"Splinterlands" + "Drug Wars" -- Power Strategy Tips #42

As I have now been playing "Splinterlands" (formerly called "Steem Monsters") and "Drug Wars" for several months, I've wanted to contribute something of ACTIONABLE value to my fellow players (and FUTURE players) - but NOT just fill my Steemit feed with daily images of quest reward - or battle - SPAM, (no offense to those doing so). Ultimately, Steemit is about ADDING VALUE to the social experience - that is the magic of blockchain gaming (and social media) technology. So, after some serious pondering, I decided that a weekly "Splinterlands + "Drugs Wars" player strategy diary" type series, with CONCISE and ACTIONABLE tips, would be of most value to my audience. Please let me know your thoughts (good and/or bad), and I hope that readers (now and into the future) will benefit from this series. If you gain a better understanding of blockchain, gaming, "blockchain gaming", marketing, and/or any other area of knowledge I end up exploring as this series naturally progresses, then I will have done my "good deed" (of providing value) for the week. Also, feel free to hit me up on the battlefield.

@transcript-junky

1 ) I believe that #Splinterlands has now grown big enough that there is a CONSISTENT flow of high-quality #Steemit posts being made related to the game, and related issues (compared to a few months ago, where some days it was difficult to find enough articles to consume to reach my goal of "reading one #steemmonsters and one #drugwars related article per day"). I am now able to choose from a VAST number of articles/videos both WITHIN Steemit and OUTSIDE, on the broader internet. This is also deepening my sense of connection with the game, helping to inform my strategy, increasing my ENJOYMENT of the game, and deepening my connections on Steemit. As I have said recently, I believe that a proper game like "Splinterlands" was necessary to take Steemit to the next level, as it allows Steemians to ACTIVELY USE the blockchain tech for more focused, and tangible, purposes above and beyond just "making posts". What's even better is that we can now ALSO make posts IN ADDITION (and RELATED) to our Splinterlands activity, which helps the development and progress of BOTH Steemit and related dApps TOGETHER. This is a good time to be involved with this platform. I like to say that we have reached the "Steemit 2.0" stage, and it feels damn good.

2 ) On the "Drug Wars" front, I made some consistent progress this week. My fellow gang members have kept up doing the gang jobs, and I have added the additional task of doing some raids, between jobs (with my new army, which is growing due to the income from the gang and solo jobs, and increasingly larger-capacity defense buildings), to increase the amount of resources coming in during the waiting period between jobs. As I work up to the higher level jobs (currently doing Level 6 jobs) the waiting time becomes longer, and so being able to work through my list of high-payout raid bases helps replenish lost battle units, and upgrade defense, safe capacity, and training levels FASTER than if I were only doing the solo jobs.

I have also been doing a sort of "A/B" comparison between my activity in "Drug Wars" versus "Prospectors", and here are my feelings now that I am back up and running smoothly with Drug Wars again (since they introduced the recent upgrades which have made participation more attractive again). Logging in to Prospectors is "bulky" and time-consuming - in the sense that every time I log in the game has to load, which often takes more than a minute. Then, when I get into the game I do NOT have a proper community of allies in the game (compared to Drug Wars, where I have the gang). In addition, it is too complicated to get external crypto into Prospectors, which would at least help boost my momentum there ENOUGH to get over the main "hump" and feel like I am actually progressing. That is what I did when I first started playing Drug Wars. I invested around 20 Steem into Drug Wars some time last year (which has WELL been recouped, with a now continuous stream of daily DWD rolling in). Since I started playing Prospectors two months ago, however, I have made little progress, and have spent a lot of time logging in every hour or so (which is tedious), pressing a few buttons, and logging out. There is no TANGIBLE crypto output from Prospectors, whereas I am able to now withdraw 2-3 "Drug Wars Dollars" per day from Drug Wars, right into my @steem-engine account, with just a few clicks, in less than a minute, and then convert those to DEC to buy potions and/or Splinterlands cards. So there is value of focusing one's efforts on games which are run on ONE SPECIFIC blockchain (in this case, the Steem blockchain). The point is that, at least right now, Prospectors does NOT provide me the most valuable benefits which Drug Wars DOES (community, crypto liquidity, and motivation to play) - EVEN THOUGH, in some ways, Prospectors has a more serious (and larger) development team behind it, and wider exposure on the wider web. What I am learning is that FUNCTIONALITY, and "ease of use" are probably MORE IMPORTANT than anything else with these blockchain games. So, whereas two weeks ago I was actually seriously considering STOPPING playing Drug Wars and starting to focus all of my effort/energy on Prospectors, the situation has actually REVERSED now! And so since I am now making REAL progress again on Drug Wars what I will do is take things "one week at a time" for now. I will continue engaging with Prospectors as part of my "A/B" test of Drug Wars versus Prospectors, since the games are similar, and so they provide a good comparison. Maybe Prospectors will make some changes (like Drug wars has recently done) which will make it easier to get crypto into that game. But then there are also the Tron dApps which I have been researching, especially now that I am buying Tron each week (with part of the weekly payouts of these posts). So I will continue focusing on Drug Wars while also experimenting with Prospectors and some other blockchain games out there. If Prospectors becomes too tedious, or if I find another game which provides the features I prefer I will try those in a methodical manner, and possible discontinue my Prospectors activity. I think this is a good, and safe, plan for now.

