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It's been a few weeks since I've started my Splinterlands account from scratch. And there's definitely a few things I've learned so far from playing through my daily battles and observing the game economy. Here's a few tips that is important to note, in my beginner opinion.

**Card Level Makes a Lot of Difference**
A cool distinction of Splinterlands against physical card games like Magic: The Gathering or Pokemon is that the cards that you use in the game actually becomes stronger as you combine it with multiple copies and it levels up. The card stats increase significantly enough that it can sometimes carry the game in your favor.
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Let's take one of my favorite cards to spam, Steppe Stalker, as an example. For the same mana cost of 7, a level one card would only get you 2 range attack and close range ability. Meanwhile, a max level one will get you three more abilities, 3 range damage, and double the health. The difference in mana value is night and day. Many cards unlock their true worth in the max levels.



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**It's All About the Archons**
But aside from the card levels, a more crucial factor to consider is the archons. A high level card would be deemed useless if not paired with a sufficiently leveled archon as its partner.

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If you check the card stats for archons in the card collection tab, you can see what the maximum levels you can unlock are for each rarity. For players that are like me who want to slowly grind and increase the strength of my cards, it's better to start with the archons that correspond to the element that you are most interested in and start combining copies of it. As for my personal target, I am leveling up Kavor Skarn which is the dragon element because it can utilize all other elements given that it is permitted in the match rules. My secondary archon that I will try to level is Gorgug the Endless as I am also interested in the water element. 

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**SPS Reward Bonuses**

From what I'm seeing, one of the best incentives for playing in modern ranked battles is the SPS rewards which has a value right now of $0.0075 each token. It's mentioned in the beginner guides that having larger amounts of staked SPS increases your potential reward. Thankfully for me, signing up under Bravetofu's referral program gained me a temporary allocation of 50,000 SPS, which was very helpful.

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But one thing I've realized while comparing the rewards I receive versus my opponent, it's not all about the staked SPS. Sometimes they would have lower staked SPS than me but receive higher rewards. This was due to their bonuses which is determined by a few factors. First, I managed to enter a guild which gives me a 7% bonus. I've also recently purchased a gold Arcane Skinwalker because gold cards give 10% bonus. Additionally, Arcane Skinwalker is also considered a promo card which also gives me another 10%. This means by simply including it in my battles, I automatically get 20% bonus in SPS reward when I win.
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My next target to increasing my SPS bonus will be having five lands in my account which is another 5% bonus. This will be harder to do since it will require around $75 since the cheapest lands go for $15 right now.

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Those are the learnings that I've gained through the weeks that I've been playing Splinterlands. I'm sure there will be a lot more to discover as I continue on my journey. #learningjourney Thank you for reading.




Please use my referral link if you guys are new and want to get into Splinterlands.
https://splinterlands.com/register?ref=badeaux

Special thanks to Saydie for providing free dividers. You can check them out here:
https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@saydie/free-to-use-splinterlands-dividers-and-other-materials-for-blogging