SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): Trading Places, Changing Luck, & Bot Revelation

NOTE: Some of this information is repeated for the sake of those who might be reading a post from this series for the first time. For those of you who have been following this eXperiment, scroll down and begin reading at the Current Status section.

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This is the next installment in my experiment in building a Splinterlands account from scratch without additional monetary investment after the initial Spellbook purchase. I am chronicling my journey so see if this is a viable activity and, if so, how long will it take to reach that level (I'm shooting for SILVER...after that, we'll see).

Brief History

In lieu of all of the recent changes in Splinterlands gameplay, a few months ago, I started an experiment to see if a new player could build a viable account without any monetary investment (besides the Spellbook, of course). I created a brand new account for my wife and started playing it (you can read the previous installment in this series HERE). Initially, I don't expect this account to make much progress, so I will work on creating a posts (or maybe two) per season. If things begin to get interesting, frequency should increase.

When I initially created this account, I was several days into a season. Even though I was playing this account with a bot, I was unable to accumulate enough points to earn a Season Chest at the end of that season. I wanted to see if it was possible to earn a chest with a bare minimum account that only contained a few cards that could be purchased with the original 3000 credits and starter cards. However, during my first full season, I was able to earn a single season chest with the few cards this account currently owns. It would have been nice to obtain a new card with that chest, but hey, SPS is progress.

I also began entering card giveaways to see if I could increase the collection before the season ended. I had not been very consistent in entering said giveaways until recently. However, I have found this to be best way for me to acquire new cards at this point and have begun to focus more on finding the time to be more consistent in these efforts and have seen a smattering of success.

Current Status

Let me start by apologizing to those people who have been actively reading this SplinterlandsX series of posts. I have decided it will be easier all the way around if I just create the posts from the same account that I am using for the eXperiment. Hopefully, you will find this post and make whatever changes are necessary to continue this saga with me.

For those who have been following along, you already know I have been having issues with the bot I have been using. In addition to those problems, I had noticed it was behind the times on a couple of other things (like new rulesets and cards). Thankfully, I stumbled upon some information this morning that pointed to the fact that I was not running on the current version. I was able to get the most current version installed and have been running it all day. It is now using the updated rulesets and other than one slight hiccup, I have not seen any issues so far. I will be watching it closely for the next few days to make sure everything is copacetic. I don't know if this will increase my chances of acquiring chests, but if the issue is resolved, at least I should not have to deal with the constantly going backwards when it got hung up.

On a related issue, with the addition to the cards won in giveaways since my last post, you will notice (below) my Power has crossed the 1000 threshold and my Max Tier has finally reached Bronze II. My hope is that this, along with the bot update, will make it more likely that I will earn enough RP to get at least one chest next season (it definitely will not happen this season).

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In the past couple of posts, I have been able to relate my surprising success in winning a few new cards in giveaways to add to the collection. This has contributed to my slow increase of Power. I have been faithfully continuing my entries in these giveaways and was able to add few few more cards this week.

On the day that I published the last post, I won three more cards:

First, I won this one (the second one in the past two weeks) from @kojiri in THIS POST.

Then, I won this one from @cryptofiloz in THIS POST.

And finally, this one from @poplar-22 in THIS POST,

Then two days later, I won this one from @kryptodenno in THIS POST,

and this one from @engilhramn in THIS POST.

and then this one from @morph in THIS POST.

AND THEN IT STOPPED...

Not my entries...the winning.

Even though I have found a couple of new giveaways and have continued to enter the ones I have been, I have not won any more cards in the past four days.

Has my luck changed? Have I hit a brief dry spell? Be watching for my next post to find out.

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Four of these new cards are Reward cards (three new ones and a duplicate) which means count of unique Reward cards has grown to THIRTEEN! I guess my original decision to purchase non-reward cards with my initial coins was a good one (although this is not exactly how I saw myself acquiring them). I also won a replacement for one of my chaos starter cards and for my first untamed starter card.

Hopefully, this is not the end of my winning.

AMA (Ask Me Anything)

In my first post, I stated:

If you have any suggestions on how a new player can progress without having to invest any outside influx of capital, I'd love to hear it. Also, if you are a new player that has questions about anything I am doing with this account (or anything else, for that matter), leave me a comment...

I did get a few more responses in my last post of varying types.

Thank you to @mirroredspork and @adcreatordesign for their continued encouragement.

I also got a follow-up from @ijat593 on the Social Media Challenge diss. I was pleasantly surprised by the @bdvoter upvote. I will be looking into which card(s) I want to invest in shortly. I am trying to focus in the Starter cards that are used most often to cut down on my penalty. After more consideration, I am trying to decide whether to make another Social Media Challenge submission. I'll let you know if I end up following through.

What's Next

Now that I am using this account for posting, I will no longer have to transfer rewards (Hive Rewards or any other rewards [PIZZA, CTP, ALIVE, etc.] submitted to this post from readers). A special thank you goes out to all of those who have been gracious enough to contribute to this journey so far. Also, if anyone joins Splinterlands from one of the links in this post, they will be indirectly providing support to the eXperiment, as well. Who knows...this eXperiment could be your training on how to build an account without extra financial input (besides your Spellbook, of course)...both what to do and what NOT to do.

I will keep making it a top priority going forward to enter as many giveaways as I can find. As I mentioned earlier, I finally managed to win enough cards to push the Max Tier for this account up into Bronze II. We'll have to see if I can win enough matches to take advantage of this new status. As I discuss any additions to my collection that I receive from these giveaways, I try to mention who I received them from include a link to the post announcing my win. I feel it is only fair to promote those giveaways for anyone else who might be interested in participating.

On a similar note. I was reminded that rentals and delegations are another way to help increase your CP (and possibly RP by removing the need to use started cards). I did not feel like I was in a position to rent any cards before now and will have to do some figuring to see if that is something this account can afford yet. I don't feel right about delegating cards from my own accounts to help with this eXperiment (I feel like that would be cheating). However, if anyone else would like to help give this account a boost by delegating any cards to it, I would offer the same courtesy that I do for the giveaways by mentioning you in my post and including a link back to a Splinterlands post of your choosing. Any card that I do not currently have (including starter cards) would be appreciated.

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." - Lao Tzu

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

• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): Going About This All Wrong? - My giveaway success continues.
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): Going About This All Wrong? - It appears maybe I have been.
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): Unexpected Success - Winning multiple giveaways.
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): It Actually Happened! - Finally won a reward card.
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): I'm Getting Stronger - Added more SPS and a couple of new cards
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): I Finally Got Lucky - Get your head out of the gutter
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): Mid-season update of second full season - A surprise boost
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): The First Full Season - Results from the first full season
• SplinterlandsX (eXperiment): The Experiment Continues - The first update
• Starting Over - An Experiment - Setting up the experiment

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NOTE: Individual card images provided by Splinterlands developers (see Splinterlands Card Images by Level).