3 ) For the last 2-3 days of this week my DEC liquidity fell WAY down, to the point where ALL of my battle earnings were being used to buy potions to apply "maximum potion" power to all of my rewards cards and two daily Untamed packs. This is an unsustainable situation, as it turns the game play into a chore, instead of an enjoyable experience, and is actually quite difficult to do - consuming A LOT of my day, and often disrupting my normal schedule of other tasks (including work). I needed to eliminate that pressure, and so I considered doing another buy of potions using fiat (via Paypal), but the issue is that (even on a good month) I simply don't have enough expendable fiat income right now to "go all out" on potions. The potions I bought in the first week of last month DID INDEED get me through the month, and that was a good investment of fiat (as I intended it to be), but I would need to spend $30 - $50 USD per month (in fiat) to maintain the potions that way. So what I decided to do instead is to sell 0.025 Bitcoin in order to totally max out on potion promo batches (that is 2,500 ( +375 free ) "brilliant legendary" potions, PLUS 2,500 ( +375 free ) "brilliant alchemy/gold" potions, PLUS 100 ( + 15 free ) "quest" potions. With this massive amount of potions I probably won't have to worry about potions for a good 3 - 6 months ( and will be sure to keep track of how long they last ) and can now properly focus on actually playing the game and buying up new cards/upgrades with the daily DEC earnings, instead of having to stress myself to the breaking point struggling to earn enough DEC each day to cover the potions, which also tends to delay the current strategy of opening the two packs per day. Plus, those 375 free potions of both legendary and alchemy will cover 375 / 5 (cards) = 75 ***Untamed *** packs - any card (out of those 375 cards) which may be a super-card. It feels good not to even have to think about the potions. Fingers crossed. Maybe once these potions are finished I will do another Bitcoin sell for another round. That may be a good pacing mechanism for selling Bitcoin. Since I acquired my main Bitcoin stash as payment for transcription and marketing "remote work" from a few clients, back when Bitcoin was valued at ~ $200 USD - $400 USD, any BTC I sell at this point is considered "taking profit". And by buying up potions that profit is being put to further work increasing the value of my larger crypto holdings. So I think this is an effective, and strategic, way to use my crypto.

4 ) Just a quick update on the tragic issue I had with the BitcoinVideoCasino.com "operation", which I am now EVEN MORE convinced scammed me out of roughly 0.1 Bitcoin in the past six months. Following the strategy laid out by my cybersecurity professional friend who works in a proper cloud computing firm in New York City, I composed a detailed email to the support reps of SeriousTubes.network, which after some seriously challenging digging we found was the email of the hosting company for the BitcoinVideoCasino.com site. Well, when I sent that email yesterday it was "returned to sender". Hmm, go figure. We have now had to go through a labyrinth to find the hosting company, and their email address, and now the email is bouncing! Does that sound like a "legitimate" operation to you? Here is their web site : http://www.serioustubes.network , and when you click on the "support" button on the top right of the main web site page the email address which comes up is : " http://www.serioustubes.network "

