I recently convinced a friend to join HIVE and then also start to play Splinterlands. Because of that I have been writing more messages than I care to admin in Discord trying to explain everything and give them tips and tricks and all that. I started to realize, that I should just document this all for other new players to Splinterlands in 2025.
If you are new to Splinterlands or recently coming back to the game then this guide is for you. Because of how much there is to the game this is a series of articles. If I put all the info I want to into 1 article nobody would read it because it would take hours.
Without further ado.. let's get into it!
Introduction
If you want to skip through sections there is a table of contents to the left (in desktop mode at least) where you can click on which section you want to go to directly.
This entire guide is my own opinions and experiences. I am not affiliated with Splinterlands other than I own a Spellbook and multiple cards and tokens within their ecosystem. I started to play Splinterlands back in early 2021 I believe and then stopped playing around January 2023 (as I was just spread too thin in various web3 games and ecosystems). I started back in playing Splinterlands in January 2025. So I took a 2 year break and now I am back. A lot has changed in those 2 years and a lot hasn't.
I do not know everything or even more than half of what there is to know. But I know enough for starting out players and things that would be beneficial for those type of players.
Links to All Articles (once published)
Article #1 - Just Getting Started
Article #2 - Battling & Strategy
Article #3 - Cards Cards Cards
Article #4 - All Currencies
Article #5 - Items
Article #6 - Guilds & Gladiators
Article #7 - Everything Else & More
What is Splinterlands?
Splinterlands is a strategy card based game on the Hive blockchain. You battle other real people in card battles to progress through the ranks/leagues. The higher the rank you have the more rewards you earn.
Splinterlands has a long history. It was released back in 2018 under the name SteemMonsters but was rebranded to "Splinterlands" because of.. well just because. You can google that if you want more details as to why. It doesn't matter now but is interesting to read.
There are multiple 'sets' of cards and multiple tokens used by the economy. I believe (pretty sure stats would back this up as well) that Splinterlands is the most popular Hive game and it has the highest economy in all of Hive as well.
Now if we look at Hive-Engine stats you can see DEC is even higher than SPS.
Both of those screenshots were taken on February 23rd, 2025 so it will be different when you are reading this. However that is 4.5 Million Dollars of Market Cap just in the DEC and SPS tokens. That doesn't take into account the cards, or packs, or land, or any other tradeable asset in game (which we will talk on later).
Buying the Spellbook
Anyone who has a HIVE account can play Splinterlands for free. You will not earn the same rewards as people with a Spellbook but I highly recommend if you have not purchased the Spellbook yet to play a few rounds of the game to see if you even like it first.
A Spellbook will cost you $10. This is common place in HIVE to pay a upfront cost to start playing a game. And honestly $10 is pretty cheap compared to other games I have seen.
For that $10 what do you get?
- You get the Spellbook which unlocks the ability to earn SPS rewards from battles.
- 30 day Battle Reward boost
- 5 Chaos Legion packs (each pack has 5 cards in them with 1 guaranteed to be a rare card) (this will most likely change to be the new set that will be released soon, more on that later).
- 3,000 credits. Credits are a in-game token that are pegged to a USD value. 3,000 credits equal $3.
Packs and Credits are not received if a promo code is used. Packs only available while supplies last.
Battling MODERN vs WILD
When it comes to ranked battles there are 2 options. Wild or Modern.
Modern
Modern is most likely what every new player will start with. It is designed for entry level players and even people who have been around a while. I only play Modern.
What differentiates Modern from Wild is that when you play a Modern game you are only allowed to use cards from the last 2 sets released. So right now that means you can only use cards from Chaos Legion or Rebellion sets.
This is a key point to keep in mind for later in this article.
Wild
When you play a Wild game you are able to use any and all cards ever released.
Because of that this is geared towards players with a lot more cards and who have been a lot longer than you. But also in order to play Wild games you will need a Wild Pass which costs 2,000 DEC.
You can spend Credits or DEC to buy a Wild Pass. But keep in mind that a Wild Pass only lasts for that season you are currently in.
Leagues
Both Modern & Wild have the same League structure. You will start in the Wood League (you will not earn any rewards in this league).
For this guide we will look through the Modern Leagues.
Each League (Bronze, Silver, Gold, etc) has 3 Tiers.
This can get confusing but each League's lowest Tier is 3 and then you can get to 2 and then 1. For example once you get enough points to be in Bronze 1 the next League/Tier to unlock will be Silver 3.
You will see in that last screenshot at the bottom there are Tier unlocks. That means that in each Season when you progress and unlock a new Tier you will get those rewards. So let's say I am in Bronze 2 right now. If I win enough to progress into Bronze 1 I will get 5 Minor chests right then and there to open.
What is in those chests? There are a lot. Currently what you can get is Merits, Potions, Reward Cards (maybe others I can't remember right now).
Here is my screenshot for when I got into Bronze 2 and opened 3 chests.
You can see I got 1 Legendary Potion, 1 card called "Giant Alpine Skink", and 117 Merits. (We will get into more detail for those later).
If you perform at least 1 battle in a season then at the end of that season you rating points will get reduced some.
This is for the Bronze League specifically:
This enables you to earn some more League progression rewards next season. (You will face people who just put out 1 crappy troop, almost to intentionally lose. That is people trying to drop their rating level so that either they can face people who are weaker and hopefully get more WINS and more rewards. Or they are people trying to lower their rating before the end of a season a lot so they have more leagues to progress and more chests to open)
Wow, there are some blogs coming our way. Great work, this will definitely help new players. :)
:) Almost done with Article #2!!
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