"Splinterlands" + "Drug Wars" -- Power Strategy Tips #43

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 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

General Notes: This week, the overall "high strangeness" plus JUICINESS factor of the overall endeavor of this series has ramped up - for instance, as a result of the acquisition of #Steemit by #Tron (Justin Sun). This has been partly positive and partly negative -- but it's ALL good material for the core research and exploration endeavor of this series. As anyone who as been following these series posts can see, I am CONTINUOUSLY unexpectedly LOSING "blockchain gaming" crypto, BUT ALSO spontaneously getting AIRDROPPED "blockchain gaming" crypto, and so I believe that the best way forward is to simply stay focused and relatively conservative in my moves, so that when I do have a "bad hit" it is easier to roll with the punches and not sabotage future gains by freaking out and losing my center. I am increasingly realizing that this is an important aspect to this whole process, in terms of maximizing long-term success.

Okay, with that said, let's get on to the UBER-JUICY stuff...

1 ) Well, I managed to get the record-keeping for the "daily activity" (last section of each post) of this series back under control. The good thing is that I learned (the "hard way") about the "trickle down chaos effect" which develops if I don't stick to my carefully-designed record-keeping protocol. The key is to keep things very simple, and only make purchases (ex. cards, potions, DEC and/or Tron withdrawals) BEFORE OR AFTER the "start" and "end" "accounting points" of each day. You can see from the record below (in this post) how much cleaner it is versus last week's mess. This is how I WANT it to be, otherwise the reader won't have the time/energy to work though (and benefit from) the information -- nor will I, the writer, be able to stay organized in order to present the information in the most concise manner that I have been. And even though there were a few days - and/or sections of days - where things got a bit chaotic this week (ex. the main Splinterlands site being "under maintenance" a bit more than usual, the chaos created by the formally announced acquisition of #Steemit by @Tron (Justin Sun), etc.), by sticking to my carefully designed "recording-keeping protocol" I was able to stay on top of things and produce a manageably clean record for this week.

In addition, my sale of 0.01 BTC to buy maximum potions, last week, has INDEED proved to significantly help keep everything clean, and remove the burden of having to constantly worry about buying potions. That was a good decision on my part, and I am still only working through the "bonus/free" potions (now into the second week after the purchase), and have indeed already gotten some "super cards" with those free potions, and so that is morale-boosting as well. Maintaining good morale is VITAL in this blockchain gaming space.

The new reward system is paying out SIGNIFICANTLY less cards, BUT this also decreases the number of potions I have to spend daily (in fact, some of the rewards are now actually potions, and so the potions for the rewards cards tend to sort of OFFSET THEMSELVES (which is NOT the case with the daily Untamed packs, of course). This change in the rewards has motivated me to start paying more attention to buying cards with my daily DEC battle earnings, and aside from what I have already been doing (which is upgrading my favorite Untamed cards to the minimum level which unlocks their most powerful abilities (which is usually somewhere between Level 5 and Level 6 for most cards) I have now decided to start allocating some of my daily DEC earnings to buying up some of my favorite, and most powerful, Beta cards, since those are now out of print, and so I would like to get ownership of them (and "max them out") before Splinterlands growth accelerates to the point where these cards are out of my "daily DEC earnings spending budget". This past week I have been successful at maxing out 2-3 of these beta cards (both regular and "reward beta" cards) at the low cost of a few cents of USD per card. Plus, I am more familiar/skilled with these cards, and have WANTED to upgrade them, but got distracted by the release of the Untamed edition. My worry is that if I put this off too long it will be harder to obtain the Beta cards I want.

Finally, with around 350 Untamed packs in my reserves, I have realized that it is probably best to start thinking about finding a way to generate a new crypto income stream to load up on more reserve packs and keep a constant flow of packs. By doing a rough calculation of "354 / 2.5 = ~ 141 days (with the "2.5 being equal to the current "two daily packs", PLUS "0.5" to account for the "celebratory packs" which I open upon reaching each higher level of the season) I now have a more clear timeline. The solution to this issue may very well lie in the research and experimentation I am doing with the Tron dApps. That is, I am exploring ways to use my weekly accruing Tron to generate some passive income stream via the growing number of Tron DApps I am exploring through my research. I will be focusing my efforts on that front towards this goal of generating enough passive Tron income to maintain adequate Untamed pack purchase BEFORE I start getting dangerously low on packs, as this will likely take a few months to achieve (if it can even be achieved AT ALL!). As y'all know, my "pack opening" strategy is a MAJOR boon for maintaining morale in the game(s). More on my Tron exploration activity in #3, below.

