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NBA Top Shot: My first impressions and ⭐️⭐️ review

If you’re like me then you want to become a whale in the NFT game. I recently sold all of my Splinterlands cards like a total fool. I would’ve been a crypto millionaire right now if I hadn’t gone all APR Defi crazy and let greed and rug pulls destroy my deck. I felt like I had been playing the game for years and nothing happened, then all of a sudden, BOOM! Cards that weren’t worth a food stamp are now over $100. I even see gold cards I’ve sold for a few hundred bucks worth $100,000. I know I’m not the only one. Not wanting to miss out on the next great NFT opportunity, I checked out the list of top NFT projects at https://dappradar.com/nft.

I felt like most of the projects I looked at were lame and just copycats of Cryptokitties. I bought a kitty back in 2018. Is it worth something now? I think the game is so stupid that I’ve not bothered checking. Plus, I hate working with the Etheruem network. NBA Top Shot works on Etheurum and it shows with its sluggish operations. It costs $9 to get started. Let’s see what I got…

Let’s hope one of these is a $1 million M Jay or LeBron James NFT moment…

No such luck. I paid $9 for these three cards and they can be sold for $3 each so I don’t feel ripped off, but I don’t feel entertained either.

NBA Top Shot made it seem that if I chose a favorite team, they’d give me a free pack.

I’m not a BB fan. I quit watching when Jordan retired. I do remember watching the original Dream Team kick ass in the Olympics and collected as many plastic cups from McDonald’s as I could when I was a kid. I liked the movie Space Jam and played a lot of NBA Jam on the Sega Genesis too, but that is all I know or care about BB, so let’s choose the Chicago Bulls.

It’s true they’ll give you a free pack, but you better bring your credit card on this “quest” because you’ll need to get three more moments from your favorite team to “earn” the pack. The cheapest moment from the Chicago Bulls was $4, so I changed my favorite team who I feel is the least liked team in the NBA, the Salt Lake City Jazz. I mean whoever liked them? You’d get beat up fast wearing their jersey when I was in middle school.

Nope. Everything is $4 at the cheapest with the Jazz too. This feels rigged. It’s definitely not a decentralized free market like Splinterlands. They also have strong ~~KYC~~ rules. If you decide to withdraw or earn any seriously valuable moments then get your ID ready and take that selfie holding it straight without breathing standing on one foot and juggling some dates or whatever other nonsense the NBA demands.

Conclusion

I don’t recommend NBA Top Shot, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea either. It’s a centralized cash grab bullshit NFT project of the NBA. I’m not upset that I spent $9, but I will not check or think about it again for several years.

What about you?

I love Splinterlands and have only tried NBA Top Shot, War Riders, and the ~~Upland~~ NFT games. Are there any good NFT gaming gems that have gone under the radar?

Resources:

NBA Top Shot
https://nbatopshot.com/moment/ConversationGaming+1393fdd5-97f5-449a-a44c-98e0ecb5643b?

Dapp Radar
https://dappradar.com/nft

DARK HA’ON Legendary NFT battle challenge (rented)

Scholars of Khymeria have studied the shapeshifting, mystical beasts known as Ha’on extensively since their appearance ten years ago. At an early age, each Ha’on chooses a single power form, into which they can transform. Their time is then divided into their original humanoid form and the power form, which takes a considerable amount of energy to maintain for long periods of time. The Human forms of Ha’on are recognizable by their frightening single-colored eyes, a trait with which they are endowed when they realize their full shapeshifting potential. The Dark Ha’on is one of the strongest Ha’on, taking the power form of a large flying cat.

I remember when this NFT Death Legendary card was less than a dollar. I even had one maxed out. I didn’t have the cash to buy it today so I rented it for a few cents. Don’t feel bad if you sold all of your cards or are just getting started. There will soon be a new batch of cards that will give us all another chance.

I photoshopped and duplicated a copy of Dark Ha’on and enlarged it for dramatic effect. My enemy had a good strategy. They put out a strong tank, healer, sneak attacker, and some magic cards.

I used a summoner which gives all of my cards the ability to reflect magic back. Dark Ha’on absorbed most of the attacks while my two scary-looking archer and sniper ghosts helped my lead card wipe out the enemy.

Thank you Splinterlands for creating such a great game. The light years of advancement over the years have been truly impressive and I know there is a lot more where that came from.

