Steem Monsters - Four Things I've Learned

I've been playing Steem Monsters, a collectible trading card game built on blockchain technology, for close to three weeks and there are a few things I've learned along the way. Here are four things that I've learned which have improved my game:

1 - Native Cards Are Better Than Neutral Cards

In games like Steem Monsters each of the cards fall along what's referred to as a Power Curve. This is a graph of the relationship between the usefulness of the card and how much it costs to put into play. This kind of planning keeps the game balanced. Cards will generally deviate by around 10% from the curve to keep things interesting for the players who will seek to find an edge. For a perfect example, there is usually a melee monster with sneak native to each magic type or shard. There is also a very similar card called Elvin Cutthroat which is Neutral, meaning it doesn't belong to a specific shard. It isn't quite as good as the monsters belonging to shards. It's a trade-off for being available in more situations. It's also great to use both on a team to put pressure on the same target at the back of your opponent's team.

2 - Always Scope Out Your Opponent

At the beginning of each match, before you start to select your team, there is an opportunity to gain some intelligence on your opponent. At a glance you can see the shard they've chosen for the past five matches. Each of these five little icons can be expanded to see the composition of their team each time, including the level of each card used. Even if you don't really understand this information yet, it's good to get into the habit of exposing yourself to this information regardless. You will find yourself incorporating this information into your strategy for team drafting more and more. I've won matches because I was successfully able to anticipate my opponent's team.

3 - One Point Can Make A Difference

Sometimes a single stat point can make the difference between winning or losing a match. Whether it be an attack point, a speed point or a health point, having it one higher or one lower can make a big difference. This is why leveling up your cards by combining doubles is important. You can get more cards through buying specific cards from the marketplace, buying booster packs or winning reward cards from daily quests and end-of-season rewards.

Sometimes it can be frustrating and it can be tempting to just blow a bunch of cash on upgrading but there are ways to upgrade without spending money. You can grind out your daily rewards for new cards every day. The higher you've gone up in the rankings, the more reward cards you will get each day, plus a bunch of extras every two weeks. Also, within the next couple of months they will be implementing Dark Energy Crystals or DEC which will be an in-game currency you can earn through winning battles. It's very likely that you will be able to use DEC to buy new cards as well, giving you another way to grind out new cards for your collection.

4 - Higher Level Monsters Can Be Summoned By Lower Level Summoners

When I first started the game I was afraid to level up my Monsters too fast because my Summoners weren't high enough to summon them. I didn't want these cards to become unusable. What I discovered is that you can upgrade your monsters freely and if you try to summon them with a Summoner that isn't of a high enough level, the system will temporarily reduce the level of your monster to a the highest level your summoner is currently capable of handling. For example, if you have a summoner capable of summoning level 4 common monsters, but your common monster is level 5, the system will "nerf" it down to a level 4 card just for that match. You can feel free to upgrade your monsters without worrying about not being able to use them. Another thing we can learn from this is...

Bonus Tip: Summoners Are The Bottleneck on Your Team

You can level up your monsters all you want, but until your Summoner is capable of summoning it at that level, those upgraded stats cannot be used in a battle. Your team is only as strong as it's Summoner.

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