2 ) And following on with this "maintaining morale" concept mentioned above in #1, one realization I had this week is that my activity in the "Prospectors" game just didn't have enough "draw" to keep me active there - at least not THIS PAST week. Part of that was due to my exploration of the #Tron dapps (more on that below), while the other part relates to what I have mentioned in the past (in comparing my "Prospectors" activity with my (now more substantial) #DrugWars activity). The core issue is that I have limited time each day to spend on these limited games/tasks, IN ADDITION to my computer work ("real ((barely) survival) job"), and this week was a good example of how the "natural limit" of my time/energy has essentially FORCED me to dedicate my limited time to the MOST PRODUCTIVE of these "blockchain gaming" applications - in other words, PRIORITIZE. In short - and in line with my explanation in the previous post of this series - the SIMPLE FACTS that @drugwars is more CLOSELY INTEGRATED with the #Steem blockchain has ultimately been the PRIMARY determining factor (specifically speaking for THIS past week) in me spending some of my limited time THERE instead of in "Prospectors". It's mainly an issue of TIME and "crypto liquidity". "Prospectors" requires too much time (more clicks, time (and RAM) opening new tabs, and loading the game) than Drug Wars, and EVEN IF #Prospectors is a "high potential" game, with a good admin and marketing team behind it, without that crypto liquidity, and with the extra time needed to actually play, the equation just doesn't work out at this time. Luckily, I HELD OFF on ditching "Drug Wars" for "Prospectors" as the main subject of this series, and so this conservative approach is showing to be a wise one on my part. I am NOT giving up on Prospectors completely, and think the best thing I can do at this point is make a new goal to "watch ONE "Prospectors"-related YouTube video per week" to see if the Prospectors team is planning to roll out any especially valuable upgrades which would make it more sensible to spend some of my limited time actively engaging with that game. In the meantime, that game will CONTINUE to act as a good "A/B test" case study against my daily Drug Wars activity. If an even more appropriate game LIKE "Prospectors" becomes available I may switch them out. But I want to at least try to give the games I choose a CHANCE to improve before I give up on them for something which suits the goals of this series better. This approach also takes into account that I may just not have the adequate information to properly benefit from "Prospectors" right now - something I am factoring into the equation. So, as the saying goes, overall "It's all good." for now.

3 ) On the #DrugWars front, I have continued to consistently do 1-2 solo jobs each day, while progressively building my army to slowly work up the levels of jobs. I am now at "Level 7 - "Art Has No Price"", of which I can comfortably do TWO of these jobs per day. The main issue at Level 7 (relative to the size of my army) is the amount of time it takes to replenish units (specifically "bouncer" units for this job), and so I am now working on using some of the "gang job" income to gradually upgrade my "Training Facility" building (which shortens the time required to recruit units), as well as my "Research Center" (which enables me to upgrade my training levels to higher levels). Upgrading these two buildings allows me to recruit units faster, so that I can do THREE Level 7 jobs per day instead of just two. I am also more slowly upgrading the "Strategic Center", which reduces the waiting time between jobs - but since the recruitment time for units is SIGNIFICANTLY greater than the waiting time between jobs, I can upgrade the Strategic Center at a slower pace than the other two. I am also making significant progress upgrading my defense units, and believe that the army which I am now using to do the solo jobs is strong enough to protect those units. I'm also using the significant "gang job" income to upgrade my storage capacity for each resource, as sometimes one (or two) of the gang members do 2-3 gang jobs, whose income ends up SURPASSING my storage capacity, and so those extra resources are wasted. One more thing I have found is that my Drug production in quite high (out of ratio with alcohol and weapons production) and this often leaves me with excess Drugs which can't be put to proper use. So I a now focusing (for the next month or two) on upgrading my alcohol and weapons production more than drugs. This will make it easier for me to do upgrades.

