Intro

Today we are looking into something that quickly became an obsession for many Steemians. A game that has taken our blockchain by storm and conquered our hearts over night- In this article I'll share the experience gained from the last two weeks of playing the game and cover everything you might want to know about it. Ranging from what I think about the game, how it works, what are classes, abilities, elements, splinters, to how make your first team and more.

SteemMonsters

Is a decentralized card game built on top of the STEEM blockchain. Unlike all other card games, where the companies behind them own your cards and the revenue their users generate. SteemMonsters allows players to own their cards and to actually earn money in cryptocurrency just for playing the game.

It has unsurprisingly, in a matter of just 24h of being live, managed to take over the chain of blocks and account for 10% of all transactions that happened that day. By the looks of it, SteemMonsters could aswell be the future Cryptokitties of our blockchain. As you might know, the currently Myspaced ETH kitties brought Ethereum into the hands of the mainstream. Could SteemMonsters do this for STEEM? Yes!

As soon as crypto prices started falling, the bubble burst and players of the used to be popular game, scattered away.

But SteemMonsters doesn't lose a big portion of its community during the downtrends. It actually builds it during the "hard times".

That's almost unheard of in the cryptospace. When blood flows down the roads of crypto, most users, or investors are driven away from using the coin, dapp or service hat is taking a beating. We have seen that happen to many projects recently, as they suffered great losses during the price bloodbaths. Both in the price of their coins and the numbers of daily active users.

SteemMonsters came out during the downtrend and its results were mind boggling.

Numbers don't lie

It strives during the hard times! Imagine what it can do when the bulls return and people regain the motivation to use crypto based solutions.

The first 24 hours of the SteemMonsters being live:

• 93,145 Transactions on the blockchain
• 17,730 Battles Have Happened
• 11,892 Market Sales
• $7,644.47 (USD) Sales Price
• 2,944 Booster Packs Sold (This includes 274 bonus packs)
• 25 Starter Packs Sold

This accounted for about 10% of all transactions on the Steem blockchain!

Just nine days after, it had 100k games played and over 1100 people playing the game!

This kind of instant interest and commitment for a game built on Steem is unprecedented. Combined with seeing the biggest stakeholders on Steem show incredible interest and support for the game, this instills a lot of trust into SteemMonsters future. Also, numbers don't lie. The game is on a road to exponential growth and a very bright future.

Source: beempy.com/steemmonsters - visit for this and many other SteemMonsters graphs/statistics/decks

Those are some pretty crazy numbers

For a blockchain based game that came out a couple weeks ago. During one of the worst bear markets we have ever seen. When most blockchain based project show signs of either major decline in usage or stagnation, SteemMonsters released its first version of the game and shown us what its capable of. What bright future lays dead ahead, when the markets finally recover. Then we will see a massive influx of new users joining the battle for honor and other shiny prizes.

Now compare that to ETH based dapps

Source: dappradar

Do I have to go any further?

Probably not, but I will anyway.

Another fact that that says a lot about SteemMonsters is that

Their Kickstarter campaign raised more than they asked to be backed with! 88 thousand out of 50 thousand they were aiming to get. By offering a fair amount of booster packs and special cards for each level of backing, they offered a deal many couldn't pass on.

The most one user pledged to support SteemMonsters with, is 5000 USD, or more! The exact number is not known but can you imagine? Someone backed a Steem based game with more than 5000 USD.

At this point

The game is mostly played by Steemians, with the exception of some users that joined our blockchain exclusively to play SteemMonsters. The leaderboard is full of well known users that have been on here for a while. Withnesses, high SP accounts, Dtubers and many other Steemians. I've played many games with people who I've been following here for a while. It was fun meeting them in the Arena after all this time, and dueling with them.

Some of the well known and influential Steemians I had a chance to play with are @themarkymark, @broncnutz, @d-pend, @therealwolf, @exyle, @ausbitbank, @joeparys, @jaki01, @stoodkev and many others.

NOTE: Last on the list @therealwolf, owner of @smartsteem has been traditionally owning me in game. Don't think I ever won a duel against him.

