Another successful season for Phoenix Incantatem as we advance into the league of champions! 2nd game in and bam! I was faced with my biggest defeat so far on Rabona. 4-1 at home against FC Monaco di Bavaria.

Looking at the player stats of the human oppositions in the league of champions had my intestines hurl! All the teams have gone through 300-400 extra training sessions _at least_ and are beasts in terms of stats! My team on the other hand, have gone through about only 10 extra training session, 7 of which came after the defeat to Monaco! :D

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I did make a huge fuss about not spending all my hard earned hive on games. I even created a separate account to send away some HIVE regularly and i have maintained that weekly. I don't know exactly how much HIVE is on that account. Maybe I should not check, that was the whole point to begin with. Not knowing how much spare I have to spend :D

But, there was a major loophole in my policy! I never addressed what happens when I get some unexpected HIVE! The reason I never thought of addressing it was, I was not expecting it, duh! --__--

But as it happens, dada was very kind and decided to reward the 3 of us for our work on our [weekly magazine TURNI](https://peakd.com/hive-190212/@bdcommunity/the-weekly-turni-issue-12) _(of which, the 12th edition was just published yesterday. So go read it if you haven't already)!_ _#expertshiller_

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Most of it went straight to cold storage. The remaining I wasn't sure what to do. But after the battering I received it was obvious, in order to have some fun and stay competitive in the matches, I need a few extra training sessions. I don't know how much good it will do, but I've added a few new players to my squad too thanks to Mane for giving me a coupe of unreal deals on some of his absolute gems! I'm very excited to see how this season goes, one thing is sure that this will be the most competitive season for me so far.

Going back to financials, I finally made it to the positive balance this season.

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Confused by the -373k RBN? Don't be! Take that 480k on player purchase and you get the actual picture! So essentially I'm up 107k RBN this season.

That 480k was the only player I bought last season, but that was one of the deals Mane gave me, so I ended up paying only the scout cost and that 480k was just a formality we had to maintain for the market. We balanced the books between ourselves!

<center>![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/simplifylife/djJhIFXN-image.png)</center>

This is the guy! He has become an essential part of my defence line and look at those performance stats! Insane, given I had to pay only the scouting cost for him! I got another great deal from Mane today to reinforce my midfield! Let's how the new guy fares as I am looking to venture into different strategies and formations this season. My tried and tested strategy will easily fall short in front of the giant teams. 

It's safe to say I'm not targeting the 1st spot this season. A 4th place finish will be good enough for me. But you know what dada says,

> বেতাল সত্যি, অরণ্যদেব সত্যি, ক্যাপ্টেন স্পার্ক সত্যি,,,,সব সত্যি।

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