As I have now been playing Steem Monsters and Drug Wars for several months, I've wanted to contribute something of ACTIONABLE value to my fellow players (and FUTURE players) - but NOT just fill my Steemit feed with daily images of quest reward - or battle - SPAM, (no offense to those doing so). Ultimately, Steemit is about ADDING VALUE to the social experience - that is the magic of blockchain technology. So, after some serious pondering, I decided that a weekly "Steem Monsters + Drugs Wars player strategy diary" type series, with CONCISE and ACTIONABLE tips, would be of most value to my audience. Please let me know your thoughts (good and/or bad), and I hope that readers (now and into the future) will benefit from this series. If you gain a better understanding of blockchain, gaming, "blockchain gaming", marketing, and/or any other area of knowledge I end up exploring as this series naturally progresses, then I will have done my "good deed" (of providing value) for the week. Also, feel free to hit me up on the battlefield...

@transcript-junky

1 ) After roughly five tries, I FINALLY won my first DEC prize in a tournament. Granted, I placed 32nd, but that was 300 DEC for a few won battles, and since I was running in place at around 45% DEC capture rate at the time of playing the tournament, that 300 DEC was a LOT easier to earn via the tournament than active game play. So I realized that when you are low on capture rate it is an ideal time to play some tournaments - especially since the battles in the tournaments DO NOT further diminish your capture rate. So the tournaments can be an enjoyable strategic tool, and you can earn the equivalent of HOURS of battle play DEC (at low capture rate) for just a handful of battles (in the tournament). The players in the tournaments are GOOD, and so it is also an opportunity to really up your game and throw around your best cards. In fact, by the time of publishing this post I have placed in 3-4 tournaments (around 150 - 300 DEC each. Hopefully, with practice, I can place higher and win more, but even the lower (10 - 18th place) finishes are rewarding, and I'm using the winnings to buy more gold cards/upgrades.

2 ) This new post (of this series) is the first which has received an UBER-JUICY manual upvote from the official @steemmonsters account. I believe that the @steemmonsters team made a prudent decision switching to manual curation, as this elevates the most valuable posts related SPECIFICALLY to the game. And since I believe the fundamentals of SteemMonsters are SO STRONG at this point (considering that the new Kickstarter campaign, for the next edition of "Untamed" cards, reached the campaign goal within 24 hours of launch), I think it is safe to say that the SP which the SteemMonsters curators will have on hand to upvote good posts will increase over time, and this will lead to higher upvote income for good posts, which can then be reinvested into cards. So it is a positive feedback process. Another major benefit of the rather large SteemMonsters upvotes is that my posts have been hitting the trending pages of BOTH the #steemmonsters and #drugwars hashtags, and this a MAJOR BOON for drawing in some new followers and upvotes. I am confident that the posts in this series are PACKED with valuable, and actionable, information, and so I believe that the large upvotes and benefits of hitting the trending page are well-justified relative to the amount of time and energy I put into creating these posts. From the response I have been getting I think it is safe to say that the audience agrees.

3 ) I've realized that upgrading my gold cards with the DEC I earn from won battles has some limits, in terms of the fact that the higher levels you achieve (in upgrading) the more those gold cards are limited in functionality due to the summoner and season levels. In other words, gold cards above, let's say, "Level 8", are going to be limited in their functionality (which you have spent DEC to upgrade which you could have spent on more immediately functional upgrades) for MOST of the season (assuming you are even ABLE to reach "Diamond" level (at which time max levels of most cards are unlocked). This also applies to the limits on many of the tournaments. This means that it is actually BETTER - or MORE EFFICIENT - to upgrade each gold card to Level 7 or Level 8, and then work on upgrading the lower levels of some of the OTHER gold cards so that you can increase the earnings from those, and then GO BACK to upgrading the earlier ones (since you will be earning more DEC from the other lower-level gold cards, which will make the upgrade of higher level go FASTER than it would otherwise, because you are earning more DEC). This also holds true for non-gold cards. In fact, with the new season I have started upgrading my non-gold "Furious Chicken", which at only ~ $0.35 USD - $0.50 USD per card is easy to buy 2-3 new cards per day (at around 400 DEC each). I just wanted to get to Level 5 of that card ASAP, so that I could begin to use the "enrage" power. Having now reached that (in as few as three days) I will now upgrade this card further primarily via any cards I get in the daily rewards batches. That will take some time, but I have unlocked the major functionality of that card now, and so it is not a priority to focus my limited daily DEC on that for now. With some cards, upgrading to Level 7 or Level 8 may be all you need for your general purposes, and you can then allocate your DEC onto cards/upgrades which produce more immediate ROI.