I am now EVEN MORE determined to file a claim with Amazon Web Services, which (through some advanced level digging) we have found this SeriousTubes.net hosting company to be an "affiliate" (or "re-seller) of. In other words, the hosting company of the BitcoinVideoCasino.com web site appears to be a FRONT! If this is the case then I am willing to take my claim as far as it needs to go with supporting evidence (like the bounced email) to the highest authorities who can intervene with hosting companies (like I allege this SeriousTubes "front hosting service" to be) to take proper action against sites like BicoinVideoCasino.com to prevent them from from being searchable on the major search engines, resulting in an under-informed public depositing their Bitcoin into this operation without any sort of legitimate, transparent protection. Is that an outlandish expectation? I think not.

Also, let me state here, that my sharing the progress of this issue with you is NOT "all about me". This issue actually relates VERY WELL to the larger issue/subject of " blockchain gaming ", which is the CORE of what I'm exploring through THIS weekly series, and my two other complementary weekly series. To illustrate this, here is one of the articles I shared in this week's " blockchain gaming news " post :

Is gambling with Bitcoin a good idea?
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gambling-bitcoin-good-idea-114525939.html

( the above article is linked in the weekly series post below ) :

Trending Blockchain Gaming News #25 - February 9th, 2020
https://steemit.com/gaming/@transcript-junky/vtrending-blockchain-gaming-news-25-february-9th-2020

You can see that in the "Is gambling with Bitcoin a good idea?" article they clearly state the following:

"The new Bitcoin gambling sites have so far been able to escape the reach of regulators in most nations unlike the traditional industry... For many online gaming sites they must be regulated by some authority. In the UK, licenses are obtained via the UK Gambling Commission. However, sites can obtain licenses from less strict nations and operate legally. There is consequently much more safety in using a traditional gaming company that operates under strict regulations."

This addresses the core of my issue, which is that "online Bitcoin casino" operations can more easily operate outside of any proper regulatory agencies, and as you can see from my HELLISH attempts to even track down and contact the hosting company of BitoinVideoCasino.com, I believe that this "operation" is a PERFECT EXAMPLE of this type of online fraud. So I look at my current process of taking action against this site as an "educational"/"research" pursuit, as it relates to " blockchain gaming " subject. Unsuspecting people are discovering online casinos like BitcoinVideoCasino.com and depositing their Bitcoin WITHOUT REALIZING that there is NO PROTECTION for them. That is the heart of the issue. I am now working with my cybersecurity consultant to take further steps of legal action against this operation, now armed with the bounced email to their "hosting service". My consultant has professional experience with this kind of issue, and contacts, and so I am lucky to have cultivated our friendship - which was incidentally made here on Steemit!

5 ) The payout from the previous post in this series ended up being ~ 13 Steem, plus ~ 13 SP, and so I used the 13 Steem (converted to DEC) to buy the four gold cards I needed to get my "Screeching Vulture" up to "+3" health (a major increase in power of that card), and then used the ~ 13 SP to buy Tron on TronTrade.io . The order is currently open for 3,750 DEC -> ~ 145.5 Tron ( at 0.0388 TRX per DEC). I have also been pleasantly surprised to have had some sporadic airdrops of Tron tokens, such as BTT, WIN, and a few others. I am hoping that as my Tron holdings increase week-by-week that these token airdrops will be more substatial, but even these smaller ones are a welcomed gift. One of the primary reasons I decided to start buying Tron is because my research showed that the Tron developers seem to be especially keen on giving airdrops, and my hope is that over time those airdrops will be worth enough to be able to buy some more Splinterlands cards, packs, and/or potions. The larger strategy is diversification and leverage. It seems to be working as originally intended.