If you are interested in getting started with NFTs, then I couldn’t imagine a better place to start than Splinterlands. Get in the game!

Check out my battle:
https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=sl_64b15bb9c1f67a234629e62aab92361c&ref=jeremiahcustis

Participate in this week’s challenge:
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/share-your-battle-weekly-challenge-dark-haon

CAVE SLUGS won another NFT battle in SPLINTERLANDS for me this week.

In southern Khymeria, near the Crystalline Harbor, there is a dank place known as Baluthar’s Deep. There are stories of ancient treasures buried there in the darkness, but the most that treasure hunters typically find is a slew of hideous cave monstrosities. One of the most well-known is the Cave Slug, which hides in plain sight and devours victims quite quickly.

Welcome to another week of awesome Splinterlands gameplay, everyone! Cards are getting very expensive these days so I was happy to see this week’s battle challenge is the Cave Slugs. I actually do not own this card, but I used to so it’s still available to me. Splinterlands is very fair for making this possible. Imagine if you sold your car to the neighbor down the street, but they still let you use it sometimes because you were the original owner. That’s kinda how NFTs work. I know that in the art NFT space, the original creator or the artist will always earn a percentage no matter how many times it changes hands.

I’ve been playing this wonderful decentralized NFT game since it was new. If I had HODLed all of my cards I’ve ever been awarded, I could’ve bought a house in Southern California, but I was dumb and broke and sold all of my maxed ALPHA and BETA cards to survive. No one knows the future so I don’t feel bad. Plus this game is just getting started. There is still a lot of opportunity for new players and dumbasses like me who’ve sold everything to make a comeback!

My battle went well even though I was up against an undead zombie T-rex and a powerful sandworm. I lost my first monster in the fight, but my Cave Slugs with their opportunity ability, which means they will attack the enemy monster with the least health, helped win another victory. I think that as long as every card has a different job to do that your chances of winning will go up. Don’t just rely on one strong card in the front. Predict what your enemy will do based on their past choices and then maximize your attack potential by choosing the appropriate cards for the battle rules.

Thank you for checking out my battle this week. Splinterlands will go down in gaming history as the original OG play to earn game. I’ve been waiting years for a better game to come along, but none have captured my attention so far. What do you think is the best play-to-earn game today?

Check out my battle:
https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=cdce52391db9b9ec587f28f90985187fd40466fa&ref=jeremiahcustis

Participate in this week’s challenge:
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/share-your-battle-weekly-challenge-cave-slugs

OCTOPIDER

You may be thinking that a spider already has eight legs, so why Octopider? For one thing, the Octopider is much larger than a spider, closer to the size of an octopus. Its legs, although they can scurry like a spider, are actually the tentacles of an octopus. In fact, this monstrosity has nearly all the most terrifying features of both spiders and octopi. The Octopider can move easily in water or on land. Whenever threatened, the Octopider disappears into an inky, venomous cloud. They say the Octopider was a grotesque creation of the Gorlodon, a famed monstrous dark sorcerer of the deep water.

This week’s challenge theme looks super scary. Imagine the horror as this monster sucks your face off while its tentacles squeeze you to death! Luckily, it’s just an NFT. It has a ranged attack of 3 right from the get-go at level one. The demoralize ability kicks in at level three. This will reduce the melee attack of ALL your enemies which is very useful. At level seven it has the ability to blind making it more likely your enemy misses you when attacking. This is a cheap, but must-have card in my opinion.

My first battle was a victory thanks to the Haunted Spirit’s ability to self-heal. The OCTOPIDER wasn’t exactly the MVNFT of the battle, (Is Most Valuable NFT a word? It is now 😉 so I battled again.

This was a good ranged -vs- ranged battle. The OCTOPIDER with its ranged attack of 3 was the heaviest hitter on the battlefield. Thanks for the victory OCTOPIDER, you scary-ass spider of an octopus NFT monster.

My battles:

https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=4e9c32af978f08015b7c260dba0b02cce170aa85&ref=jeremiahcustis

https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=27e7907844ba2fd9cc31a0e3d97776e8e2027e15&ref=jeremiahcustis

This week’s challenge:

https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/share-your-battle-weekly-challenge-octopider

SILVERSHIELD BARD

Bards of the Silver Shield have extremely loud voices, and they are not afraid to use them. In battle, the Bard’s song can unify and hasten a team, and their maximum volume has the power to scare away possessing spirits. In the University of Illumination, these musical enthusiasts are trained and ingrained for years in the official sanctioned Lore of the Silver Shield. What they lack in vocal talent, the Bards make up for in storytelling, humor, and wit.