4 ) I decided to take the plunge and buy one "100% gold card" AND one "100% legendary card" potions, with the two main goals of winning BOTH some suer-power cards, AND as maximizing my winnings of gold cards to add to my collection (and to use to increase my daily DEC earnings by winning battles using as many gold cards as possible). The trial run of the "+25% gold card" potion didn't seem to produce noticable increase in gold cards, and so I would like to see if the "+100%" potion will. I saw some players winning gold legendaries by using these two potions, and so I hope it works. Actually, in the VERY FIRST daily reward batch I got after purchasing the two potions I hit a "Fallen Specter" (legendary) card, which is valued (as of writing this post) at ~ $4.50. Then a "Ruler Of The Seas" (legendary - valued at ~ $3.90) on the second day. ON the third day I tried my luck with buying a Beta pack, and scored a "Crypt Mancer" (Legendary Summoner - ~ $10.00 USD) So considering that the cost of the two potions was as follows:

135 Steem = 19,600 (100% Legendary potion) - Oct 3rd, 2019 [Steem ~ $0.14 USD = ~ $18.90 USD] 500 charges
170 Steem = 26,500 (100% Gold Card potion) - Oct 3rd, 2019 [Steem ~ $0.14 USD = ~ $23.80 USD] 500 charges

Total = 304 Steem = (46,100 DEC) = ~$42.70 USD

... I have already recuperated ~ $18.40 of the above total, for an adjusted total of ~ $24.30 (cost for the potions). And this is just in the FIRST THREE DAYS after purchasing the potions. So we're off to a good start. I will continue to monitor the rewards cards (and their value) going forward (concentrating on legendaries and golds) and calculate the gain versus the total cost of $42.70 for the remainder of the 500 cards which the potions are applied to. Then I will be able to make an informed decision as to whether or not it is worth buying these potions again. My intuition tells me it will be WELL WORTH it. But let's see. Regardless, it adds some fun "risk-taking" to the game, and ultimately it's all about having fun here. Earning $$$ is just an addition JUICY PERK to the fun-factor.

5 ) By mid-week of wiring this series post I became aware that the Beta edition cards were on the verge of running out, and I was also still soured about the fact that I had lost so much in @kryptogames a few months back, but STILL had several million Krypto Gamers tokens in my Steem-Engine account. I had aso watched a video of @clove71 getting her JOLLIES opening LOTS of beta packs using the "+100% legendary" plus "100% gold" potions, and scoring a few MAJOR gold legendaries, and so I figure "WWhat the heck!". So I sold off all of my Kryptogamers tokens and bought a "100 beta pack" promo batch, which has the added perk of 10 free beta packs. Well, it turns out that within the first 10 packs of the batch I hit the LOVELY "Spirit of The Forest" GOLD card, which is not only a BEAUTIFUL card with MAJOR functionality, and which I use DAILY, but also worth $130 USD! In fact, the with the two potions, I ended up hitting probably $300-$400 USD + worth of cards in that first batch (includin LOTS of gold cards - enough that I have now begun trying my hand at the gold tournaments). I had so much much fun with that first 100-card promo batch that I sold some BTC and bought ANOTHER 100-card promo pack within 24 hours of the beta edition packs running out. With that second batch I had another JUICY score of gold and legendaries (worth WELL OVER the $200 USD cost of the promo batch). And then when the team launched the pre-sale of the new "Untamed" edtion yesterday, I figured, "Oh, what the hell? My BTC is just sitting there in limbo for the most part. Might as well liquidate it into some fun that I can use everyday and earn more cards." So I sold another 0.03 BTC and bought a 100-card promo pack of the new "Untamed" edition of cards. By buying in on the first batch of those new promo cards I will now be eligible to receive airdops on ALL of the subsequent batches in the pre-sale. I think that is enough of an expenditure for me, and then will at least allow me to open 550 new "Untamed" cards, so that I have some sort of foundational collection when those are introduced into the larger game. I also consider this a way of helping fund SteemMonsters. With the gold and legendary potions I am SURE I will hit some UER-JUICY cards which will more than offset the $200 USD cost of the promo pack, and have fun opening the cards. The other option is to just check the price of BTC every FRIGGIN day, as it moved perpetually up and down. I'd rather enjoy myself with the SM cards than torture myself constatly checking the price of BTC. Hopefully, the gains I have through SM will enable me to start buying up some more BTC. That would be ideal.

6 ) This past week I got BOTH distracted by SteemMOnsters, AND a bit burnt out on Drug Wars. So I decided to simple dial down my @drugwars activity to a few quick daily tasks : ( 1 ) putting all of the drug assets from each base into the daily heist within an hour of the daily payout on the heist. ( 2 ) Then using the "Weapons" and "Alcohol" assets of each base to recruit battle units. ( 3 ) do as many lower-tier jobs as possible per day (including replenishing the lost battle units so that I can do the job again with full capacity). ( 4 ) when I have enough gains in assets (through the jobs) each day I focus on upgrading the "training center" units of each base, AND the drug production units, with the goal of increasing the speed of recruiting units (and thus being able to do more jobs each day) AND increasing the amount of drug assets I can invest in the daily heist, which helps me accumulate more Drug Wars Dollars (DWD), which can be put to long-term use (potentially by selling on Steem-Engine, coverting to DEC and buying more SteemMonsters cards). In this way, the efforts of the two games work together. Sometimes I will have more time and energy to focus on DrugWars, while other I will need to focus that time-energy more on SteemMonsters. In the end they are all connected.

I hope you find some/any of these tips useful in increasing your understanding and/or skill level in the Steem Monsters (Splinterland) and/or Drug Wars game(s). More JUICY tips to come with each weekly update, as I become more experienced and successful in the game.

See you on the battlefield...

@transcript-junky