WALKTHROUGH

Players get to decide a splinter of their choice. Each one has a different summoner and a set of monsters with different abilities, buffs and debuffs. Every splinter has its advantages and drawbacks. Players must decide which splinter fits their playstyle the most and make a strong team of monsters who work in symphony to annihilate the opponents.

To help you decide which splinters and monsters to pick for your first battle.

You first must get a general understanding of the elements each card has and the basic concept of the game. The images down below will greatly help you in understanding what each element and stat brings to the table . If you have any further questions about the splinters or attributes, leave a comment and I'll answer it the best I can.

It is important that you go through these images enough times so that you actually understand what is happening in the game and why. Trying to explain each point in this post would make it unbearably long so, let's not do that. Read through the images, find out what each ability, stat or element means before you enter your first battle. If you decide not to do that though, you will beeing clueless to what is going on in the game and to why some things are happening the way they are.

Now that you got a better understanding of the technical aspect of every card. Let me show you how to create your first team, tell you about the do's and don'ts and give you some valuable tips that will help you become a Monster Maverick like myself.

BUILDING YOUR FIRST TEAM

Players must first select their summoner, consequently choosing the splinter and thus the monsters they can summon in game.

I have chosen Zintar Mortalis and the Dark Splinter. The current mana cap is 23 which means that is the maximum amount of mana our monsters are able to have in total. Each monster costs a specific amount of mana to summon in the Arena. Players must take that in consideration when chosing their team.

NOTE: In most cases it's not a good idea a couple 7 cost legendaries just because they are "the strongest" monsters you can summon.

You will get REKT by a team utilizing armor buffs, attack increases, heals and debuffs in sincrony to squash you like a bug.

Seen it happen way too many times.Unless you have max level legendaries, summoning them just because they are supposed to be the strongest is not the way to go.

The limit on mana itself changes on a regular basis, making the game more dynamic and fun. Sometimes this completely changes the meta (best set of cards to play) and makes players think, find the new best team and adapt to the changes. Accompanied by changes in mana cap

To build a strong team

One must have a tank who is obviously going to take the first place to soak up the dmg. A damage dealer, preferably one that deals magic dmg as it ignores armor and can't miss. Unlike melee attacks which can be pretty unreliable at times, as they tend to miss a lot, thus causing lost games.

Another good thing to have is a monster that either debuffs the enemies or buffs your monsters. In mydark set, the undead priest does that for me as he greatly debuffs the enemies giving me a big advantage over those who don't have a debuffer.

The last thing to take in consideration when choosing monsters to play with, is to get a healer. Someone that will offer the much needed sustain for your team and heal up some of the damage taken by your monsters. Or like in my case, a self-healing monster. Those are even better, because they can be paired with others who heal tanks for double heals.

One such set of monsters was one of my biggest counters this season.

_{The heal so much you can't kill me set.}

My monsters for this set just aren't of high enough lvl to play them effectively because they don't have the additional abilities. Players who had a max level Spirit of the Forest and a high lvl Flesh Golem beat me in over 80% of the battles I played against them with my Dark set.

POSITIONING

Take note about the positioning of my monsters in the team building image. Right after my first monster Haunted Spirit dies (tank) the Skeleton Assasin takes his palce and meets the enemy in the middle. He is intentionally put there because of his melee attack.

Its important to play with a melee, or magic damage monster in the second position because of the simple fact that ranged monsters can't attack when brought up to the middle of the arena. This is a make it, or breake it decision in some battles. Your ranged will also survive an extra turn this way, thus he has another chance to snipe off a crucial enemy.

Rule of thumb is .Tank first, melee second, ranged (preferably high HP) third, magic dmg fourth, debuffer or healer fith, ranged sixth. This is how I generally position my monsters and how the majority of other good players chooses to play.

This is where you want to be at when it comes to positioning. Tank first and someone that can follow up second. The rest depends on what you are playing and what the current mana cap/additional rule is.

The most important thing you need to do in game is

To see your team die and lose a lot of games. Doesnt sound very productive but trust me, it is. To be more precise, pay close attention to, who and how kills your monsters. This will be of crucial importance as you might be able to switch up your monsters in order to put one with higher Hit Points in the position that takes the most damage. Consequently, he might survive one more turn on that position, than the lower HP one you had there before and bring you the victory.