5 ) Okay. As I did in the last post in this series, the highly-detailed "diary" of my daily #steemmonsters / #splinterlands activity is laid out in the last part of this post, for those of you who are inclined to follow, more closely, what I am doing. It occurred to me that this "diary" section is JUST THAT - a highly detailed record of my daily activity in the game, with some JUICY "play-by-play" analysis notes, and commentary, on what works, what doesn't, and some suggestions for further tweaking and experimentation. So, with this in mind, I hope some/any of you will enjoy this information. If not, you are under no pressure to read it fully, and are free to SKIM, or even IGNORE, any parts, or ALL parts, completely - at your discretion. I lay this out because it also HELPS ME to document my progress in the game over time, and may help some people NOW, and into the perpetual future...

DISCLAIMER : Towards the middle-end part of the week the recordkeeping got totally thrown-off as a result of BOTH me running all the way down on DEC, in ADDITION to the major change in the rewards system. I solved the DEC liquidity crisis buy selling the 0.025 BTC to ma out the potions, but this still threw off the recordkeeping, so I have done the best I could to clean it up as much as possible - but it is still generally a mess. The rewards record was also messed up because of the change, and this will require the next week to get the proper format for the recordkeeping on that. The main effect of this is that it was more difficult for me to calculate the ultimate "daily earnings" for each day this week. So, for the sake of getting this post published before running too far past deadline, I will send this out in a rather incomplete form this week. It's not the end of the world. Sh*t happens.

February 3rd, 2020

Starting DEC : 3,405 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 74.10%
Ending DEC - 5,377 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 68.87 %
Balance = DEC Earning = 1,932 DEC = ~ 7.818 Steem x ~ $0.178 USD/Steem = ~ $1.39 USD

Spent:

2 x "Screeching Vulture" (Gold - Level 3 - 1,737 DEC)

1 x "Beetle Queen" (non-gold - Level 1 - 64 DEC - needed this one card to bump up to Level 7. Will now work on buying up the remaining 54 cards to reach Level 8 (max) and unlock the "inspire" power, which adds +1 melee to all cards in battle (a very powerful ability).

3 x "Wood Nymph" (non-gold - 120 DEC - continuing to use daily "DEC loose change" to buy up these cheap cards to max this one out. Just need 60 more cards to max, and then will likely work on maxing out the gold version of this powerful card)

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 80 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - "Diamond Dragon" (non-gold (legendary) - Level 1 - $3.59 USD 1,000 DEC) + 70 DEC

Untamed (Pack #3 : celebration pack for reaching "Gold I" season leve (+ 4 season reward cards - 30 total season reward cards)
keepers - 80 DEC

bought 1 x "+5 quest reward cards" potion for 720 DEC

Daily Quest Reward Cards (today's "DEATH" quest)
keepers - 165 DEC
nonkeepers - "The Kraken" (non-gold (legendary) - Level 1 - $1.60 USD - 1,500 DEC -- bumped up to Level 2 to unlock the "demoralize" power) + 45 DEC

Accidentally converted "Screeching Vulture" (non-gold - Level 6) to DEC, and not sure about amount, but just went ahead and bought 2 x gold versions of this card, as it is one of my priority cards to upgrade right now.

February 4th, 2020

Starting DEC : 3,461 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 77.61%
Ending DEC - 3,574 DEC ( + 864 (potion cost (details below)) = 4,941 DEC + tournament win (500 DEC) = 5,441
Ending Capture rate : ~ 76.54 %
Balance = DEC Earning = 1,980 DEC = ~ 7.42 Steem x ~ $0.189 USD/Steem = ~ $1.40 USD

Notes : Today I found myself so low on DEC liquidity (and didn't want to dip further into my current balance) [that] I had to spend most of my daily DEC earnings on potions to open the two packs. I also could earn enough DEC to cover the reward cards for the "dragon" quest, and put off the quest until tomorrow. Then IRONICALLY, when I woke up (tomorrow morning) I found out that the usual daily rewards cards had been replaced by the "rewards chest", and although there is still an option to buy the "quest potion" for around 720 for one potion, I decided to pass on buying that potion (since I read in the following post by @rentmoney that potions can be part of the reward chest. But since it seems that you ALSO still get some reward cards I decided to buy SOME potions to hopefully cover the amount of cards I will get (which is unclear now, because they no longer list the number of rewards you get when you click "details" next to your quest). So this will be an experiment as I get up-to-speed with the changes. On the next payout I will buy up a bunch of potions, as running low on potions can be stressful.