4 ) Okay, now for the most CHAOTIC new development this past week, which is related, of course, to the acquisition of Steemit by #Tron (with the "infamous" Justin Sun at the helm). As you have all seen in the past few posts in this series, my research was showing strong fundamentals for Tron after it was integrated within Splinterlands (first with the TronLink wallet, and then the TronTrade.io exchange), as well as because of some of the OTHER acquisitions Tron had been making in the past year (ex. BitTorrent, DLive, etc.). My "magical power of marketing intuition" has been telling me that it will be advantage to get involved with Tron in the long-term, and Splinterlands has now made this as easy as pushing a few buttons. The first step of my strategy was to simply use some of the payouts from my posts (specifically the SP (Steem Power) part of the weekly payouts from THIS series) to buy Tron (via TronTrade.io). I have shown some screenshots of my successful buys in the past 2-3 posts in this series. My prediction would be that there would be some benefits (ex. airdrops, etc.) to holding some Tron going forward - ESPECIALLY as the rumor was going around that Justin Sun was considering acquiring a large stake in Steemit. Some people didn't believe that would happen. I had a strong feeling it would. My prediction was that if that DID happen then there would be some sort(s) of substantial airdrop(s) (perhaps a 1:1 (Tron:Steem)) drop - like the 1:1 BTC/BCH and 1: BTC/BSV forks a few years back - which would be significant, since I currently hold ~ 2,600 Steem. For example, if that sort of a drop happened, I could use the resulting ~ 2,600 Tron to buy more Splinterlands cards, or use it in some of the Tron dApps (like BetFury.io - which I am now actively experimenting with daily - more on that below). Well, once it was confirmed that Tron was taking a large stake in Steemit I decided it would be a good time to start to explore some of the Tron dApps (which I had NOT yet seriously done). Until the announcement I was simply holding the Tron in my TronLInk wallet, waiting for a reason to use it, or cash out.

Here's where things got a bit WONKY, and I got a bit "hot-headed" (to put it LIGHTLY). The first thing I did was watch a few YouTube videos on "top tron dApps", and after watching a few videos it SEEMED that people were speaking highly of the https://www.wink.org dApp (of which Justin Sun appears to be a major stakeholder in (although I could be wrong about that)). I had also seen that I got an airdrop of "Wink" token into my TronLInk wallet (just a little over "1 Wink" to, I guess, "nudge" me to that web site), and so that motivated me to visit the site and have a look. So I went over there and had a look around, and although I am more of a "blackjack" enthusiast (which they don't have - that is, they don't have it ANYMORE) I did see that they had a "European Roulette" game available. I played it for several hours, but then found myself down (since I didn't have a large bankroll - only the ~ 230 Tron I had accumulated in my TronLInk wallet from the SP payouts of the past two posts). So I ended up loading up ALL of that 230 Tron into the game. I played well, but 230 Tron is not exactly a large bankroll, and so since I was having fun I decided to sell 0.01 BTC to buy more DEC, and then convert to Tron, and use it for this "European Roulette" game on Wink. I was ALSO earning some of the "LIVE" token as a result of playing, of which I now hold ~ 157 LIVE (now that all is said done).

As I was playing down the 0.01 BTC worth of Tron I started to notice some strange glitches in the game (ex. spontaneous pop-up messages saying "Someone has logged into this game from another browser tab" (or some odd message like that), and/or some odd message to the effect of "Error with the game. Please reload." The problem is that when these messages came up there was NO PROBLEM with any other tabs, like the other tabs I had open which were properly playing YouTube videos, and I even closed all of my tabs to see if the RAM was an issue. In fact, I even shut down the computer a few times, but the issue persisted. I also started to notice that my betting amount seemed to be fluctuating, and I was starting to wonder if the betting system AND/OR the game ITSELF was rigged. Then to my HORROR, after playing on the morning of the second day, I logged back into Wink in the afternoon, and the "European Roulette" game had literally DISAPPEARED! And it has NOT RETURNED! How can a betting platform be considered legitimate if they are willing to just remove a game completely WITHOUT NOTIFYING the FRIGGIN' players?! Needless to say, when this happened I IMMEDIATELY withdrew my accumulated LIVE tokens into my TronLInk wallet and stopped playing ANYTHING in the Wink dApp. In fact, I was so angered by the whole situation that I sounded off in my Splinterlands guild, and on Twitter, and even went as far as to actually "power down" my entire 2,500 Steem holdings. I can, of course, cancel this "power-down", and it is also done GRADUALLY -- in 13 weekly payments of 1/13 of the total per week. But my reasoning for initiating the "power down" was that if Justin Sun is willing to put his name and reputation behind a seemingly shady platform like Wink then - on ETHICAL grounds - I need to SERIOUSLY consider if I want to ENABLE/BANKROLL such "ethically questionable" activities via my 2,500 Steem stake being held in the Steemit dApp, of which Justin Sun is now a major stakeholder. In addition to the "power-down" I have also begun doing some research on this Justin Sun character, who seems to be quite a POLARIZING figure in the crypto space. In fact, on the day that this happened the following news story came out in reference to Justin Sun, which was quite concerning :

