Hello Splinterlands Summoners and welcome to another edition of Splinterlands Community Engagement Challenge! Today, I'll be sharing my #SplinterlandsJourney: How I discovered the game and incidentally, Hive; my first card investment; the Chaos Legion set and playing Splinterlands going forward.

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How I Discovered Splinterlands

Back in 2021, #play2earn gaming was becoming popular. It was the golden era of p2e, people weren’t just playing games for fun, but actually earning real money from playing. I was deep into Axie Infinity, battling with my own team of Axies for tokens called SLP. But like many p2e players, I started exploring for more games, looking for the next big thing. That’s when I stumbled across Splinterlands. Now, I am still playing Splinterlands long after I quit Axie.

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My First Card Investment

Back then, we were earning DEC and not SPS and we can use ghost cards to earn. It was simpler times that you can earn from Splinterlands without the need for card ownership or staked SPS. I found the game fun and addicting and soon I was not content with just playing with ghost cards. Having played in Bronze, the best cards back then were Llama/Kron combo. It was difficult to beat in Bronze but I had no funds to buy it. So I settled for the other card that was best in Bronze League: Mylor Crowling.

Back then, Thorns was a rare ability and Mylor provides the ability to the team making it hard to beat. My usual team was Unicorn Mustang at tank followed by Mushroom Seer, Wood Nymph, Goblin Thief and Earth Elemental.

Unicorn Mustang	Mushroom Seer	Wood Nymph	Goblin Thief	Earth Elemental

This team is very effective against melee and magic teams alike.

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Chaos Legion Set

Soon after, the Splinterlands team announced the release of Chaos Legion set. I was excited for this new beginning of Splinterlands since it was costly to invest in the older cards and Chaos Legion was a lot cheaper aside from providing new cards designs and abilities. I bought a lot of packs and had a silver levelled deck. However it was around after the Chaos Legion set release that Splinterlands and other play2earn games declined. Many did not anticipate the inflation in tokens and NFTs that plagued the p2e games and even the most popular, Axie lost a lot of players. On the other hand, Splinterlands continues to be a fun game and it has a passionate community and players which allowed it to thrive even in the most challenging times. Three years after I started playing Splinterlands, I'm still playing it and looking forward to the new set: Conclave Arcana.

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Conclave Arcana

This year, Conclave Arcana will be released and once again I'm excited for what Splinterlands has in store for us. For me, the new set is a new beginning. New cards, new abilities and rulesets. I would have to relearn strategies and card combinations. The cards that once meta will be gone and replaced by new ones. It's an exciting time for Splinterlands players.

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Final Thoughts

Looking back, discovering Splinterlands in 2021 was one of the best things to come out of the #play2earn craze for me. As other games have faded and struggled to keep up, Splinterlands continued to evolve, adding new features that kept me engaged. For me, Splinterlands is more than just a game. It's an investment and a fun, competitive strategy game combined. If you're into fun games that reward your time, check out Splinterlands and you may discover it the same way I did: looking for earnings and finding something even better.

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