Hello! This post is for Splinterlands Community Engagement Challenge: Support Articles. For this week, we have the theme of leveling up your cards. Cards are the most important part in Splinterlands, because you need these to play almost all of Splinterland's game segments from simple Ranked to Tournaments, Brawls and even Land.

Card Types

There are 4 types of rarity: Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. They all require different amount of cards to level up. Also, there are summoners which are required to play your units, and it also decides the max level of your units. In this post, I will be talking about the Modern cards, since it is most used.

Commons

Commons are the cards that you need the most to level up. But, their cost will be cheap (usually). There are 10 levels for common cards, and a max level Common card needs 400 cards.

Rares

Rares are much rarer than Commons, but they also require fewer cards to level up. There are 8 levels, and max level requires 115 cards.

Epics

Epics are more on the expensive side due to its rarity, but it requires more fewer cards than Rare cards. It has maximum of 6 levels, and you need 46 cards.

Legendries

Lastly, Legendries need the fewest cards, but it is often the most expensive. There are 4 levels, and maximum level needs 11 cards.

Summoners

Summoners are the cards that decides the maximum level that your cards can be. For example, this is a Rare Summoner, and it can play maximum of these levels at the certain level.

Gold Cards

Gold cards are much expensive than the normal cards. However, they require fewer cards to level up in comparison, and gives +10% reward boost. A max GF common needs only 38, while regular ones need 400.

Benefits of leveling up

There are a lot of benefits that you can get by only leveling up cards! There are things like increased Collection Power and Production Power, which is useful in Tournaments and Land, but the most important one is that you can get improved stats.

Between L9 and L10, Scavo Chemist gets a new ability: Headwinds. This helps your team greatly in certain cases. Also, between L8 and L9, it gains another HP, which can help this card stay in battle longer.

However, leveling up cards are not always a good choice. In Scavo Chemist, if you level this card to L6 from L5, it gains a new ability but loses HP, which can be a minor inconvenience.

Similarly, Fenmoor Haunt loses attack power, but gains Scavenge ability between L9 and L10. Then, when should I upgrade the cards?

Leveling up: Focus on abilities / attack power

Ash Mirage gains +1 ranged in Level 4, Reflection Shield in Level 6, and another +1 ranged in Level 10. These levels are the most suitable to level up cards, since they are the most important ones.

For non-attacking cards or cards that does not have attack power increasement, abilities are much more important. For instance, Riftwing gets Backfire in Level 5, and Headwinds in Level 8. This means that Level 8 card and Level 10 card only has a difference of 2 health, which is significantly less than a game-changing abilities like Rebirth / Tank Heal etc.

Of course, you need to level up your summoner first, before actually leveling up your units. This way, you can ensure that your cards can be used in their current level and not get restricted.

What cards Do I buy?

There are really various cards in Splinterlands, and sometimes it can be hard to decide whether to buy many cheap ones or singular expensive card. Here is my strategy for new players.
(This is only my personal opinion!)

• Choose your Level: I personally like to decide what rank (Bronze/Silver/Gold/Diamond) that I aim to reach. This way, I can rent the appropriate level that is matched.
• Summoners First: Summoners are required to play the game. You should at least rent a summoner first, and than rent/buy the units. Chaos Legion Rare Core summoners are the cheapest, so I think these are good for starters. You can also get CL Core Legendries, or if you have more budget, go for Rebellion Leg summoners as they are powerful.
• Frequently used cards next: Cards like Deeplurcker, Goblin Psychic, Pelacor Bendit are some of the staples that you need. I usually go for those cards after I get the summoners.
• Chaos Legion: Alpha/Beta/Untamed is only useful in Wild, and they are expensive anyway. Rebellion is a new set and although it is powerful, it is also expensive with low print supply. Although CL will rotate out, I think that it is still better to use it with its high supply resulting in low price.

Conclusion

And that is the end! Splinterland has plenty of diversity which makes the game interesting, even the leveling up parts. Although you need a lot of initial budget to max out your cards, gradually you can get some rarer units as you play by. I hope that this was helpful to the readers!

Thanks!

Thanks to all the people that read this post!

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All images are used from Splinterland.