Tron Community In Uproar As Genesis Coins Used In Super-Reps Votes
https://cointelegraph.com/news/tron-community-in-uproar-as-genesis-coins-used-in-super-reps-vote

This is in addition to a seemingly CONSISTENT flow of news and gossip about how this Justin Sun dude has a tendency to "rub people the wrong way, and exaggerate, etc,". So, as I continue my research on this, I will be in the process of powering-down my Steem, and whatever amount of Steem comes out of the weekly "power-down" installments, I will be using to buy DEC (for Splinterlands cards, potions, etc.). My instinct tells me that Justin Sun's "Tron empire" is likely built heavily on straight-up gambling dApps, and I don't know if I am okay with Steemit now resting on a foundation of "vice money". For now, the "power-down" is in effect while I continue researching this, and I will provide an update on this in the next post of this series, as the first (of 13) "power down" installments of ~ 192 Steem will be paid out on February 27th (2-3 days from publishing this post). I am HOPING that I will find a valid reason to cancel the power-down, but I AM serious about this, and will follow through with it if I deem it necessary on ethical grounds. I would STILL be able to make these posts on Steemit, but I would be taking away my STAKE in the platform.

The bright side to this initial bad experience is that after the Wink debacle I was even more motivated to search for more info on OTHER dApps in the Wink genre (and built on the Tron blockchain), and this lead me to discover the very informative "Crypto Wealth" YouTube channel. This guy is an experienced marketing guy, who presents information very well, and his delivery of information is clear and actionable. Through his videos below I discovered the BetFury.io site, which this guy is considering to be "the next evolutionary step from dApps like "Wink"":

Free TRX - Betfury Full Review - Betfury Whitepaper

After watching the above video (and a few others this guy did on about BetFury), and examining the site, I was impressed. And since they have a proper "blackjack" table game, I decided to use the remaining Tron I had leftover from the total sell (or, more properly, "loss") from Wink to experiment with BetFury. The BetFury.io site is very well-designed, intuitive, and there are LOTS of cool features and games. I have not had ANY sort of major TECHNICAL issues yet with this site (which does not mean I haven't had any "provably fair" (scammy) issues), after playing for a few days. But then after some significant loss (playing blackjack (down to around 400 TRX, and then switching to MINING-ONLY) I stumbled upon another good video which reveals some alleged "scammy" aspects of the BetFury.io site:

Betfury Review | Betfury EXPOSED | Is this a SCAM or Legit (In Depth Review)

In the above video this guy shows ACTUAL CONVINCING EXAMPLES of some of the "scammy" betting results of BetFury, in acton. Interestingly, he says at the end of the video that he will likely do an "update video" in one month, and has still NOT done that update video (and that was in November 2019). So with this additional research I have decided to see what kind of results I can get with ONLY the mining features of BitFury. I now consider this MERELY experimental, with the main goal of getting my balance back up to what I started with ( ~ 4,000 Tron). For instance, I am mainly running the "Dice" game at 95% "under 50%" with "1.0" Tron per roll. The in-game "BFG" token payout seems to be higher with their native "Dice" game (compared to the slots), and the Dice game doesn't eat up as much RAM (although the slots are more fun to watch - especially for the bonus rounds - as well as being more lucrative).

So, at this point, I have done a basic evaluation of TWO of the major Tron dApps, BOTH of which are "gambling" focused, and (aside from the marketing side of things) I am NOT impressed in terms of their legitimacy. And so my decision to "power down" my Steem is showing to be a relatively solid one right now. I think that what I will do at this point (now that I have evaluated two tron dApps - BOTH of which are of "questionable repute") is go down the list of Tron dApps at :

https://dapp.review/explore/tron

and review 2-3 of these dApps per post in this series, as I continue the process of powering-down my Steem over the next 13 weeks (so that's 2 x 13 = 26 or 3 x 13 = 39 dApps. I can also hold the power-down payouts in my wallet as Steem (instead of converting it to DEC) if I need more time to decide whether or not to move the Steem to Splinterlands. I think this is a sound strategy, which allows some flexibility to AT LEAVE do a proper analysis and allow Justin Sun to prove that he is worthy of my Steem (albeit only 2,500 of it). I will also continue to convert the SP portion of this serie's post payouts to buy Tron, and use that Tron to experiments with the 2-3 Tron dApps per week. Let's see what happens. Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised.

