Making Dollars in Death: Renting and Earning in GOLD League

Making Dollars in Death: Renting and Earning in GOLD League

Since the new RANKED REWARDS system in SPLINTERLANDS went live, I've certainly been doing a lot of thinking about how I can attempt (and attempt is the right word) to develop a strategy that works for me. I've been through a few, let me tell you! Initially I decided to do nothing different and to just hang out in Silver I. No need for rentals, and I always felt comfortable and was achieving a strong win rate.

However, I came to realise, that long term, I really need to position myself to be 'comfortable' in Gold I. This was always going to be a journey - and it was one I decided to start. Step One was buying Card Power - and I've done just that, recently moving from 84,000 Card Power up to about 125,000 Card Power (Owned). The goal of course is 200,000 - and really will be a necessity in order to maximise returns from this league.

But then of course, it's all about finding the right splinter, and that is what this post is all about. I wanted to ask the question what would renting max cards look like, and how they would work in the league. I decided to do this when I had a DEATH splinter come up, figuring, it is an unloved splinter, so why not?

What I found was: it's actually amazing because you have two top tier summoners to work with!
Let me first go through my rental strategy:

The first column shows the name of the card, the second was the card's level, and the third box a rounded figure for the rental. Working down, you can see the top lines are summoners and legendary cards, the next is epic, after the next break after my rares and the lower section are my common rentals.

The key to this strategy, of course, is summoners:

1. I picked up Owster Rotwell - I like this guy because he is anti-magic, and that makes him incredibly useful. In fact, if you come up against an Obsidian team, you'd put money on taking an easy win! At 35 DEC for a max summoner for GOLD, this guy is an absolute bargain to be able to lock in some high level cards for him to pair with.

2. I picked up Zintar (Alpha) for 70 DEC, and got him at Level 8. Now as far as his level goes, he is absolutely more leveled up than I needed, but the Level 8 was a cheaper rental than the Level 6 - so it was a no brainer. This guy is rather awesome, however, for when you come up against any melee attack team - think FIRE or WATER combos who hit you with force! You can reduce them down to the small meow of a newborn kitten!

Then, working through my list - there were a couple of key cards I thought was particularly useful:

Level 3 Djinn Muirat - at a cost of 26 DEC. I found that I used this guy in a lot of my battles, often positioning him behind the Level 3 Legionaire Alvar (a card I already owned). If I didn't, I'd recommend renting him. The reason: both of these cards have that magic shield, which means that magic must hit their shield before their health. Now, if you pair this with Owster's REFLECT, all of a sudden you have an incredibly dangerous line-up out the front. The Legionaire also has the demoralize skill, which means your opponent's lose -1 melee, paired with Zintar, thats -2! (And, other cards in your deck can reduce the line-up further!

Then of course, I needed some support actors - and what I found was, I love to poison! I often played the below four cards, sending Silent Sha-Vi, Skeleton Assassin and the Uraeus (already owned) on a sneak assault - and because two of the cards have the poison ability, I found I was nearly guaranteed to have one of them stick. This allowed me to whip pretty quickly through back-lines.

The other part of the poison strategy is to aim at the tank, and that's where my Venari Bonesmith (already owned) came in handy. Basically, I was poisoning from the back and the front! You'll notice too, that I deliberately picked up the Silent Sha-Vi and the Skeleton Assassin in a gold foil which helped to maximise my rshares I was earning in each battle. The Silent Sha-Vi at a cost of only 7 DEC was the bargain of the day, and the Skeleton assassin at 58 wasn't too bad, given the price difference to the regular print wasn't a big difference. He also came with 6000 CARD POWER, which helped me push to over 150,000 and move into Gold II, again, upping my rshares.

Another one of the bargains in this line up was the Octopider, who has the demoralize skill. He's only 3 DEC, so he's a bargain, not that I used him often, but he felt cheap enough that I'd rent him again at that price. More interesting was the Cursed Wendiku, who at 30 DEC isn't cheap, but he felt like a strong card with his ability to use his thorns to puncture and then to heal. In truth, I didn't use this card a lot - but he was worth having in the line-up. And then of course, my most used tank, the Harklaw, again - his demoralize skill is amazing - and all the cards stack with each other! While I own Harklaw, the truth is, if you didn't have him, you'd want to get him. His SHIELD and anti-poison skill make him one of the most useful cards in the whole line-up!

Want to see the line-up in action? Click this link for the battle.

It shows the anti-melee team in full swing. In this battle my opponent plays a strong melee line-up, which I reduce to +1 only. Now in this battle, my 0 mana FIEND and my PRIEST are both going to die - but then, my BETTLE, with his SHIELD ability will be targeted as the OPPORTUNITY skill will target his 3 health. And you know what? With only +1 melee hitting him, he won't even lose a single piece of armour! How's that for frustrating an opponent?

So what did the journey yesterday look like?

Here's where I started the day,having won 79 of my 144 battles this season. The numbers are a little bit skewed because I started the season with a 21-0 streak to get out of Silver. Not sure how I did it, but I just couldn't lose on Day 1!

Then by the end of my day, here's where I ended up - still on a 55% win rate for the season. But - I think this is actually stronger than it appears. The reason is, if you deleted the 21 win streak I had on the start of the season and make my win rate 58/123, that's only 47% win rate in gold. So actually, by going 41/76 I was winning about 8% more than I had earlier in the season in gold. That's not too bad an improvement!

But I hear you say, was it worth it?
To answer this, let's look at the numbers. It cost me 407 DEC in rentals yesterday, from that, I made 110 DEC back in wins. And then, the reward chests - I picked up 16 of them, would you believe? Not a bad day out - and those chests returned 704 DEC (Plus four cards and some potions - for numbers sake, at 1 cent each, let's put a 15 DEC value on each of them for another 60 DEC).

That means total cost was: 407 DEC
That means total return was: 764 DEC

That's a solid enough return, accessing 88% more DEC than I spent!

And what did I learn from all of this? Well, I made a lot of mistakes. You see, I really didn't know what to rent, being new to the GOLD league and not really having a great understanding of strategies. But here's my updated chart, you can see, some I would say 'Yes' to re-rent, some I would say 'Nope', and I also made the decision to buy a MAXED Level 6 Revealer - mostly for the CARD POWER (because Reward card epics get the best card power returns). That means if I was to do this strategy again, if the same prices presented, I could pick up what I needed for about 270 DEC - Meaning that my potential for increased profits look likely!

What do you think? and final thoughts.
I really liked playing in DEATH splinter, because it gave me the ability to play anti-magic or anti-melee. It was actually rather fun, rather than trying to spam a Kron/Llama strategy like I've done before. That said, I feel like I need to put some dollars into getting myself one of the new legendary reward cards, Venator Kinjo - as his REFLECTION SHIELD stops blast, and I think it would have let me win at a higher win %, as I lost a number of blast battles by having a weak support line.

I'd love to hear what you guys think are some more key cards to take on in DEATH, because I'm all about getting that win rate up and maximising my returns!

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