Hello there! @saydie here, playing Splinterlands everyday!
Recently, Splinterlands has finally introduced its Free-to-Play feature which in my opinion is one of the most important update in the game as it allows new players to experience most parts of the game that are previously locked within a Spellbook purchase which could potentially result for the players to invest and have a long term commitment to the game.
And so, for this week's Community Engagement Challenge, I'm gonna share a walkthrough guide that could help players with the free-to-play account to better navigate the game starting from account creation to all the key features that a free account could access.
Creating an Account
Creating an account is pretty straightforward. Just go to https://splinterlands.com/ and register with your chosen username together with your email address then create your password. There is an option for you to auto-generate your username but I suggest you take your time and choose your username wisely as in case that you decided to purchase a Spellbook, your username will also serve as your Hive wallet and cannot be changed. Also, if you had find this game and use my referral, just comment on this post and I might be able to delegate you with some cards.
After checking the box, accepting the terms of service and completing the captcha, you can now hit the register button. After a few moments, you will receive a verification massage through your email and after verifying that, you will be as good to go to login with your account.
Navigating the Free-to-Play Account
By login in as a free-to-play account, the username that you use upon account creation will be added with the _lite suffix and will be removed with Spellbook purchase. By purchasing a Spellbook, you will also receive 3000 credits (3$ in value) as well as SPS delegation which could last for 30 days but for the mean time, this are the things a free-to-play player can do.
- Earn Glint by playing ranked battles.
A free-to-play account can now earn glint every time that they win ranked battles and regardless of their league, they will receive 1x Glint boost even without any staked SPS. The penalty for using starter card were also removed to make sure that free accounts could earn their Glint.
- Purchase Rewards from the Glint Shop.
New players can then use the Glint that they collected to buy items on Gwen's Glint Shop whether it was the rarity draws or the loot chest where they can get either potions, merits, energy or cards. However, they are not eligible for jackpot price.
- Add Credits to use to Rent or Purchase Cards and Packs.
Free-to-play accounts can use credits in order to rent or buy cards and packs. 1$ is equivalent to 1000 credits and can be purchased using either crypto or PayPal. Just remember though that credits are non- transferable currency.
- Receive/Open Packs and receive Card Gifts and Delegations.
It is also now possible to send or delegate assets on a free account. This is very huge since it allows the community to help onboard new players through card gifting and card delegations.
https://peakmonsters.com/@broken.hero_lite/cards
- Join Guilds and participate on Brawls to earn Merits.
Free accounts can now also enter a guild to participate in guild brawls but unlike to ranked battles, instead of Glint, free accounts will get merits which they can use to purchase gladiator packs on the Guild Shop.
Free-to-Play Account Limitations
While there were a lot of things that a Free-to-Play can now do without the purchase of Spellbook, there are still some actions that are left locked with a Spellbook in order to encourage new players that are seeking full functionality to invest in to the game. This features that are only available for Spellbook Holders includes:
- Sell, Rent, Transfer and Delegate cards.
- Hold DEC or SPS.
- Join Guilds and participate on Brawls to earn Merits.
- Access Land and Soulkeep.
- Earn SPS and Jackpot Rewards.
Additionally, Free-to-Play accounts does not have access to Hive wallet which means they don't have access to keys. They also does not have access to Arcade Colony which means they cannot use it to play GLS or Moonkarts as well as to receive Colony tokens from SPS and GLS staked.
Introduction to the Combat Arena
As a new player, it is important to visit the tutorial. This will allow you to learn the basics of the game.
Once that you know the basics, you can now test yourself into the combat arena by pressing the start button to play your first match.
Upon finding a suitable match, you will also see the different game modifiers which could affect which lineup you will be using. The following modifiers includes:
- Rulesets:This are set of conditions which could either boost or debuff cards, banned certain cards and give cards additional abilities. The above ruleset is Four's a Crowd which limits the use of cards to 4 units.
- Mana Cap:Using card requires a mana cost and mana cap limits how much mana that a lineup could use in the battle.
- Active Elements:Tells which elements are only allowed to be used in battle.
- Countdown Timer:Tells how much time you are left to build your team before the battle start. When the time runs out your team will automatically be sent to battle.
- Recently Played Teams:Tells the previous teams that your opponent use. Can use to predict their card collection and previous lineup and strategize a counter to the potential lineup that the opponent will build.
Modern Card Anatomy
Summoner Selection
Summoners do not attack in battle. Instead what they do is to manifest the cards that will fight for you in the battle including the element of the cards that can be summoned. many of them also provide stat boost or abilities or you cards or debuff the opponent units.
Team Selection
When creating a lineup, the basic composition comes with the melee monsters on the front as most of them can only attack on the first position followed by magic somewhere in the middle since it can attack regardless of its position. Range units usually fall into the back because they can attack in any position with the exception of the first position.
Become a Full-fledged Battle mage
After trying out the game on a Free-to-Play account and new players got to experience a game ideally, they would want to play Play-to-Earn part of the game and in order to do that, they need to purchase the Summoner Spellbook which cost 10$ through PayPal or Crypto. Some were also given with a code which they need to input to get a Spellbook. Once Spellbook is purchased, the player will be given 3000 credits and an SPS delegation for a month.
Closing
The addition of the Free-to-Play mode in Splinterlands is a major milestone to the game and may be one of the missing pieces that we need before the game to finally take off. It's gonna take some time to build up steam but with more marketing push, we might be able to reach more people again with better player retention.
Thank you and see you on the next post!
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All the image that I edited here belongs to Splinterlands.
Card abilities and rulesets from Splintercards
All the battle links provided comes from my personal accounts and from the scholar account that I am using from Balthazar Guild.
Thank you for reading my post. If you're interested to play Splinterlands, you can join by clicking the images below and follow me on Twitter and 3Speak for timely Splinterlands updates.
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