6 ) In a perfect seque from #4 section on "questionable Tron gambling dApps", I have a new update on my ongoing action against BitcoinVideoCasino.com - which actually SUPPORTS my overall criticism of "blockchain gambling" overall. With the continued assistance of my buddy who works in the cybersecurity firm, we did some more digging to find SEVEN (7) alternate email addresses for the "SeriousTubes" hosting company (which was provided by CloudFlare via our "abuse report" request), and is SUPPOSEDLY the hosting service which claims to serve the BitcoinVideoCasino.com site. My buddy says that he has also found all sorts of "domain mirroring" going on with this "hosting company" (which is supposedly operating out of Hong Kong -- yeah, SURE it's not being run out of China ;-> wink, wink)... Lo and behold, I sent an exact copy of the original elaborate "abuse report" email to ALL SEVEN of the alternative email addresses we have now found, and - surprise, surprise - EVERY SINGLE ONE of those emails BOUNCED. In other words, at this point, I deposited Bitcoin into a SUPPOSED legitimate online casino whose hosting service cannot be located or contacted! Does that sound just generally "fishy" to you? It seems that the reviews over at this site were right in claiming BitcoinVideoCasino.com to be a "zombie casino":

https://casino.guru/bitcoin-video-online-casino-review

To which my main reply is: "Then why the HELL is Google listen them on their search engine so that people can find them and be scammed???" Is there no way that companies like this can have legal action taken against them? I mean this is just straight out, unashamed FRAUD! And as I have concluded and reiterated in the past few updates, I TRULY believe that most (if not ALL) of these " blockchain gaming " sites have the MAIN GOAL of getting you to make your deposit, and then everything else is "window dressing" for that purpose. I had THOUGHT that Justin Sun's "Tron" would provide some legitimacy to the " blockchain gaming " sites on his blockchain, but the evidence, so far, shows that this is NOT the case, and this is what most disturbs me. Once again, I have spent a sizable amount of my limited Bitcoin on this new experiment, and this is the reason why I am now powering down my Steem from Steemit. This is a huge red flag which makes me feel less confident about the future value of Steem, and viability of Steemit. I will CONTINUE to do this, and re-allocate the Steem into the "free for play" Splinterlands game UNTIL/UNLESS Tron proves that it is nothing more than an "elaborate gambling operation".

5 ) Okay. As usual, 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...

February 12th, 2020

Starting DEC : 34,393 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 71.50%
Ending DEC - 35,061 x DEC -
Ending Capture rate : ~ 63.91 %
Balance = DEC Earning = 668 DEC = ~ 2.021 Steem x ~ $0.23 USD/Steem = ~ $0.46 USD

Note: Ah! What a feeling of relief to start the first day of the new week with a squeaky-clean record of my activity. With plenty of potions for the next few months, and a proper format for recording the new quest rewards (which now include some potions and DEC) I have now returned to the CRISP record of two weeks ago.

Spent :

3 x "Cursed Slimeball" (non gold - 541 DEC)

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Magma Troll" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.59 USD - 500 DEC -- bumped this card up to Level 5) + 130 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - 240 DEC

Daily Quest Rewards - (today's "fire" quest)
keepers - 120 DEC
nonkeepers - 45 DEC
potions - +1 legendary potions, +3 alchemy/gold potions
DEC - 109 DEC

Untamed (Pack #3 : celebration pack for reaching "Diamond II" level for the season -> +10 season loot chests --> total : 50 chests)
keepers - 80 DEC

February 13th, 2020

Starting DEC : 34,520 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 74.83%
Ending DEC - 35,266 x DEC -
Ending Capture rate : ~ 81.29 %
Balance = DEC Earning = 746 DEC = ~ 2.491 Steem x ~ $0.253 USD/Steem = ~ $0.63 USD

Bought :

24 x "Wood Nymph" (non-gold - 727 DEC)

Notes: I had another project to tend to today, so I didn't have as much time as usual to play. But, even with the distraction, I still earned 746 DEC, which is respectable.

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 270 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2 : evening pack)
keepers - "Mother Khala" (Gold - Level 2 - $3.50 USD - 2,000 DEC) + 70 DEC

Daily Quest Rewards (today's "earth" quest)
keepers - "Manticore" (Gold - Level 3 - $11.79 USD - 15,000 DEC -- this powerful card now bumped up to Level 4, with "thorns" ability) + 85 DEC
nonkeepers - 60 DEC
potions - +2 legendary potions, +0 alchemy/gold potions
DEC - 280

February 14th, 2020

Starting DEC : 34,428 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 87.32%
Ending DEC - 34,979 x DEC -
Ending Capture rate : ~ 69.65 %
Balance = DEC Earning = 551 DEC = ~ 1.370 Steem x ~ $0.278 USD/Steem = ~ $0.36 USD

Bought :

13 x "Wood Nymph" (non-gold - 551 DEC --> just 23 cards remaining to max this one out)

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - 270 DEC

Daily Quest Rewards
Notes: Today's "fire" quest was challenging, so I decided to finish it tomorrow.