Spent:

192 - 5 x "brilliant legendary" potions
240 - 5 x "brilliant alchemy (Gold)" potions

22nd place in "Big Pointy Things" tournament - https://steemmonsters.com/?p=tournament&id=5951b14e1d61ace265bd1d54b90b43f13459dafe
Won - 500 DEC

bought

192 - 5 x "brilliant legendary" potions
240 - 5 x "brilliant alchemy (Gold)" potions

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers -
"Tortisian Fighter" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.82 USD - 500 DEC) + 70 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 80 DEC

February 5th, 2020

Starting DEC : 262 DEC (after purchasing -> 1 x "quest rewards" potion (720 DEC) + 30 x "brilliant legendary" potion (1,152 DEC) + 30 x "brilliant alchemy/gold" potion (1,440 DEC)
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 81.25%
Ending DEC - x 655.83 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 52.51 %
Balance = DEC Earning = DISCLAIMER: I totally messed up the accounting of the starting and ending DEC amounts today, and for the next few days, and so I will simply LEAVE OUT the mess so as to not unnecessarily confuse the reader.

Notes : I decided that, before starting the day (and because of the change in the reward system) that I would simply use my DEC reserves to buy up enough potions to cover ALL of the cards which I will open for the day (two *Untamed packs (plus one potentially additional pack if I reach "Diamond III" level) PLUS the reward cards (whch should not exceed 15 cards if I reach "Diamond III" before completing the quest). I have done this because not having enough potions throws everything off, including the accounting. It is also better to buy potions BEFORE starting the accounting day, because if I spend anything between the start and end of any day it makes the accounting unnecessarily complicated. Finally, you can see that buying those potions brought my reserves (starting DEC for today) WAY DOWN to 262 DEC. What I may do as a result is NOT buy cards for a few days to get those reserves back up. I also have the option to use the post payouts to either further build DEC reserves back up, or spend on cards. Finally, there is the option to do another bulk potion purchase using fiat (via PayPal), or possibly even Bitcoin. At least with these options I can play uninterrupted and with the least amount of stress, because I won't be struggling to win battles to earn DEC to buy the potions, which is a tedious process which decreases the enjoyment of the game.

End of day note/update: Since I spent a lot on potions, but also got some UBER-JUICY rewards cards, I chose to NOT shop for cards with my remaining DEC earnings, but instead save the earnings to replenish my DEC reserves so I can afford maximum "potion power" for the next few days, until I get the payout for the previous post in this series. I ended up earning more than $25 USD in reward card value today, and so the choice to spend my reserves on potions was WELL worth it. Again, this demonstrates the importance of having some DEC liquidity reserves) so that you don't run out of potions.

Daily Quest Reward Cards (yesterday's "dragon" quest)
keepers -
"Gelatinous Cube" (Gold - Level 4 - $0.86 USD - 750 DEC -- bumped this card up to Level 5)
"The Kraken" (non-gold (legendary) - Level $1.80 USD - 1,500 DEC)
'Manticore" (Gold - Level 3 - $11.50 USD - 15,000 DEC) + 60 DEC
nonkeepers - 210 DEC

Notes: Whoa! So glad I bought those potions! Look at this JUICY pull! This is just another reason why I stress the importance of ALWAYS having maximum potion power. I hate to sound like a "broken record" about this, but I think it is one of the most important things you need to do to achieve maximum progress, and earnings, in the game.

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 300 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 300 DEC

576 - 12 x "brilliant alcheemy/gold" potions
115 - 3 x "legendary" potions

Untamed (Pack #3 : celebration pack or reaching "Diamond III" season level - "Level 10 Chest")
keepers - 80 DEC

720 dec - 1 X "quest" potion

Daily Quest Reward Cards (today's "dragon" quest)
keepers - "Fire Spitter" (Gold - Level 3 - $10.99 USD - 15,000 DEC)
nonkeepers - 75 DEC

Note: Whoa! Second UBER-JUICY gold card today!

