It has been a while since my last update, in which I expressed my doubts. Since i'm still playing, I though I'd might just as well do another update on my experiment.
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## Lost Count
I actually lost count and don't have a clue if we're actually in season 7 or season 8 at the moment. fact is, in spite of all my doubts, I'm still playing.
I just bumped into a post by @senstlessmonster, who is doing a similar experience, and I thought that since I'm still playing, why not write another update...?
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## Nothing World Shocking
I hate to disappoint you, but nothing really world shocking has happened.
Maybe the most exciting thing so far is that I have been able to reach Silver 2 without too much trouble.
I haven't been doing a lot of selling lately, because let's face it, selling reward cards is barely worth the effort. Their value is so low that I will have to sell a truckload of them if I want to buy a beta card.
Or better, an alpha card. Because I've been mainly buying alphas - they're often cheaper or only a little more expensive than betas, and you need fewer to level up. Plus, I can sell the beta card I already have. All this makes buying alpha cards more profitable.
![divider2.png]()
## Reward Cards
The luck I've been having since I started the experiment (remember the 3 gold foil cards in the first week?) has run out. All I'm getting is the same old, worthless reward cards.
Remember how exciting it was when a new reward card was released every day? Surprisingly, that was only a few weeks ago, and already, the reward cards have become old and boring.
This is what I collected during these last couple of days:
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[Source](https://steemmonsters.com?ref=itisjustme)
They allowed me to level up my Sea Monster and Goblin Mech, but I haven't even put up the effort to put the spare ones up for sale.
![divider2.png]()
## Earnings
Earnings have been pretty low, since I have been neglecting this account for almost a week.
I should free up some time to enter contests, giveaways and @steem-bounty posts again.
The 'free-to-play' Drugwars game appears to be nothing more than a nice slogan. It does bring in something, but in my opinion, it's Steemmonsters all over again. A lot of promises, but in the end, it is just another 'pay-to-play' gig.
I am thinking about hosting a giveaway myself to get myself some more followers, but i haven't decided on that one yet.
![divider2.png]()
## My Deck
I can't deny that I have made a lot of progress when it comes to leveling my deck.
I remember that, initially, it was a big hurdle to start leveling, because summoners are pretty expensive compared to other cards. It was only after I received a level 2 summoner from @rentmoney that I could think about leveling up.
I paid it forward by sending a spare level 2 summoner I had in one of my higher decks to @bxlphabet, who is also experimenting with building a deck without spending extra money, and who I met in the Steemmonsters chat channel where she (he? I actually don't know, lol) was fighting for the rights of newcomers without a fortune to spend. I was happy to meet yet another person with the same mindset, so I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to pay forward the gifts I got.
Anyway, this is how my collection looks for the moment.
(The cards that have been maxed for the summoner I have are marked in green.)
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Click to enlarge
I took @bashadow's advice and picked up a level 2 Grumpy Dwarf on the market just now (for only 0.507 Steem), because his Reach-ability will probably come in handy sometimes.
As you can see, my Life splinter is still a lot weaker than the others. This has mainly to do with the fact that I don't really like playing the Life splinter, so I don't use it very often. As a result, I'm not as familiar with these cards as I am with the cards from other splinters, and I find it even more difficult to decide which ones are worth buying.
I still have more than 10 Steem in my wallet, but I have a really hard time deciding which way to go from here and which cards to buy.
No need to say I'm dying to get myself and Elemental Phoenix, a Spirit Of The Forest or a My Little Pony, but they are simply too expensive, and too weak at level 1. I know I'd better focus on the other cards first.
I did treat myself to a level 2 Fire Demon and a level 2 Twisted Jester. I love to play both cards and I can hardly wait until I'll be able to level up my Fire Demon until he gets the blast-ability I love so much.
But for now, I'm a bit stuck. The 10 Steem in my wallet is impatiently waiting to be spent, but I simply can't decide.
In other words, all advice would be more than welcome.
![divider2.png]()
## Stats
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[Source](https://discord.gg/dTW33ge)
Not a lot of progression since last time.
Seeing these stats, I completely forgot I had 2 gold foil Highland Archers. Had, because for a strange reason which I can't remember, I combined them and turned it into a level 4 card. I don't know what I was thinking when I did that...
[](https://steemit.com/@itisjustme)
[](https://steemmonsters.com/?ref=itisjustme)
[Source 1](https://steemmonsters.com/?ref=itisjustme) - [Source 2](https://pixabay.com/en/click-here-click-click-here-button-1772025/) - [Source 3](https://pixabay.com/en/note-sticky-note-yellow-tape-154962/)
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Congrats on Silver 2! Seems like we'll be in the same league soon. Can't wait to battle you (though I'm in UTC-5 so it may not be that likely). I hear you on the reward cards: those are actually quite nice ones you got there (sea monsters, pirate archer, javelin thrower), but once they are all leveled up to your summoners levels, they become less exciting. As for Drug Wars, I think there is a much more serious issue going on than the pay-to-play setup in Steem Monsters. But let me address that in detail in a post.