Observe the battles closely. Pinpoint your weaknesses and turn them into virtues.

Now when you have your first team ready for battle

You can either play a couple of practice matches to get you warmed up, or go straight into the RANKED matches, start earning rating and try to reach the top 100 leaderboard. I was ranking high in the first couple of days but as soon as more people came in, after a week or so. I got kicked out and couldn't get back in. The competition was just too big and their monsters too strong.

What makes the game so addictive is

The leaderboard and the rewards. With the leaderboard, one is constantly trying to stay on top in order to engrave their name into the blockchain by being one of the top 100 best players at the end of a season. Rewards go up as we increase our rankings thus, constantly pushing us to want to play more and reach higher ratings.

At the end of the season that lasts two weeks, players receive their booster packs depending on their highest rating. It doesn't matter if they aren't at that rating when the season ends. As soon as they reach a higher league, they are guaranteed that reward at the end of the season. Unless they increase their rating further and enter a higher league, of course.

That's what kept me playing for two weeks straight.....

I finished the first season at around 4000 rating and claimed 25 booster packs as a reward. Awesome! I spent so much money on the game that I can't afford to buy additional packs but still need new cards, of course. So, it's nice that I can
claim some free packs just by playing the game and ranking high!

Hope that I'll be able to repeat my success in the second season that just started.

The rewards aren't just for the top players

Everyone can get at least a couple booster packs each season. It's not just for the players with high lvl monsters. Even new players with lvl 1 cards can easily get a couple booster packs.

Additionally, there are daily Quests for extra rewards

This is something anyone can get. A daily free booster pack, just for completing a quest.

Quests are randomly generated per player. Complete the quest and you can receive a free booster pack. Start with nothing but the starter pack and work your way up!

GAMEPLAY

Consider that this game is in the most RAWest of forms at this point of time. A newborn baby. What we have a chance to play now is the first, most basic iteration of something that will be much different in the future. Think of it as Proof of Concept, and a testing phase. A way collect massive amounts of data by monitoring the games we play and crunching numbers to discover and fix any imbalances, or weaknesses some monsters or summoners might have.

A way to iron out the concept of the game and even out the playing field.

Click here to watch a full replay of one of my most recent matches.

For now

An algorithm is in charge in deciding the winners of a duel. Players have no influence in choosing who to attack and when. The code is in charge of how the match plays out. Players get to kick back, relax and watch the game play out, or skip it and go in a new one.

Although this may seem uninteresting for many, believe me when I say that it is far from it. Don't believe me? Try it out for yourself.

In the future

Players will have the ability to influence who their monsters attack and how they behave in battle but, we don't know when that change ill be implemented.

The Bottom Line is

---

That this is one project on STEEM that I have the a lot of faith in. @aggroed, @yabapmatt and others are putting in the necessary time in order to fuel the needed explosive development for massive growth I expect SteemMonsters achieve in the next couple of months, to a year. I hate to spread FOMO but, if you aren't playing monsters right now and claiming your free packs and cards that might be much more valuable in the future, I feel like you are truly missing out.

Hop on the train and enjoy the ride!

You might even get a chance to meet me in the Arena!

If you have no money to get into SteemMonsters, read through the rest of the post and join me in my future MonsterMadness live streams exclusively on the Steem blockchain through @vimm!

Fuck Dlive, aka DLie. The backstabing bastards..... I'm never going to stream there after what they did, that's for sure.

Are you playing SteemMonsters?

If so, how high did you rank this season and what splinter/set did you play? If not, what is your excuse? When will you get in on the action? What's preventing you from playing your first game?

Let's chat in the comment section down below! A comment tht in my opinion brings the most value to the table, will get my full upvote worth almost half a dollar. Weee!

Hope you found this article helpful, interesting, or informative and that I got you stoked about joining the SteemMonster madness! In the next couple of weeks I'll do some giveaways and will support users with free starter packs worth 10 USD so have an eye out for that, if you want to start playing without investing or just want some free booster packs :D

If you can't wait though, and want to join the battle straight away, feel free to JOIN NOW!

Cya in the Arena!