I’ve had my Hive account since Dec '21, but I'll admit to still being a total Hive noob, so please bear with me whilst I give this a blog thing a go! 

I'll start by saying I'm not your typical gamer, in fact I wouldn't say I was a gamer at all only 3 years ago beyond the casual mobile app on my phone. The last console I bought was a PS3, and my 'latest' game for that is FIFA '13, which should give you an idea of how much (or little) money I've put into gaming this last decade! 

Having worked in IT for almost 20 years, I've always had an interest in crypto, and have the typical back story of most people that heard about BTC around 2012, then did absolutely nothing about it, filling it firmly under the next internet fad / spam movement... I know, I know!

After a few (ultimately unsuccessful) dates with a girl back in early 2021 who invested in BTC and a few random alts, I was quickly throwing a few £££ into the space. Again, I did the 2nd most typical newbie mistake.... having watched my money double in a matter of days (having no clue we were about top out for the year and BTC cycle) I declared to myself that I must be an investing genius! With my newly found expert level trading skills (cough) I proceeded to lump thousands more into this easy 'get rich quick' scheme.... oh how little I knew I then haha

It was towards the end of 2021 as the bull run burnt out, that I started listening to crypto related podcast looking for some reassurances that this wasn't a total scam and we weren't going to plummet down to zero! By some good fortune I stumbled across the Bad Crypto podcast, and subsequently yours truly; Splinterlands! I had no clue about the game, ecosystem, or the Hive blockchain itself at the time, but as gaming crypto was pumping hard I Yolo'd into SPS at around $0.12. I then spent the next few months watching ‘my bags' disintegrate before my eyes; SPS being no exception. 

Around March 2022, with my investment in tatters having not sold a single thing, I decided I may as well see what Splinterlands the game was about. My approach at the time being that I may as well get something out of my yolo into SPS. 

At this point the term 'TCG' meant nothing to me, neither had I heard of Magic the Gathering or Pokémon... as I said, a gamer I most certainly wasn't! I decided I wasn’t going to invest any further money into crypto, but instead I would give myself a modest monthly budget of around $50 to spend on the game and started battling and buying the odd card here and there off the market. I think at the time the Chaos Legion airdrop had just started but I was just trying to find my way and understand why archers did nothing when placed in the tank spot

I quickly fell in love with the game and was hooked, playing daily and learning ‘the meta’; another term I had to google haha I decided that after making some fairly poor financial decisions, jumping around various alt coins, losing more and more each time, that I would treat SPL as my way of scratching the itch to ‘do something’ with my crypto. Every time I had the urge to jump on the latest trending meme coin, id just buy / sell a few cards and focus on slowly upgrading my card deck. I found this way more fun, and being able to play with my new shiny cards and grow my collection quickly fixed that itch.

That’s my intro into the world of SPL; I will try to blog a few times per month (time allowing) and see where this random journey into web3 / TCG continues to take me.

Finally, thanks for reading! Any suggestions for future blogs most welcome, along with any tips to improve my content.

See you in modern ranked hopefully soon
IGN: lost-my-keys