Hey everyone and welcome back to my Splinterlands blog where today I will be making a post for this weeks Social Media Challenge about a historic moment for Splinterlands and something that was needed for a long time now.

This weeks challenge is the same as last weeks:

🔥 Share Your Most Remarkable Splinterlands Moments: Do you possess a battle of epic proportions that deserves to be seen by all? Have you crafted something extraordinary within the Splinterlands realm? Maybe you've got profound thoughts, insights, or strategies related to stats, cards, abilities, or gameplay that are waiting to be shared? We want it all, and we want it to be nothing short of AMAZING!

To find out how you can participate in this challenge yourself, check out the Splinterlands post here.

Well, it's easy to choose what the most amazing part of Splinterlands for this week was, and it's not something that has to do with me or my gameplay personally, it's the launch of the app so the game is available to be played anytime, anywhere - as long as you have an Android phone, iOS users have to wait a little while longer unfortunately.

A new era for Splinterlands

Mistakes have been made in the past and we have been dealing with this for the last, 3 years maybe? The one that affected the game the most was the overprinting of the Chaos Legion set, because of which this set lost a lot of its value and why players lost faith in the game simply because they lost money.

I was one of those people, I think everyone who's still here at this point has lost on Chaos Legion, but what's important to remember is that Splinterlands is a game first and it's here to bring entertainment, and it sure did that for me and it's the reason why I kept going and I'm still here.

Because of the over printing, the Chaos Legion cards became really cheap so it was pretty affordable for many people to buy a max level deck and compete at the top and hence, the game became very top heavy with only a small number of players playing in the lower leagues - this is not how the game is designed, and without getting in too much detail, with the arrival of the new set, Chaos Legion is pushed out of the Modern League where only the last two sets are allowed to be played in, because of this many players simply can't afford to play in the top including myself, and I don't mind at all - actually I'm really excited for what this new chapter of Splinterlands will bring us!

Getting better and stronger

What Matt, the founder of this game started has grown to a really big thing and it's not easy doing something was has never been done before - creating a game that is owned by the players, and all value in the game is not going to the owner but to the players, that was his dream and while it hasn't been easy and he is the first to admit mistakes were made, but we all make them and what's important is to learn from them and to not repeat them, but improve, and make sure this doesn't happen again.

🔧 Major Developments in Splinterlands (2024–2025)

🧑‍💼 Leadership Changes

Matt Rosen Appointed CEO: Matt Rosen, co-founder and former CTO of Splinterlands, stepped into the role of CEO, not because he wanted to but because it's what was needed, I'm thankful he made this sacrifice, doing something that he didn't like for the game, and it was great to hear someone else was taking this job from him so he could do what he loves again.

Dave McCoy Becomes COO: Dave McCoy transitioned to the role of Chief Operating Officer, aiming to enhance operational efficiency and strategic planning, one of the OG players in the game with experience running companies, I think there isn't anyone better for this job.

🎮 Introduction of a New Game Mode

Survival Mode: A new ranked gameplay format that allows players to battle without energy costs. However, defeated cards enter a cooldown period, making them temporarily unusable. In this mode having a lot of cards is a necessity and it brings value to older and unused cards in large collections

🛠️ Gameplay and User Experience Enhancements

Reward System Overhaul: Implemented a different reward system with a soul bound token called Glint, and introduced the Glint Rewards Shop, refining how players earn and redeem rewards.

New Rule Sets: Introduced additional battle rule sets, adding variety and strategic depth to matches.

Midnight Potions: Added new crafting options with Midnight Potions, expanding gameplay mechanics as well as combining Land, where the potions are being crafted with the rest of the game for the first time.

Mobile UI Improvements: Enhanced the mobile interface, including better card tooltips and responsive design adjustments for smaller screens.

🆓 Free-to-Play Mode in Splinterlands

Splinterlands offers a free-to-play mode, as part of the New Player Experience which means anyone can start playing the game without spending money right away. New players can create an account and try out battles using Starter Cards, which are provided automatically. These cards can’t be sold or rented, but they let you learn the game and enjoy the experience without needing to buy a Spellbook or any cards.

