Moonthumb's Fantastical Splinterlands Primer (for complete newbies) [vol. 5]

I'm sorry it took so long to get this post out. I started writing it once before and had a good bit written when I had to pause. When I came back, it was all gone (I hadn't had that happen before...I thought I had saved a draft). Anyway, here we go with attempt #2.

I hope you found my last post about acquiring non-Starter cards in Splinterlands to be helpful. Hopefully, this one will be just as beneficial, as well. In today's post, I will be going over some other tips and tricks that might help you earn more rewards during your battles.

I'm Not A Ringer

Now, I'm not saying I can teach you how to get to Champion league (or even Gold league, for that matter). I have never been past Silver I. But that is actually good for you because my experience shlogging through the Novice trenches with a bunch of Starter cards is not that far removed (I still have an account that has more Starter cards than not and has to restart each season in Novice league) so I am having to do these same steps that I am telling you how to do as I am starting to earn more chests than I did before the new system. That's right...a couple of weeks ago, I was earning my one Daily Quest chest each day and my seven to nine chests every 15 days for season rewards. Now I earn seven to nine chests EACH DAY and have already earned THIRTY ONE season chests and the season is only a little over half finished! And YOU CAN, TOO!

So, Do You Want To Win, Too?

If you have been reading my posts in this series, we have already discussed some of the things that are causing you to miss out on some of your rewards and making it hard for you to earn chests. If you haven't read these posts, you can scroll down to the bottom of this post for a list of the other posts (you will probably be most interested in volumes 3 & 4). After getting familiar with what you need to do to earn all of the rewards you are due, then you actually have to start winning more games.

Before We Talk About Specific Cards

As I mentioned before, we have already talked about getting all of the rewards you are due (mostly by using non-Starter cards). We also went over how to rent those same cards for a pittance in order to recover those lost earnings. In fact, you should have no problem earning more than you spend on renting cards if you don't go overboard on your card selection (which we touched on in a previous volume).

But when it comes to card selection, there are two different types. Selecting cards based on their stats and abilities that will help defeat your opponent AND selecting cards based on their type that will increase rather than decrease your reward percentages. In order to get a better understanding of this, let's go back and look at some information that can be found on the final screen of every battle:

Beside where it says "RP earned" (under the pop-up box), you will see a lower-case "i" with a circle around it. When you roll your mouse over this "i", this box will pop up with some stats from the match. At the bottom of this box, do you see where it says "Reward Reductions"? It shows that I lost 14% due to Starter cards. This is how you tell how much your Starter cards are costing you. In this case, I would have roughly earned 6,093 * 0.14 or 853 more Focus Points had I not used a Starter card in this match. I would have also earned roughly 2.185 * 0.14 or 0.306 more DEC. Do you want to know the kicker about this match. I could have rented a replacement for the Starter card I used for 0.100 DEC. So by saving that 0.100 DEC, I lost 0.306 DEC and 853 Focus Points. Now, I don't normally use Starter cards. I just did this to show you where you can find the information how to figure out how much it is costing you. Now let's look at a match I was actually trying to earn more points:

If you look under "Reward Bonuses" in the bottom half of the pop-up box, you will see, the following:

Win Streak: +15%
Gold Cards: +10 %
Alpha/Promo Cards: +0%
Beta Cards: +5%
Guild: +4%

These are just the opposite of what happened in the previous example. While we lost 14% due to using Starter cards before, here I ADDED these bonuses to my total. Under Win Streak, for every win in a row past 3, you can an extra 5% up to 50%. For using a GF card in my battle, I earned an extra 10%. I didn't use any Alpha or Promo cards so I got 0% for that one. But, I did use a Beta card, so I got 5% for that. And finally, I am a member of a guild, so I got 4% for that. This means that by selecting cards from each of these categories to include in this match, I earned an extra 34%. So, you see, having good stats and/or abilities on your cards is not the only way to increase your earnings.

Now, before we move on, just a word about Reward Points. Near the top of the pop-up box you see Season Points and Focus Points. All "RP earned" for each battle will be added to your Season Points and go toward accumulating season chests. However, only RP earned in your Focus splinter will be added to your Focus Points and earn focus chests each day.

Finally, there are one more set of numbers on this screen to be aware of. To the left of "RP earned" you will notice a number with a "+" in front of it and another number beside that. These numbers pertain to your Rating Points [not to be confused with Reward Points] and they show your league progress. Since I won this battle, I earned an additional 36 Rating Points. If I had lost this battle, this number would have been negative and deducted from my current total. The number beside it in my current total Rating Points. This number (1759) puts me in Silver I league. As I have mentioned before, your league determines how much Rewards Points and DEC you earn for each battle (before these bonuses we have just discussed). It is possible to "demote" to lower level leagues if your current total goes below the threshold between two leagues. This is why you want to stop playing and take a break if you go on a losing streak.

Next Time

Well, I don't think it would be prudent to try to go into specific cards you might find beneficial to you in his post. It would become TOO LONG. So, I promise my next post (maybe more) will cover this topic. I'll talk about the splinters I am most successful with right now and some of the card combinations I have seen used (by me and by others) that win more times than they lose. I'll also let you in on a few cards that are not Starter cards that can give your battles some extra power. They may cost a bit more than the Starter cards, but they should give you an extra boost in the number of wins you see.

I would love to hear about your experiences and how you are progressing. I also welcome any questions you might have or requests for clarifications on anything from any of my posts. Just leave me a comment below.

Stay tuned for more Moonthumb's Fantastical Splinterlands Primer coming soon. I look forward to meeting you on the Splinterlands battlefield in the coming days.

If you missed any of the previous volumes of this series, you can find a link here:

Moonthumb's Fantastical Splinterlands Primer (for complete newbies) [vol. 1] - Setting up an account and getting a Spellbook
Moonthumb's Fantastical Splinterlands Primer (for complete newbies) [vol. 2] - Basic information about cards
Moonthumb's Fantastical Splinterlands Primer (for complete newbies) [vol. 2.1] - More Card Basics
Moonthumb's Fantastical Splinterlands Primer (for complete newbies) [vol. 3] - How to earn rewards in the new system (part 1) {Get to Bronze Level}
Moonthumb's Fantastical Splinterlands Primer (for complete newbies) [vol. 4] - How to earn rewards in the new system (part 2) {Acquiring Non-Starter Cards}