## Splinterlands (Formerly known as Steem Monsters) Setup Tutorial

Step 1:

Go to [Splinterlands.io](https://splinterlands.io/?ref=crystalhuman)


Step 2:

Click on "LOGIN" in the top right. Then click "CREATE ACCOUNT".


Step 4:

It's time to choose a username and create your account. Enter a username you like and click "Check Availability".


We're going to go with splintergamer on this one. (Please note, all letters must be in lower case when using the STEEM blockchain.) The Splinterlands website is one of the only exceptions where your username is not case sensitive.


Hooray! [@splintergamer](https://www.splintertalk.io/@splintergamer) is an available username!


Step 5:

Enter your E-Mail address and choose a password.

Once you're done entering the information, click "CREATE ACCOUNT".

Congrats! You've completed your account setup, now it's time to purchase a Starter Set. (unless you used a promo code or PayPal earlier on, if so then you will already have one).


At this point, you are able to play if you were to have cards sent to you by another account, or if you purchased them on the market. Without a Starter Set you have access to play with all of the common and rare cards from the Untamed Edition, and you can play in Ranked Mode but you just won't get any rewards. You also cannot play in tournaments without the starter set.

Step 6:

Now that you're ready to buy a Starter Set, go ahead and click on "SHOP" again.


Step 7:

Choose your payment preference one more time.
Since many of you are already familiar with MetaMask and Ethereum, we will use that. (If you need instructions on how to use MetaMask please click [This Link](https://hackmd.io/ydDi28zsTzW9QW6TqDeAIQ) for a free tutorial.


You have a few options to choose from.
STEEM/SBD, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin, Tron, Binance Coin, even KuCoin Shares.


Step 8:

Unless you're using something else, select Ethereum and click "BUY"


Now you will see the Payment Window.


Step 9:

Copy the ETH address provided by the payment window by highlighting then copying.


Step 10:

Open your MetaMask Extension.


Step 11:

Click "SEND"


Step 12:

Paste the ETH address that was provided, into the box under "Add Recipient"


Step 13:

Insert the required amount of Ethereum to be transferred.
(Since our total came out to .0463xxx, we went ahead and just sent 0.0464 to be sure the transaction goes through smoothly. You never know if ETH will go down or up.) If it were to go down enough, your transaction could fail and you would then need to contact Splinterlands Support to activate your account.

Once you've inserted the correct amount of ETH, click "NEXT"


Step 14:

Make absolutely 10000% sure that everything you just did, is CORRECT, because there is NO WAY to reverse a transaction on MetaMask, if you accidently send your Ether to some random wrong address. *Except in the case that you can contact the owner of said address and convince them to send your ETH back.*

Got that? Make sure you used the address provided by the Payment Window.

All good? Go ahead and click "CONFIRM" to send your ETH to Splinterlands for your new Starter Set!


You should now have a pending transaction in your MetaMask wallet for roughly $10.00 USD. Hopefully gas prices are low and it will go through quickly.

If it's taking a bit too long to confirm, you can "speed up" your gas price to a slightly higher amount by clicking on the transaction in your MetaMask window.


We got lucky and it confirmed pretty quickly as you can see, the notification is there in the bottom right. Now we just have to wait for a few minutes while the transaction is confirmed by Splinterlands.


Done! That took about 4-5 minutes. The time it takes to confirm varies from 4-5 seconds to 15-20 minutes. Depending on which payment preference you have chosen. STEEM is by far the fastest method for obtaining an account.


## **It's time "To Battle!"**


Your destiny awaits you.

You can either choose *practice* to get familiar, before jumping into ranked matches. Or get your shield dirty right away and start playing against others who might already have a little bit of experience on the battlefield.

*Practice doesn't usually have too many players, in our experience. To be honest it's more fun to just start off in ranked anyways.*

By diving right in to ranked or maybe even finding a tournament about to start, who knows? You might get a prize or two along the way!


We're going to go ahead and do a few ranked matches to complete our first Daily Quest! If you look close you can see where it says "Death Splinter" That means that we have to win at least 5 matches with the Death Splinter to win the quest today! Sounds easy, right? It can be, and then other times, not so much. Maybe you're just not feeling that splinter that you got in the quest today, lucky for you, there's an option to get a "NEW QUEST"! Warriors beware, this new quest freebie is only available once per day.