This F2P mode helps more people try Splinterlands, especially those who are new to Web3 or trading card games. Players can test different battle strategies, get used to how the game works, and decide later if they want to invest more by buying the Spellbook or upgrading cards.

It’s a great way to learn by playing, and when you’re ready, you can unlock more features like earning rewards, joining ranked matches, and collecting cards.

It's finally available for Android!

When Splinterlands first launched, it was only played on PC, and once had a horrible app that was later decommissioned but now that it has a much better mobile app for Android, so the game is now much easier for players around the world to access.
Not everyone has a gaming computer, but most people have smartphones. With the mobile version, players can enjoy Splinterlands anytime and anywhere, whether they're at home or on the go.
This helps the game reach more people, grow its community, and increase activity in battles and the marketplace.

Mobile gaming is huge today, with over 2.5 billion people around the world playing games on their phones, so having a mobile app puts Splinterlands in a great position to welcome new players from everywhere.

The Splinterlands team is doing amazing work and keeps improving the game more and more, with just 3 more days until the pre-sale for the new core set called Conclave Arcana ends, things are about to get even more awesome, and one of the best things that happened lately is the launch of the Splinterlands app for Android in the Google Play Store.

So let's see how this works as a new player for the sake of this post and to show it's easy! 🙂

After downloading and installing the game, this is the first screen you see and you can easily register a new account or connect your existing account, maybe you've played once, left the game and now reconsidering your return, good choice!

You just put an in game name, or auto generate if you can't come up with something cool, enter your email address and enter it again, you can also add a referral account, if you're trying this because of this post, please put NOZEM there, but because using referrals to myself is against the terms of service, I'm using my good friend @estebam for this.

Check the box to accept the privacy policy and terms of service.

Complete the captcha to prove you're not a bot and two new boxes appear to make your password.

That's all, you now have a Splinterlands account, completely free to try out the game.

Notice at the top where your username is, there's _LITE behind it, meaning you are still free to play and don't own the spell book.
To enjoy to full potential of the game and be able to earn, you need that, but let's not focus on that now, first let's see if this game is something for you.

At this point, the tutorial is still a Community made YouTube clip that explains the basics, which will soon be replaced by a much better campaign mode that will explain everything to you and in which you can actually earn your very first cards, I told you, the team is doing amazing things with more to come!

I scrolled a bit down until I could see the BATTLE button to enter the first fight and the next screen appears, searching for an opponent.

This can take a couple of seconds, the start is intentionally made easy with just a standard ruleset, when you want to learn more about the game or having difficulties understanding parts of it, let me know in the comments and I'm happy to be your personal guide!

Opponent found, and the next screen brings us to the team selection screen where we can see how much mana is available, what the ruleset is and some explanation tool tips for new players.
Because magic is pretty strong at the lowest level, I'm going for the green team, for this post I will not explain the basics of the game, but again, I'm here to help you, just contact me. 😀

Well, there's a lot wrong with the enemy team's line up, which will work in my favor.

You can either watch the battle (you can adjust the speed as well) or press skip battle, but I recommend as a new player you watch them so you can learn how the mechanics work.

This first battle is a win for me!

I earned 33 glint with this battle, no SPS because I don't have a spell book on this account, but with the glint, you can buy cards to expand your deck, win more, earn more glint, buy more cards and on and on, just be careful because you might never want to stop, I'm still here after 3.5 years of playing! 😅

Just as a teaser, I recently set a new personal record high for earning SPS in one single battle, it was the first time I crossed the 10 SPS, at today's price that's 10 cents for winning just one battle, and I'm not even playing anywhere NEAR the top.

Of course you need to realize this is not something a completely new player can do in a couple of weeks, I'm building this account already for 3.5 years.

Conclusion

I think the ability to play on smartphones will be huge, making the game much more available in certain parts of the world where playing on phones is much more used than on PC's.

Let's see where this all brings us, I'm very excited to be a part of this!

Thank you for reading!!!

If you haven't made an account already, please consider using my referral link to sign up, I'll happily send the amount I get for your signup back to you in DEC or SPS to help you start.

Also, when you require any help to get you started,let me know, I'm here to advice and guide new players and maybe I can help you with card delegations too!

Have a great day!