out though, so no flak towards the admins is meant at all!

Another little tip for those not interested in STEEM so much but may want to partake in other tokens build from the chain, tagging STEEM posts with “SPT” can earn special SplinterTalk Tokens, which can be converted into STEEM, Tron or the oh so powerful DEC!

I will be tagging my posts with SPT even here on Publish0x so that one day if the Splinterlands community finds themselves here they will feel welcomed and counted.

There are SO MANY new things going on with the Steem blockchain that weren’t around when I first joined. I will definitely need to find a way to mix it all into my daily grind, being active again on STEEM doesn’t seem so bad after all. I’m sure I’ll figure out something!

See you in the match maker, my name is @kharma.scribbles on STEEM and Splinterlands!!

© KharmaScribbles || ~ 2019

^DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are my own and not influenced by any of the companies, coins or services I mention in this article.
This is NOT a sponsored endorsement but I do receive a commission if you sign up under my link(s).
~ This is not meant as investment advice and you should know that cryptocurrency is a volatile market and all the coins or investments could be worth nothing one day and we’d have nothing to show for it. Please use your own judgment and research to see if cryptocurrency is right for you.
~ I am still new to crypto and don’t know enough about all the coins to make a prediction on profitability and I might enjoy a coin that is a terrible choice to you, however I am not responsible for the things that you choose to do.

Originally written for posting on STEEMit, modified for posting specifically on Publish0x.

© KharmaScribbles || ~ 2019