Now that we've gone ahead and clicked the "RANKED" button, we're off to find our very first opponent on our new Splinterlands account!

We've found an opponent! (It says ENEMY but we prefer the term opponent here since we like having no enemies, only friends.)


This match is going to be EPIC! (Keep in mind, we only have a Starter Set, and there are many other cards available in the game that we do not yet possess on the @splintergamer account.) The likelihood of winning against people who have more cards might not always be the greatest, but we will overcome the odds! We were born to win!

Now remember, we have a Death Splinter Quest today so we need to choose the right summoner!


Now that we've chosen the Death Splinter summoner, it's time to pick our monsters that will be battling.

The number in the top left side of every card is the mana. You will also see "MANA" under where it says "BATTLE". We have to selectively choose our cards to make sure we stay within the alotted 29 mana limit for this particular match. The summoner we used already cost us 3 mana so we've got 26 mana left to develop some kind of strategic team formation.


There is a mana cost filter which can help you find what you are looking for a little more easily, this is particularly helpful when you have several more cards to choose from.


There are currently 234 cards in the game! We only have a few of those, but that will change over time as we level up our collection with the DEC we'll earn in every match we win.

Now that we've filled up our mana limit with monsters, let's battle!


With no wait time, our opponent was already set to battle!


Uh oh! Looks like this person has been playing a little already! That's a Naga Warrior and a Mermaid! Two Epics!

We don't have any Epics yet and actually didn't do a very good job selecting our team either. Since we were also making this tutorial, it was a little distracting. Crossing our fingers, hope we win anyways!


A couple of rounds in, it looks like there's a pretty good chance that either of us could win this one!

That Mermaid is still doing some heavy damage!


Well what do you know!? We're winning this one for sure! All our opponent has left now is a ranged attack monster, and since this isn't a match where it can be used up front, it will just have to sit there and take a beating!


BOOM! Against all odds, we crushed! With our bad lineup and less than large collection, we somehow managed to beat an opponent with a few superior monsters!

It's not much since we're just using level 1 cards and novice league but we did also earn a little DEC (Dark Energy Crystals)

The higher you rank up the more DEC you will win for every won match.

As well, when you level up your cards by combining them, you will start to earn more DEC based on your card value. You can also use better cards, without combining to get more DEC. So let's say we used a Legendary card, instead of a Rare card, if we win the match we will get more DEC because a legendary is more rare than a rare. Got it? This also goes for the edition of cards you are using, as in, Alpha gets more DEC than Beta when played, this is due to Alpha being more rare than Beta. Alpha is the very first edition, Beta is the second. Splinterlands is currently on it's 3rd set of cards called "Untamed".


[Watch the full replay here!](https://splinterlands.io?p=battle&id=7e489a54fa489d784bbe24bae0af09ebed02a046&ref=cgonline) If you want to see exactly how it all went down!

As you can see by the progress bar, we've now won 1 out of 5 matches with the Death Splinter so far. 4 more to go and we will be able to claim our reward!


What a run! So far we've won 3 in a row! We're doing so well that we've already slid out of Novice and entered Bronze III league!


After losing 3 and winning 5 matches total, we've unlocked the Daily Quest Reward! It's not going to be very much because we are still in Bronze III, but once we rank up and get to Silver or Gold, there will be much more in the chest.


## Let's go! Open it already!


Cool! We got an Alchemy Potion!


What in the world is that!? We'll have to go back to the "SHOP" tab to find out!

Clicking on Potions to see what this baby is good for!


Awesome! It looks like this potion will increase our chances of getting gold foil cards! Each charge is good on one card only so the next card we open will have a greater chance! Sounds interesting!


Now you basically know how to play Splinterlands!

Have fun! Make sure to join their Official [Discord](https://discord.gg/CAFJRjY) and [Telegram](https://t.me/splinterlands).

If you have any other questions about the game, you will find answers there. Remember to follow the [Splinterlands Blog](https://steemit.com/@steemmonsters) too!

Enjoy this tutorial?

Any donations will be graciously accepted.

ETH: 0x2f6174929f8AcE7AFFbe2d75FB8170D37B22bD10
TRX: THJHPEJKVHmVN86RU8me8JvPSeWHpsNJ91