This week’s battle challenge was fun. The SILVERSHIELD BARD, like any other 1 mana card, is a must-have and a keeper of an NFT. If she can survive the battle with her limited health, she’ll remove any negative effects the enemy has caused your front monster.

As you can see, she’s not that expensive. This isn’t financial advice or anything, but I guarantee she will be worth over a dollar one day. It could be a year or longer though.

My enemy used the hard to beat Living Lava, but we were still able to earn a victory. My SILVERSHIELD BARD served as empty bait for their Serpentine Spy. Although I was happy to earn a victory, I really wanted to show this card in action so I played again.

This time her ability was useful. She removed the Pit Ogre’s stun on my Sacred 🦄 Unicorn so we could win again.

Great service

Splinterlands is a great game but they also have some of the best customer service I have ever seen in my life. My student who’s good at the game, but doesn’t own a PC, wanted to sell some DEC and invest in CUB so I told him to send it to me and I would take care of it. Something went wrong when I tried to use the bridge to the Binance Smart ⛓️ Chain. I didn’t know what to do so I emailed customer support at Splinterlands. To my surprise, they had replied within 5 minutes and fixed the problem. Here’s what they said in the email,

I am very sorry about that, it looks like there was an error with our BSC bridge. The DEC tokens have just been sent back to your account in the game and the issue with the bridge should now be fixed so you can try withdrawing them again and please let us know if you run into any other issues.

I was so impressed with their speedy resolution that I sent them a thank you email and they replied with this,

Well, we fixed the issue with the BSC bridge as soon as we were alerted to it, but it looks like we didn’t see that you had a failed transaction until you contacted us. In any case, we do try to resolve any issues around failed crypto transactions asap and we make sure that no one loses any tokens or assets as a result of our systems.

In this day of age where most companies use cookie-cutter copy and paste fake email replies, it’s really nice to actually have a human take the time to understand, use proper grammar, and fix the problem within minutes. Thank you Splinterlands.

My battles:
https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=165d9d12a1a47bd2f8410a0781f2c8f86cf354be&ref=jeremiahcustis

https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=aaf92a9a837d6f835a51bfa02cea216653181328&ref=jeremiahcustis

This week’s challenge:
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/share-your-battle-weekly-challenge-silvershield-bard

PEACEFUL GIANT

There have always been stories of Giants in the Splinterlands, but recently they began to arrive. They bring tales of a home far across the water that they had to flee from a terrible threat. Luckily, these refugee Giants mean no harm to the Splinterlands. Most of them arrived by swimming across the entire Outer Ocean.

The giant may be a pacifist, but he’ll help you win when used at the right times. If you’re a strong magic or ranged player, he’ll work well as a shield in the front or the rear. We sadly killed all of the Earth’s giants after they built our pyramids and won our wars. I miss them. Shame on us for their enslavement, extinction, and cover-up! At least they peacefully battle on in the Splinterlands. For now… Can NFTs go extinct?

Oh no! I got a rich Gold carded higher-level enemy. I sometimes feel like the game’s AI has a conspiracy against me and always gives my enemies a bunch of misses. Not today. I was lucky and got way more misses and won this battle. Much thanks to the Peaceful Giant. He gave his life for our victory today. All of the DEC earned in today’s battle will go to his family. There aren’t that many giants left. Maybe we should refrain from using them in battle from now on…

My battle:
https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=30fd0c092367a496d695f48e18668650042aeb8e&ref=jeremiahcustis

This week’s challenge:
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/share-your-battle-weekly-challenge-peaceful-giant

Fire Spitter NFT Battle Challenge

Small but mighty, the Fire Spitters have recently descended upon the Dragon Splinter of Draykh-Nahka, where they fit right in. They come from a faraway exotic place only known as the Pocket Dimension. The Pocket Dimension has many key differences to the Splinterlands, but lots of things in common as well. Most of the monsters there are smaller than those native to the Splinterlands, including the Fire Spitter. However, even the smallest Fire Spitters can produce a magnificent blaze, large enough to easily incinerate a cottage in a few minutes.