If you're referring to the gang-thing that seems to be taking over, or the fact that it is a plain ponzi, I'm fully aware of that. If not, I'm very curious. i've added you to Gina so I won't miss it :0)
I agree on the fact that those reward cards aren't that bad, but I have most of them leveled up as high as my summoners allow it. And all of them together are barely worth $0.40 on the market (thanks to the Javelin Thrower ($0.12) and the Sea Monsters ($0.05 pp) )
The fact that it's a ponzi, which will ultimately hurt steem when it collapses. The social aspect about the gang-thing taking over... well, that seems to be a more hidden result, but I could imagine it to be as harmful to steem as the ponzi's effect. But the referrals... I'm sure you've seen how much my activity adds to your daily rewards (at least the person who used my link seems to be adding a lot mine!). But now, you're saying my rewards go to Gina? Do I know her? From your previous posts it seems like she's a friend of yours you don't like any more. So much so, that she could be a bot or something, if she exists at all.
A lot of people are going to lose a lot of Steem over this indeed, and they ain't going to be happy about it, that's for sure. I know I've lost a lot of money on them when I first got into crypto.
I'm still in debt, because I didn't think it through those first couple of days. I'm very glad I restrained myself and only invested 44 Steem. I see people investing thousands...
From Asher's post yesterday, I learned that @jacekw is updating stats about the money that is going around daily by posting comments on his original post here.
Those numbers are really scaring me, because there are going to be huge consequences once the thing collapses indeed.
I just asked for my stats to check on referral earnings. Considering you're the most active one of the only 2 active referrals I have, it contributes to the daily rewards indeed.
Lol, break even in 23 days. If the 'game' lasts that long.
Don't worry about Gina. Gina is just the Discord notification bot. I've added your name to the list of people of whom I want to be notified when they publish a post, that's all there is to it :0)
Wow! 44 steem is quite ambitious! Though, thinking about it, just about a week ago I was talking about investing 30-50 steem to jump-start DrugWars. Well, in the end I stopped at 9 steem, plus I paid 15 to THE cartel. Not counting this "voluntary protection fee" I'm actually quite close to breaking even. But that I think is comparable to getting beta booster packs as daily quest rewards. This time I'm one of the early birds, feeling pretty good, only a bit concerned about those poor suckers starting out later. My hope for steem is, however, that the game becomes a quick flop, as nothing could be worse than a huge bubble with a sudden pop! But this is precisely what I'll try to go into in my next post... whenever that may be... Send my kisses to Gina!
I think the universe has been sending me a message about the cartel lol. I've requested and clicked a Discord invite link 4 times, and every time the invite appears to be invalid. So I decided to give up. :0)
I made big moves last night. I listed every duplicate card I had, and I bought 80% of what I listed on my primary account. Its a slight cheat, since most won't see that influx that quickly, and maybe their cards would sell. But if this was the only account I was playing I would list cards daily. I post an update this weekend, but I can see the long term trend. 0 investment decks will struggle to every climb out Bronze. With reward cards falling to .01 or less, this is a losing project. I should really stop investing in better cards on all my accounts.
I must admit the same idea of selling to myself has crossed my mind multiple times. So far I haven't done it yet, but I think it won't be long before I do it.
Let's hope the initiative of @jrvacation gets some traction and is effective in the long run - it is supported by Matt, so I figure there's something to it - even though I don't get how it will work to get the prices up
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Glad to see your back and still playing @itisjustme 👍👍
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Thanks, but right now I'm so close to giving up ...
Their new update messed up my entire tournament. I had to quit because I couldn't send or accept challenges. Oooh, I'm soooo angry right now 😈😈😈
Sorry, @wonderwop - I just needed to get that out or I would have exploded 😕
I'm too addicted to stop playing... 😉
I had issues this morning on my daily quest too. I hope it's fixed.
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They've implemented automated tournaments into the live site yesterday. They didn't activate them yet, because they wanted to see if it would be causing any trouble. And it did cause a lot of trouble. I saw Matt digging into every report about a problem that was made (except for mine, but I guess I had that coming, I haven't really been easy on them these last couple of weeks, lol), so I assume everything should go back to normal soon. I hope so, because frustration is building up; I saw another one of my friends put his deck on the market because he was done with the entire game and all their problems and excuses and lack of communication. I'm pretty sure he is not the only one...
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STOPNice post. Thank you for the shoutout! Also good choice on the grumpy dwarf. the premise behind why it is so useful is that it is just as good or even better in some cases than every splinters designated "reach" monster. The meta I have developed revolves around having a tank up front with a reach monster in second spot, a tank healer if possible and then fill the rest of the slots with range/magic attackers. Having a better grumpy dwarf essentially upgrades all of your splinters because he is neutral and can be used with all of them.
I must admit I rarely use Grumpy with my regular accounts. Fire has Giant Roc, Death Has the wolf, Earth has the Minotaur and Life has the Silvershield Warrior. But not having the means to get all of them at a decent level, required a different approach. I would have never thought of Grumpy if @bashadow hadn't mentioned him.
Although I've been playing for months, it wasn't until about a week or two ago that I finally understood how the sneak ability really worked. So now I set up my team with a tank in front, if there is enough mana, a monster with reach in second - if there's not, I leave it out - and then a magic or range 'buffer' that can take some hits to protect my tank healer from being taken out too quickly.
It's hard to imagine I was able to reach champion a couple of seasons ago with my level 6 deck without understanding that sneak monsters go for the first range or magic monster in the lineup, lol.
I should look into those neutral monsters a little more. The Centaur, for example, I've been using quite frequently when playing my other decks. Those neutrals can indeed be used with all splinters, which makes them very useful. Unfortunately, compared to the other betas, they're quite expensive.
the grumpy dwarf only costs 4 mana making it more economical than the roc/wolf anyways. The centaur is also very good. creeping ooze and cocatrice come in handy sometimes aswell.
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