I've been following the Conclave Arcana launch closely, and had the chance to interview @yabapmatt several weeks ago with @ecoinstant - Matt's enthusiasm for Splinterlands was infectious.

I think it's definitely worth a listen if your curious or enthusiastic about Hive and Splinterlands

My opinion is that Splinterlands.com is a fantastic "gateway drug" to the Hive Blockchain. I actually found Hive through Splinterlands several years ago, I bought a Spell book for a Hive Account, years ago got busy - and never actually played a game; until today.

The enthusiasm around Conclave Arcana has been infectious to say the least, it's fun to watch people getting excited about a mature project like Splinterlands. The innovation in the space has been admirable with the move to a DAO, because as @yabapmatt said "having a company sucks", the addition of the $SPS validator network was another strong indicator that Splinterlands is here to stay.

I am Now a Splinterlands Player

The excitement got to me so bout a dozen or so packs so I could collect the "Arcane Skinwalker" card, and bought a Legendary Pack just for fun. I then thought I should play a game. @azircon gave me the sage advice to rent some cards first, but I thought I would stumble around some. I had seen a Twitter posts where an enthusiastic player mentioned his love for the water element, so based on that one post - I figured I'd make a budget set. I bought a quick 10,000 credits via Paypal, which was immensely smooth by the way. From the time I clicked purchase, looked away to watch a 5-second dog video on my wife's phone the credits were in my account. After watching the short tutorial video, I knew I needed a summoner, a good tank, some casters, and some ranged.

All the Strategies!

There was a Rosa familiy in the Kailua, Hawaii neighborhood we lived in before moving back to North Carolina. I actually taught the younger son "Young Rosa" how to box in our back yard. When I saw the "Prophet Rosa" card that more or less sealed the deal. Rosa would be my summoner.

Razorhound reminded me of a chihuahua we had "ZuZu" who was completely ferocious so that card was a must also.

I may not have mentioned all of these are Level 1 cards. I wound up purchasing about 8 in all for a grand total of $2.50 or 2500 credits. This was the basis for my crack team. I punched into Modern, Ranked Battle with a Mana limit of 40.

"Kulu Swimhunter" was my final pick before punching into the battle, and ended up being my game winning card. I wound up defeating my opponent with 1 HP left. Kulu was the game winner. I am now an undefeated Splinterlands play with exactly one battle under my belt.

I briefly contemplated retiring with a perfect record. But I enjoyed the game. I'll take some time to learn the mechanics, and put together a more coherent team, and perhaps venture out of water - I suspect putting all my eggs in one elements basked likely isn't a viable strategy.

It was remarkably easy to get started, with card rentals a new player can try a variety of different configurations without breaking the bank. I'm sure there will be some frustrations and I will soon no longer be undefeated but Splinterlands is good fun. I get the hype!