February 6th, 2020

Starting DEC : 655 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 61.57%
Ending DEC - 1,373 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 55.58 %
Balance = DEC Earning = DISCLAIMER: I totally messed up the accounting of the starting and ending DEC amounts today, and for the next few days, and so I will simply LEAVE OUT the mess so as to not unnecessarily confuse the reader.

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Mitica Headhunter" (non-gold (epid) - Level 1 - $1.86 USD - 200 DEC) + 100 DEC

legendary - 16 - 608 DEC
alchemy - x 13 - 618 DEC
quest - x 1 - 713 DEC
1,264 DEC (sold S.PT for DEC)

Daily Quest Reward Cards (today's "earth" quest)
keepers -
"Screeching Vulture" (Gold - Level 4 - $0.62 USD - 750 DEC -- bumped up to Level 7)
"Silvershield Assassin" (Gold - Level 3 - $2.49 USD - 3,000 DEC - bumped up to Level 4)
"Furious Chicken" (Gold - Level 3 - $2.68 USD - 3,000 DEC) + 290 DEC
nonkeepers - 165 DEC

Notes: Wow! THREE more gold cards! The last two days have been outstandingly JUICY! Again, this is yet more evidence of how important it is to apply maximum "potion power" to ALL cards. So it ended up being the right decision to sell my 2000+ SPT out of @steem-engine so that I could have full potions - since as you can see, the gold cards alone are worth ~ $5.75 USD, which equates to ~ $.5.75 / $0.20 USD/Steem = ~ 29 Steem --> ~ 9,490 DEC! Plus, the nonkeepers from the rewards got me a large part of the way towards being able to afford TOMORROW'S potions (along with the payout later today from my "blockchain social media" weekly series post:

https://steemit.com/socialmedia/@transcript-junky/trending-blockchain-social-media-news-40-january-30th-2020
642 DEC - converted 2.400 Steem payout from above post

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 110 DEC

February 7th, 2020

Starting DEC : 1,373 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 67.02%
Ending DEC - 1,548 DEC --> 312 (ending DEC) + 1,236 DEC (cost of all daily potions (details below) = 1,548 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 71.00 %
Balance = DEC Earning = 1,441 DEC = ~ 5.087 Steem x ~ $0.21 USD/Steem = ~ $1.06 USD ( Note: I included the cost of the potions from today, as the DEC spent on those was EARNED through daily battling, and so it is legimate income). By the way, if there are any proper accountants out there, PLEASE HELP! I'm dying over here trying to keep all of these records legible ;->

Notes. Okay, today was a challenging day because I found myself getting "too low" on potions, but wanted to hold to my cardinal rule of "ALWAYS applying "maximum potion power" to all cards (rewards and packs)" that I open. So starting today (and into tomorrow - as you will see) I ended up in the "danger zone" - in the sense that being so low on potions forced me to "play hard" and endure a lot of stress and aggravation to be able to buy enough potions to cover everything. In other words, it WASN'T FUN. In the diary entries I have simply listed each potion purchase I have made in the format of "713 - 1 x "quest" potions" (as seen below). This is due to the fact that if I go back and try to clean everything up I might mess it all up FURTHER. I have also been holding out for payouts from my three series posts, and may end up using the previous week's post payout to buy potions with the Steem and Tron with the SP (instead of using the Steem to do my "daily shopping spree" of cards. Skipping several days of buying cards is not going to kill me, especially if I get some JUICY "super-cards" in the rewards dumps, and Untamed packs. If I don't do it this way the consequence is that I end up having to play very hard each day to buy the potions, and my capture rate goes WAY down -- too low, that is. If this issues continues I may do another potion purchase (using fiat via PayPal, or possibly even Bitcoin), as the struggle to maintain the potions can really mess everything up.

713 - 1 x "quest" potions
190 - 5 x "legendary" potions

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 110 DEC

Daily Quest Reward Cards (today's "earth" quest)
Note: Had to work on today's quest over the next 24 hours due to lack of DEC to buy maximum potions. This is another good example of how low DEC liquidity disrupts everything.

