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The long awaited SPS battle rewards update finally rolled out and everyone has got this sudden new hype to play ranked battles. With this release comes an opportunity that I have been waiting on for a while now and that is Staking SPS for battle rewards. I've been away for a while so I really don't know if staking for battle rewards has been implemented yet but I am preparing to hop on the opportunity whenever I hear it is live.

Thing is, I did not take full advantage of the opportunity to earn a lot of SPS during the airdrop. Because of that, I currently have just **653.388 SPS.**

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I don't want to miss out on any other opportunities especially now that SPS is still fresh in the game. So in the near future I will begin to stack up on SPS. This is actually a good time to start seeing that the price has dropped a bit. After buying some Riftwatchers packs, I will stake the rest to my account. 

But wait, there's one issue;

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According to the [Whitepaper](https://sps.splinterlands.com/rewards/ranked-battles), staking more tokens to a player will yield more earnings but there will be diminishing returns. It's definitely a smart way to go about this in order to avoid mass staking on a few top players. The whitepaper states that there is no final formula for this calculation yet but still, it's going to be an issues for me when staking.

Initially, I intended to just stake all the SPS to myself but I'm not sure now. I may just stake a little over a thousand to myself and then stake to other players. Of course, my decision will depend on how much the final formula would affect the returns. I guess I'll just have to stack up on some tokens for now and see how things are going to change in the future.

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Focusing on the present, the replacement of DEC with SPS is very exciting for me. I've been much more interested in playing splinterlands than I was in the past few weeks. Last week, I mentioned that I would focus on enjoying the game rather than keep trying to grind a lot of chests and I have to say that the decision has been a good one. I have seen my gameplay improve as I learn from defeats rather than get pissed off by them. It's now becoming worth playing for me.

Right now I want to brag a little and share a battle which I defeated my opponent with a really sustainable team. In the end, I secured a flawless victory. This is how the teams looked like; 

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/theawesononso/23tvVmjKZx1UXQk1kcmshTy53pLukAzavbNzYYgXGb7H6pF21YxNCGZSW8xTZT6eULzvg.png)

It was the Equal Opportunity and Keep you distance rulesets. There was likely going to be a magic monster in the front so I decided to play Pelacor Conjurer as a tank. Together with Dax Paragon's amplify, Pelacor Conjurer would make a deadly force. To make sure he lasts for as long as possible, I put in Venari Crystalsmith with her Tank heal.

Yes my front looks pretty good but that Equal Opportunity makes my backline vulnerable too. This is the reason I used Lorna Shine as my summoner because her Divine Shield will give everyone a chance at survival. To make that back just a little more sustainable, I decided to summon the Spirit Hoarder. His Triage ability is gonna heal any monsters attacked at the back. This guy is one of my favorite monsters and I'm glad I got him for cheap.

Another monster that made a difference in this match is the Time Mage. Normally, I don't really like the Slow ability but in this battle it realy helped. At some point when Time Mage's health was down to 1, Angelic Mandarin threw a blade at her but missed. 

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/theawesononso/23vhnpqFsaJjMoGwusUbwVgiwY6Sh8o8udLpNrt8K6WhEY7kQo8YncxFmUPPipTW9xtX6.png)

Right away, Spirit Hoarder healed Time Mage and the slaughter continued. When it was all said and done, the match ended like this;

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/theawesononso/EoK3udLMgUCQQXEqGYrvmpRRtk8yaALChXQ83WYD3rfVGqdeM8XozZ1kjHpeE7QAzXB.png)

Only Pelacor Conjurer and Time Mage were attacked but in the end their healths were restored to max.

I am really proud of this battle and many others I have won recently because of my willingness to learn and improve. Normally I would not play Dax Paragon but after I learned how to synergize him with Pelacor Conjurer, I have been using him quite a lot. 

My placement has also improved a lot. Normally, in this battle I would not have paid so much attention to the placement of Dax, Time Mage and Spirit Hoarder but recently I have become very intentional with my placements. I put Time Mage in the position in front of Spirit Hoarder because of her high speed. I was hoping that some opportunity attacks would miss her and I got lucky just when I needed to be. If I had put Spirit Hoarder before Time Mage, and given that they have the lowest health, he would have been taken out due to his low speed and my team would not have been so sustainable.

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It's been over three months since I started playing splinterlands. In this time I have seen massive progress in a lot of aspects but I have to admit that I was becoming a little overconfident. I'm not a total noob anymore but I have come to realize that I should never stop learning especially with splinterlands continuously changing. I am still heavily invested in this game and community and I look forward to a bright future.

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### <center><div class="phishy">That's All For Today, Warrior!</div></center>

* **Unless otherwise stated, all images used in this post are from the Splinterlands game.**
* **All dividers were made by me with Canva.**
* **Don't be shy :) Join Splinterlands by clicking on [THIS LINK](https://splinterlands.com?ref=theawesononso).**

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***
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<center><div class="phishy">**Thanks for your time!**</div></center>

![Untitled design.gif](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/theawesononso/23w2gg1fHiyJazAd6Q8e2nH21vuebXvKJXBpSH3zhTackszbyu4iEzDezVnJfzrJF6Cxf.gif)