Untamed (Pack #1 : evening pack)
keepers - 270 DEC

February 15th, 2020

Starting DEC : 34,428 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 76.92%
Ending DEC - 35,622 x DEC -
Ending Capture rate : ~ 60.48 %
Balance = DEC Earning = 1,194 DEC = ~ 2.891 Steem x ~ $0.251 USD/Steem = ~ $0.725 USD

Bought :
23 x "Wood Nymph" (Gold - 1,003 DEC --> finally maxed this card out (with bump up from "3" to "4" health)

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

Daily Quests Rewards (yesterday's "fire" quest)
keepers - 100 DEC
nonkeepers - 30 DEC
potions - +4 legendary potions, +2 alchemy/gold potions
DEC - 246 DEC

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

Daily Quests Rewards (yesterday's "win three battles without neutral cards" quest)
keepers - 85 DEC
nonkeepers - 15 DEC
potions - +2 legendary potions, +4 alchemy/gold potions
DEC - 182 DEC

Untamed (Pack #3 : celebration pack for reaching "Diamond I" level for the season -> +10 season loot chests --> total : 60 chests)
keepers - 80 DEC

February 16th, 2020

Starting DEC : 34,641 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 71.00%
Ending DEC - ( 6,648 DEC --> 36,648 DEC - 30,000 DEC (converted to Tron via TronLink)
Ending Capture rate : ~ 63.00 %
Balance = DEC Earning = 2,007 DEC = ~ 5.142 Steem x ~ $0.218 USD/Steem = ~ $1.12 USD

Bought :

12 x "Cursed Slimeball" (non-gold - 1,700 DEC -> bumped up to Level 6 to unlock the "redemption" power)

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

Season Rewards (loot chests)
keepers - 390 DEC
nonkeepers - 270 DEC
potions - +9 legendary potions, +6 alchemy/gold potions
DEC - 1,687 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2 : celebration pack for starting new season at "Gold I" season level -> +30 season loot chests --> total : 30 chests)
keepers - 240 DEC

Untamed (Pack #3 : evening pack)
keepers - 80 DEC

Daily Quest (didn't have time to do "water" quest today, and so will do it tomorrow)

Used 30,000 DEC to buy 600 Tron

February 17th, 2020

Starting DEC : 4,729 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 85.91%
Ending DEC - 5,372 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 90.00 %
Balance = DEC Earning = DEC = ~ 5.142 Steem x ~ $0.218 USD/Steem = ~ $1.12 USD

Bought :

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Biceratops" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.38 USD - 500 DEC) + 260 DEC
Total = 760 DEC

Daily Quests Rewards (yesterday's "water" quest)
keepers - 30 DEC
nonkeepers - 15 DEC
potions - +0 legendary potions, +4 alchemy/gold potions
DEC - 87 DEC

Sold 0.01 BTC for ~ 449 Steem - and converted that to Tron ( 159,634 DEC ) into TronLink wallet to play around with one of the cool Roulette" gambling Tron dApps ( https://www.wink.org/#/platform/live-table ) as part of my ongoing research into Tron, since I am now buying Tron weekly, AND Steemit has now been acquired by Tron. I am also watching one video daily about Tron dApps as I play some of their games.

Untamed (Pack #3 : evening pack)
keepers - 140 DEC

February 18th, 2020

Starting DEC : x,xxx DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ xx.xx%
Ending DEC - x,xxx DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ xx.xx %
Balance = DEC Earning = DEC = ~ x.xxx Steem x ~ $x.xxx USD/Steem = ~ $x.xx USD

Notes: I don't know what the HELL happened, but the main Splinterlands game site was down for the ENTIRE day of February 18th, 2020. So I decided to simply completely take the day off from activity (including opening the two Untamed packs for the day), and simply resume tomorrow (assuming the game will be back up and running). The good news is that this rest day allowed my capture rate to recharge fully back to 100%. I was also preoccupied testing/playing the Tron-based Roulette game on the https://www.wink.org/#/platform/live-table dApp (as part of my experimentation and research into the Tron ecosystem - since I have been buying Tron with the SP income from these posts). So at least I was able to do some gaming and research today.