143 DEC - 3 x alchemy" potions
190 DEC - 5 x legendary potions

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 80 DEC

February 8th, 2020

Starting DEC : 312 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 67.02%
Ending DEC - 1,795 DEC - ( 255 DEC + 1,540 DEC (total potions) = 1,795 DEC)
Ending Capture rate : ~ 79.37 %
Balance = DEC Earning = DISCLAIMER: I totally messed up the accounting of the starting and ending DEC amounts today, and for the next few days, and so I will simply LEAVE OUT the mess so as to not unnecessarily confuse the reader.

Notes: Again, today was a HELLISH struggle to earn enough DEC to buy maximum potions, and I ended up drawing down my capture rate to into the ~ 40% region (not good). But in a stroke of luck it turns out that @splinterlands admin change the reward system today so that we now get all "loot chests", and it SEEMS that since I only got FOUR (4) actual reward cards, all of those potions I bought DID NOT actually get used up on cards! This means that for the rest of the week I may have some leeway on the amount of DEC I need to earn daily to cover all of the reward cards and Untamed cards I will be opening daily. This at least cuts me some slack to avoid HELLISH days like today, where I exhausted myself on playing, and also pushed my capture rate down so far that it will be difficult to earn the usual amount of DEC per day that I normally do when I have the liquid DEC to maintain maximum potion power. This is, yet again, further evidence for maintaining proper DEC liquidity.

10 x legendary potions - 380 DEC
10 x alchemy potions - 475 DEC

5 x legendary potions - 190 DEC
5 x alchemy potions - 238 DEC

3 x legendary - 114 DEC
3 x alchemy - 143 DEC

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Cursed Slimeball" (Gold - Level 3 - $1.49 USD - 500 DEC) + 70 DEC

Daily Quest Reward Cards (yesterday's "earth" quest)
keepers - "Screeching Vulture" - Level 4 - $0.77 USD - 750 USD) + 15
nonkeepers - 45 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 80 DEC

February 9th, 2020

Starting DEC : 255 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 59.32%
Ending DEC - x DEC -
Ending Capture rate : ~ x.x %
Balance = DEC Earning = DISCLAIMER: I totally messed up the accounting of the starting and ending DEC amounts today, and for the next few days, and so I will simply LEAVE OUT the mess so as to not unnecessarily confuse the reader.

5 x legendary potions - 190 DEC
5 x alchemy potions - 238 DEC

sold DWD for 1.475 Steem = 421 DEC

1 x "quest" potion - 713 DEC

2 x legendary potions - 76 DEC
2 x alchemy potions - 95 DEC

Daily Quest Reward Cards (yesterday's "death" quest)
keepers - 120 DEC
nonkeepers - 120 DEC
potions --
DEC -

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 110 DEC

February 10th, 2020

Starting DEC : 79 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 40.00%
Ending DEC - 38,537 DEC - 4,783 DEC (purchases) = 33,753 DEC ( DEC + DEC (total potions) = DEC)
Ending Capture rate : ~ 49.91 %
Balance = DEC Earning = ~ 5,006 DEC = ~ 17.004 Steem x ~ $0.201 USD/Steem = ~ $1.41 USD

Bought:

4 x "Screeching Vulture" (Gold - Level 3 -- 4,783 DEC -- to bump up to Level 8 and raise health level from "2" to "3")

Note: For most of the morning I actively battled at a very low capture rate, and when I approached ~ 428 DEC (to buy 5 legendary and 5 alchemy potions to open the morning pack), I saw a "The Golden Rule" tournament starting, which cost 250 DEC entry fee to participate. I had to decide whether to spend my 428 DEC on the potions to open the pack, or take the gamble with the tournament. I figured, "What the hell." If I took the risk with the tournament and made 16th place I would win 2,250 DEC, which would cover the ENTIRE day of potions. Lo and behold I was eliminated in the 2nd round and DID NOT hit 16th place, so I lost the 250 DEC. This actually made me realize that I was at a dead end, and so (having considered this for the past few days) I decided to go ahead and sell 0.025 Bitcoin to toally max out on all three of the potion promo packs (details below) so I don't have to worry about this potion stuff for at least a few months. The details of the BTC sell and potion purchases are below. All in all, by doing this I also took some profit on my BTC (which I had acquired at ~ $200 USD/BTC - $400 BTC/USD back in 2013, and also got a whole lot of free potions from the promo pack purchases ( + 375 legendary potions PLUS +375 alchemy potions, PLUS +15 "quest" potions), and so I think it was overall a good move. This also prevents me from getting stuck again like I have the past 2-3 days, which is NOT fun, and as you can see, has TOTALLY MESSED UP the accounting for this post.

