Not yet signed up for splinterlands? Make sure to use my link to get a free card!
In this post I simply wanted to discuss a little tip that will help you save dark energy crystals in SPLINTERLANDS when buying cards. Note that this post is mainly meant for beginners who are about to level up their first summoners/monsters.
Quick summary
There are a couple of ways how we can spend dark energy crystals in splinterlands. However, the most common way is definitely buying cards, usually with the intention of levelling a monster/summoner. Now, if you do this without putting too much thought into it, it's easy to pay way more than you should.
A lot of (newer) players set the goal of levelling a specific card, next up, they buy 1 base card whenever they saved up enough. The main problem with this approach that single base cards are more expensive than cards that are already levelled up. Let's say you already have 1 base card of a monster and you need 2 cards to level it, it might seem logical to simply buy 2 extra cards (or even 1 card that has 2 BCX, meaning 2 base cards). However, it would almost aways be better to sell your current card and buy a level 2 card from the market instead.
I'm pretty sure this is very obvious for more experienced players, but I feel like it's really easy making this mistake as a beginner.
Example
Let's take a look at a real life example.
I recently wanted to upgrade my goblin mech from level 1 to level 3. Since I already had 1 base card, I might have considered buying 4 other base cards. However, this would have cost me $4.35 (5 * $0.87), if I bought the level 3 goblin mech from the market directly, I only pay $2.00 total (5 * $0.40).
Now, I have to say that this is a rather extreme example because the goblin mech is very popular at level 1 and becomes less popular as a high level card. However, combined cards are always going to be cheaper, because you can't revert the action of combining cards.
What if the card is not available?
Okay, a fair question, what if the card is not available in the desired level? Well, you can either wait, or you decide to level it up yourself. There isn't much else you can do.
However, you can try to avoid these situations by not focusing on 1 card at the time. Instead, create a list for yourself with x amount of cards that you would like to level up. From that point on, try to scout the markets often and see where there are some good opportunities for you. If you always buy a card straight away, without scouting or waiting a while, you will probably not get the best deals.
It's a good idea to learn the value and prices of the cards and get a feel for "good deals". You might even go a step further and start day trading on the splinterlands market.
Conclusion
One of the main things to remember in splinterlands is that you basically lose money whenever you click on that "combine" button. This does not mean that you should never do it, (if everyone would think like that all cards in splinterlands would still be level 1) but you should do it with caution. Make sure to double check whether it's possible to buy the levelled up card instead of levelling it up yourself.
I hope this was helpful for at least some of you, happy battling!