February 19th, 2020

Starting DEC : 5,372 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 100.00%
Ending DEC - 6,310 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 89.15 %
Balance = DEC Earning = 938 DEC = ~ 2.754 Steem x ~ $0.223 USD/Steem = ~ $0.61 USD

Spent:

1 x "Soul Storm" (non-gold - 764 DEC -- one more card to bump this one up to Level 3 (and increase "health" from "2" to "3")

5 x "Orc Sergeant" (non-gold - 165 DEC -- these cards are cheap now, so I am gobbling them up with my spare daily "DEC change")

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "High Priest Darius" (non-gold (legendary) - Level 1 - $2.30 USD - 1,000 DEC) + 70 DEC
Total = 1,070 DEC

Daily Quests Rewards (yesterday's "water" quest - on the day when the main Splinterlands site wouldn't load all day for me)
keepers - 45 DEC
nonkeepers - 240 DEC (from one Orbs pack)
potions - +2 legendary potions, +4 alchemy/gold potions
DEC - 189 DEC

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

Daily Quests Rewards (today's "water" quest - didn't have time/energy to finish this one today, so will do it tomorrow morning)

February 20th, 2020

Starting DEC : 5,422 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 100.00%
Ending DEC - 6,299 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 93.52 %
Balance = DEC Earning = 877 DEC = ~ 2.686 Steem x ~ $0.218 USD/Steem = ~ $0.585 USD

Spent:

25 x "Orc Sergeant" (non-gold - 830 DEC - continuing to buy this card up cheap and work up to Level 7 -- just 7 more cards to go!)

Notes: The @splinterlands site was "on and off" ("under maintanence") for most for most of the day today again, so I put off finishing the "dragon" quest until tomorrow. No biggy.

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Feasting Seaweed" (Gold - Level 3 -- $0.79 USD - 500 DEC) + 230 DEC

Daily Quests Rewards (yesterday's "water" quest - which I couldn't finish because I had to do the extra "water" quest from Feb 18th (when the Splinterlands site was down all day))
keepers - 35 DEC
nonkeepers - 0 (zero) DEC (from one Orbs pack)
potions - +3 legendary potions, +5 alchemy/gold potions
DEC - 131 DEC

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

February 21st, 2020

Starting DEC : 5,491 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 97.57%
Ending DEC - 6,327 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 84.29 %
Balance = DEC Earning = 836 DEC = ~ 2.491 Steem x ~ $0.213 USD/Steem = ~ $0.53 USD

Spent:

7 x "Orc Sergeant" - (non-gold - 239 DEC -- bumped up to Level 7)

4 x "Javelin Thrower" (non-gold - DEC 652 (with some of the extra I didn't spend the past few days -- this is a very useful and powerful Beta Reward card which is now out of print, and so I want to work to max this one out ASAP). I may start focusing more of my daily "spend" amount on upgrading the Beta cards I have wanted for a while, since they are now out of print - BEFORE the price goes too high).

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

Placed 32nd in the "Bronze Blunderbuss" tournament - won 400 DEC
https://steemmonsters.com/?p=tournament&id=f713fec635d8fa919e025ffb37032d3fe488ad80

Daily Quests Rewards (yesterday's "dragon" quest - which I needed extra time to finish))
keepers - "Nectar Queen" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.52 USD - 500 DEC)
nonkeepers - 30 DEC
potions - +2 legendary potions, +3 alchemy/gold potions
DEC - 59 DEC

Untamed (Pack #2 : celebration pack for reaching "Diamond III" season level -> +10 season loot chests --> total : 40 chests)
keepers - 80 DEC

Note: After opening this pack I have 354 packs remaining in reserve. By doing a rough calculation of "354 / 2.5 = ~ 141 days (with the "2.5 being equal to the current "two daily packs" PLUS "0.5" to account for the "celebratory packs) it appears that - with ~ 140 days of pack-opening at the current pace - I should at least begin to focus on developing a new income stream to cover more packs (at the current pack-opening rate) into the perpetual future. The solution to this may lie in the research and experimentation I am doing with the Tron dApps. I will be focusing my efforts on that front towards this goal, BEFORE I start getting dangerously low on packs. As y'all know, my "pack opening" strategy is a MAJOR boon for maintaining morale in the game(s).