I remember when Splinterlands used to reward this card out like it was candy. It’s now worth over sixty cents! I would like to request an interesting and maybe even depressing bot that shows what all the cards we’ve ever owned would be worth if we never sold, burned, or combined them. If I had just HODLed every card I’ve been rewarded over the years, I would easily have $10,000 now, but I was dumb, broke, greedy, and emotional, so I’ll have to work my way back from monster bottom just like I’ve done two times before. While it’s very exciting that NFTs are selling for millions of dollars, Splinterlands has been making NFTs accessible as rewards for gameplay for years. Even though I regret selling so many of my cards I always remind myself that this whole NFT gaming journey all began with just $10. Show me any other NFT site where all you need is $10 and can grow that into a champion account over time. Right now I don’t know of a better decentralized blockchain-based game than Splinterlands. Do you?

My Fire Spitter Battle:

It took me forever to get a victory, let alone a chance for my Fire Spitter to be useful, but this battle had it safely positioned in the middle helping take out the enemy’s lead monster with a ranged attack of 2. The Fire Spitter is also useful during earthquakes because as a dragon, of course, it can fly. Thank you for reading. Check out my battle: https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=550f392e715608a2c49e04f4af9d6101689262e6&ref=jeremiahcustis

Naga Fire Wizard NFT Battle Challenge

The Flame Naga of the Burning Lands are tough. Not only are they extremely intelligent and skilled in every known weapon, but they have recently been taught magic by order of the Flaming Robe. In the last Mount Mox tournament season, the Flame Wizards really cleaned up.

Splinterlands, my favorite game, gives you the chance to win NFT battle cards which you can use in rumbles, sell, rent, burn, lend, or just HODL. It’s up to you. Your cards are your cards. Every week they have a battle challenge focusing on a different card.

This is a strong card right from the beginning as it has a shield which protects against melee and ranged attacks at level one and the thorn ability at level five which usually hurts enemies more than they do you when attacked. Even if there is just one heart left, that thorn ability can take out shields or even kill the attacker setting up the monsters behind you for better chances at victory.

I took a screenshot of my battle above. You can see me at the bottom. I belong to the Mandalorians Guild. We are ranked about the 50th guild. Joining a guild helps build a community within the game as well as earning bonus crypto for every victory, buildings, and brawls.

I put out the chicken first in a classic Splinterlands move. It costs nothing and has just one heart, but a powerful monster will usually waste its first attack on the chicken. After they killed my dog, I was getting worried, but the Naga Fire Wizard‘s shield ability saved the day winning us the victory. Thank you for reading. Check out my battle here: https://steemmonsters.com?p=battle&id=a3673b748985446fa041c9601dca28309117c384&ref=jeremiahcustis

What about you?

I will update this monthly as new ways to earn are learned from your comments. Which post to earn site or app is the best in your opinion? Which did I miss?

Splinterlands Art Contest: SPIRIT OF THE FOREST

She’ll heal and protect her friends while flying and shooting arrows at her enemies. She’s hard to hit and does a lot of damage while keeping the front monster alive making her one of my favorite cards.

From the safety of the Eldest Tree, deep in the shrouded magic of the Hungry Wood, the Spirit of the Forest lives and grows. She is one of the original creators of life in the Splinterlands, and little happens without her knowing about it. She can be summoned to battle by a skilled summoner, but she loves all her children as a good mother should.

Coming across the latest Splinterlands Art Contest, I thought I would do a sketch inspired by one of the new cards, but after looking through them all, I decided on sketching the classic ALPHA card, SPIRIT OF THE FOREST, instead. At first I thought I would have her growing a tower of protection and a tree from the ground as if she where a reverse Night King from Game of Thrones. I copy and pasted her and her healing powers from the game initially as inspiration or as a guide, but she fit in perfectly, so I moved, resized, and redrew her healing magic and blurred her into the picture. I changed her face and hair a little bit and made her boobs bigger. I changed the position of her arms to fit with my idea and had her hands blur into healing power and the tower so I could avoid drawing them. I took some pictures along the way in Procreate then stacked them all on top of each other in their own layers and exported it as an animated GIF. Thanks for checking out my Splinterlands sketch today. I know I cheated a bit with the copy and paste part, but it was fun and it came out nice.