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 80 DEC

136,526

95,000 DEC - 2,500 (+ 375) "brilliant legendary" potions
118.750 DEC - 2,500 (+ 375) "brilliant alchemy/gold" potions
71,250 DEC - 100 ( + 15 ) "quest" potions

---

285,000 DEC - Total cost of all max promo batches of potions (which I bought by selling BTC)

Sold 0.025 BTC for 1,190 Steem (via @blocktrades)

Untamed (Pack #1 : evening pack)
keepers - "Scale Doctor" (non-gold (legendary) - Level 1 - $3.81 USD - 1,000 DEC) + 100 DEC

6.091 Steem - 1.733
1.407 SBD --> Steem + SBD = ~ 13 Steem = 3,754 DEC
13.087 SP - 3.779

Placed order to sell DEC for Tron --> 3750 DEC x 0.0388 TRX = 145.5 Tron

Placed 12th in tournament - 900 DEC
https://steemmonsters.com/?p=tournament&id=1d5695ee537368e20b085199aa5ef31f4ebc42b0

Daily Quest Rewards - (today's "earth" quest)
DEC - + 412 DEC
Potions - +4 alchemy , +2 legendary

Notes: Whoa! So it seems that it is possible to get ALL potions and DEC, and NO cards at all! Well, at least I didn't have to use any potions (except for the "quest" potion ( 720 DEC ), but if this is possible then I should focus more on earning DEC through battles and buying cards at the end of the day, as I can no longer count on getting cards in the rewards. At least with the *Untamed packs, though, I am sure to get five cards, and so use +5 legendary and alchemy potions for each pack.

February 11th, 2020

Starting DEC : 33,735 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 58.18%
Ending DEC - 34,393 x DEC -
Ending Capture rate : ~ 62.46 %
Balance = 658 DEC Earning = ~ 1.796 Steem x ~ $0.22 USD/Steem = ~ $0.40 USD

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Camilia Sungazer" (non-gold (legendary summoner) - Level 1 - $3.82 USD - 1,000 DEC) + 40 DEC

Notes: Now that the reward system has changed so that we get less cards, I am getting more enjoyment opening to the two daily packs (sometimes three), knowing for SURE that there are five cards in each.

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 110 DEC

Daily Quest Rewards - (today's "water" quest)
keepers - 40 DEC
nonkeepers - 135 DEC
DEC - + 252 DEC
Potions - +0 alchemy , +2 legendary

Summary Notes: Okay, the daily play diary descended into complete CHAOS this week - but that's okay. This was partly the result of me falling too low on potions, AND the significant change in the reward system, which just threw all of the accounting off. So what I have decided to do is to simply NOT calculate the "daily average DEC earnings" NOR the "cumulative monthly DEC earnings" from this specific post. I will simply ignore the above numbers in the monthly calculations, and start back up next week. This mess also helped me realize how important it is to update te numbers and notes in "real-time", because once you start delaying the entries things start to get wonky. Next week I should have things back to normal. Also, it is also almost two days past my self-imposed deadline for publishing this weekly post, and I will still need a few hours to add the images and get everything properly formatted out out for press. I think everything is "good enough" for now.

Whew! These posts are growing dense - but that's okay. Take what resonates with you,and leave the rest. I hope you find some/any of these tips useful in increasing your understanding and/or skill level in the SteemMonsters (Splinterlands) and/or Drug Wars, and/or "Prospectors, and/or any other game(s) - and the " blockchain gaming " industry as whole - which I end up exploring as this series evolves. More JUICY tips to come with each weekly update, as I dig deeper into this whole REVOLUTIONARY PHENOMENON, and become more experienced and successful in the game(s).

See you on the battlefield...

@transcript-junky