Daily Quests Rewards (today's "death" quest) -- didn't have time to finish, so will do it tomorrow)

Untamed (Pack #3 : evening pack)
keepers - 110 DEC

February 22nd, 2020

Starting DEC : 5,458 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 100.00%
Ending DEC - 5,965 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 91.00 . %
Balance = DEC Earning = 507 DEC = ~ 1.491 Steem x ~ $0.215 USD/Steem = ~ $0.32 USD

Notes : Had a rather light day on Splinterlands today, primarily because I was preoccupied with getting this post finished and published ASAP, as well as because I got consumed (in a GOOD WAY) with my research and activity with the Tron dApps (specifically BetFury.io).

Spent:

3 x "Javelin Thrower" (non-gold - 519 DEC --> 20 cards remaining to max this one out. I am finding it ideal to focus on upgrading one card at a time, generally, with the daily DEC earnings. This helps keep things focused.)

Untamed (Pack #1 : morning pack)
keepers - "Feasting Seaweed" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.70 USD - 500 DEC) + 70 DEC

Daily Quests Rewards (yesterday's "death" quest - which I needed extra time to finish))
keepers - "Electric Eels" (Gold "Promo" (Orbs) - Level 3 - $4.19 US - 6,000 DEC) + 20 DEC
nonkeepers - 225 DEC
Orbs Packs - +1
potions - +0 legendary potions, +3 alchemy/gold potions
DEC - 58 DEC

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

February 23rd, 2020 [AND February 24th, 2020 ** ]

Starting DEC : 5,497 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 100.00%
Ending DEC - 5,982 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 90.44%
Balance = DEC Earning = 485 DEC = ~ 1.236 Steem x ~ $0.204 USD/Steem = ~ $0.25 USD

Spent :

2 x "Javelin Thrower" (non-gold - 474 DEC--. 18 more cards to go to max this one)

Notes : Okay. For the first time in this series I got so ENGULFED and DISTRACTED yesterday (with the BetFury.io activity) AND I got stuck on the "fire" quest (which is always a bit more challenging than "water" and/or "death") that I simply wasn't able to maintain properly daily activity in Splinterlands. In other words, it was a "day off" - something I rarely do - but SHOULD do a bit more often. And for the sake of simplicity I have simply included BOTH days in this entry. I am also WAY past the deadline for publishing this weekly post, and so I what I have done is limit my activity on BetFury.io to MINING-ONLY activity, so that I don't have to spend time/energy actively engaged in that game, to the detriment of my more productive use of time/energy on Splinterlands. No battling = no DEC daily income = no card-shopping, and so this "bad day" was a good lesson to keep me focused, and manage my time/energy more carefully, actually.

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

Daily Quest Rewards
Note : The "fire quest was too challenging to complete, considering all of my other distractions today, and so I hope to complete the 5th (of 5) quest battle tomorrow. I will likely LOSE one quest this season. But that's okay, all things considered. Actully, the daily quest reward dumps are not as JUICY as they used to be (with the new system), and so there is less pressure to complete them. That is, one lost quest is not a big deal anymore. This is good because (in the case of this "fire" quest) I am LESS likely to play the "fire" splinter TOO HARD, and consequently miss out of DEC earnings for the day, as well as running down my capture rate.

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

Note: Because I wasn't playing full-force I decided to SKIP opening the two daily packs for February 24th. This makes sense, since the whole idea is that opening the packs is part of the playing process - in the sense of motivating to me to play the game throughout the day. So "no play - no packs". I think this is a wise policy.

Weekly DEC Earnings Summary/Analysis:

Grand Total Of Daily Earnings From All Days In This Update = Ugh! I done messed up the record-keeping for calculating ALL of the total USD income for each day covered in this update. But you can see the general amounts in the records above. The daily income is STILL within the ~ $1.00/day range, and so buying Tron with the earnings still seems like a properly-priced alt-coin to continue buying each week - ESPECIALLY now that I am actually USING the Tron to experiment with the Tron dApps.

Notes: By calculating the daily earnings over a longer period of time it will be easier for me to decide on which cryptocurrency to use for the monthly (and weekly) buy, as well as how much to spend. Tron is a good choice since the price is around 1/10th of Steem, and so I can buy a decent amount of TRX with this rather small amount (probably a few USD per month) of Steem. I will continue recording and calculating these earnings, and now also focus on putting a quantity to the value of the reward cards earned each day, which will bring the "average daily DEC earnings" figure up a bit (in terms of actual earnings - even though much of those earnings will be locked into the value of the cards currently held.)

Whew! These posts are growing dense - but that's okay. This week was ESPECIALLY challenging because all of the Tron dApp activity really complicated things and threw me off center. This coming week I will be more methodical in the Tron dApp activity so as to properly meet my deadline for next weeks series post. As always, take what resonates with you in these posts, 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