I made it to Champion League in Steem Monsters

When Steem Monsters was first announced, I was pretty stoked about it. It seemed like a really cool idea, and I totally got on board with it. I had a bit of liquid Steem and SBD just sitting in my account so I decided to buy a few booster packs. I ended up with a pretty solid collection, but I didn't have any legendary's, and only a few epics. So I decided at the time that I would just go on the market and buy a complete collection, piece by piece.

I ended up getting a full collection of the Alpha set cards, which was pretty cool I thought, just to have it.

Then they released the Beta set cards, and I thought for a while about collecting a full set of those too, but just couldn't be bothered. So just held my cards and waited for battling to begin.

When the battle system was first launched, I was super disappointed to be honest. I hadn't kept up with the latest news I guess, and the whole automated battle system really felt lame and boring to me. I still don't really like it to be honest, though I understand the reasoning behind it. I personally feel like taking the turns away from the player and simply running them based on the speed of the monster removes a lot of strategy from the game. I also found it quite irritating that you would have to upgrade your summoner if you wanted to use more powerful cards. To me, this kind of forces players to spend money on the game, since summoners are pretty rare to come across in booster packs, and I really don't like games that are "play to win" which Steem Monsters can definitely be.

That being said, it is what it is, and it turns out it still became quite addictive for me.

When I started out I had a bit of a rough time figuring out if I could actually make some strategy or if it would just be random, but I realized quite quickly that the strategy was in how you assembled your deck.

I could beat up pretty bad quite a few times, and then I started to really look at the decks that the victors were using. At first I just copied their deck configuration, which of course worked well for a time, but I soon realized that with some minor adjustments and tweaks, I could make a pretty powerful deck.

When I started my only goal was to make it to silver league. I figured I could grind my way there, and when the season ended I'd get a few free packs, woohoo!! I realized Silver III was totally possible, maybe, MAYBE Silver II, if I was lucky....



But I underestimated how powerful a really strong deck can actually be, and even more than that, I underestimated how powerful relatively minor tweaks to your deck can be. Like something as simple as swapping around your second to last and last cards, depending on the cards and deck of course, but I did that once and went on an eight game winning streak. I also realized that if I just spent like $1 or $2 on a single card, buying them up on the market to upgrade it to a level I needed, it could have a massive impact on my overall performance. I did this with my Divine Healer and went on another winning streak.



Another key was deciding what Splinter I played best with, which for me it turns out is Life. I have won the VAST majority of my battles with my life deck, and it is by far my most powerful. I have played around with the other splinters too, but mostly just to win quests and get the booster pack from them. Playing with anything other than my life deck is absolute grinding right now, and I hate it hahaha. Plus I've really gotten to know the Life cards, and I'm able to make them work for me the way that I want them to.



Well once I started to figure out the mechanics of the game a bit, strategically upgraded some key cards, and started fine tuning my deck configurations, I just started winning.

Before I knew it I was at Silver I league. "Wow" I thought, "Maybe I could even reach Gold League..."

And then I did.

And then I hit Gold II

And then Gold I

And I thought, "Man, I wonder if I could get Diamond league before the season ends, that would be a sweet boost to my collection if I got those ten packs!"

So I started grinding, and soon enough I had made it to Diamond III League.

I actually couldn't believe it, I laughed out loud when it happened, and my wife was like "What are you doing? Are you spending money on this stupid game???" Haha. I told her it was only Steem money, not real money, assured her it's not gambling, and carried on.

I thought for sure Diamond III was my max this time. I had hit an unachievable goal already, and the grind was getting really tiring. I was losing A LOT to make relatively minor gains, and it was really frustrating and tiresome. So I left it at that for a day or so. Didn't really play other than a few matches just to get utterly wiped off the face of the splinterlands by @imperfect-one, @heyimsnuffles, @vaansteam, and even @wombykus. Yes, that's right, I was a level 2,900 being paired against a level 20,000+, more than a few times.



So yeah, I took a break, and a day or so ago came back to it. The rule set was new, I had re-arranged my deck configurations, and more/different people were playing. And I started winning a few matches again.

So I started grinding again, and soon I was in Diamond II league, and again, I though "Man, I wonder if I could hit Diamond I??"

After a bit of grinding, it happened, and I laughed out loud again.

And I thought this was FOR SURE my max.

I hadn't upgraded any cards since I made it to Diamond League. I didn't have the Steem and I just didn't want to spend too much on this silly game, "maybe one day Steem will be worth $100 per coin, and I'll regret every Steem I spent on these cards?" I thought, so it was all strategy and luck from here on out, but I kept grinding.

Then today it happened. I started playing, on the new battle rules, and was getting about 50/50 wins to losses, and then I just thought "I'm gonna reorganize my deck a bit and see what happens". Sure enough I went on a winning streak, and I eventually ground my way into the freaking Champion III League.

Now I'm absolutely certain that this will be my max for the season, since it ends in like nine hours and I don't plan to play much more in that time, but I went from my initial expectation of three booster packs, to my current situation of 20. That means at season end I'll be getting 100 cards for free, just for grinding my way into Champion League.

I'm pretty satisfied with that, and I can't wait to see what I get in those packs. Hopefully some epic and maybe even a legendary or two (hey, I'm allowed to dream right?) or at least enough common's to upgrade a few of my key players.

So that's it, I guess I'm basically addicted to Steem Monsters, even though I originally was pretty disappointed with the game mechanics, and even though I still think it has a lot of room to grow. It's a fun game to play, and I've really enjoyed grinding my way into Champions League. I'm sure that since levels are getting so high now the Steem Monster team will adjust the league levels, or add a league, or something to balance it out. To be honest, I don't really belong anywhere near champions league with my current score and card strength, but hey, early movers get the advantage right?

Anyhow, I hope you're having fun playing Steem Monsters and collecting cards! What's your favorite deck? What Splinter do you play? How far have you made it in the game? Let me know in the comments, and maybe I'll see you on the battlefield soon ;)