Hello to any of my readers and "Dear (weekly) Diary" 😜

It's that day of the week in which I find the most interesting Splinterlands experience I've had over the past week to share! That fits in perfectly with the theme of the weekly Splinterlands Social Media Challenge too!

But first, a quick look at what happened this week in the world of crypto.

I think this past week is best characterised by Bitcoin’s roller‑coaster flirtation with $108K—BTC punched through that level on waves of ETF inflows and easing geopolitical jitters around June 25, only to see profit‑taking send it skidding back toward $104K by weekend’s end. This “rinse‑and‑repeat” is becoming something of a routine: bulls cheer every fresh headline, bears respond with swift sell‑offs. Meanwhile, Ethereum kept pace early in the week, climbing into the mid‑$2,600s on DeFi volume pick‑up, but faded back under $2,550 as traders rotated profits into smaller alts. 😱📉💸

Speaking of alts, we saw a splash of excitement around AI‑themed tokens after a handful of projects announced new partnerships—some jumped 20–30% on buzz alone before pulling back just as fast. It’s classic sector‑rotation mania: once a theme catches fire, everyone piles in, then wonders why the ride ends so quickly.

What about HIVE? True to form, HIVE bobbed along in the $0.19–$0.21 corridor, shrugging off the broader turbulence. No fireworks, just steady accumulation — likely insiders positioning for Splinterlands’ upcoming Campaign Mode and the new voucher drops. This resilience underlines a truth: tokens tied to active communities and real utility can weather the hype cycles better than pure speculation plays.

Is this the last chance to buy BTC (and HIVE 🤑) on the cheap? Who knows? But watching HIVE’s calm in the crypto storm makes me think this ship is worth boarding while it’s still smooth sailing.

Of course, I could be completely wrong too, so, please do not heed my advice for your own investment purposes! 😜📈🚀

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A brief introduction before I start though...

Good Day to all Splinterlands players! (and people of HIVE! 😜) I've made it a point to blog about my weekly progress and experiences in Splinterlands/HIVE in my "weekly diary". Splinterlands & HIVE are what I'd consider to be my entry point into the World of Crypto, and I intend to use this as a means to look back on the path I've taken in the years ahead.⏳⏳⏳

This is now the 188th consecutive week writing in my Diary (of sorts) detailing my Splinterlands Journey ever since I started this game. I talk about what has gone on my personal Splinterlands playing experience, my weekly Guild Brawl Reports, and also any Splinterlands in-game news. 🎉🥳🎊

No week goes by in Splinterlands without some news event happening though. And here's my pick of some of the most interesting ones in my opinion. 📰📰📰

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🗺️🧳✈️Updates on my Splinterlands Journey🗺️🧳✈️

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This week's Social Media Challenge is all about sharing our remarkable Splinterlands moments. I'd have shared my daily and weekly activities in the past, BUT, usually, nothing really special really happens in my daily Splinterlands daily grind, so let's hope this is more interesting for reading?... let's get down to it! 🤣

The arcane tides are surging through Splinterlands as the Chaos Legion cards bow out and Conclave Arcana steps into the spotlight. My Arcana collection is still just a handful of teasers—no show‑stoppers yet—so rather than dwell on what I don’t have, let’s dive straight into the heart of the action: the new mechanics, art, and strategies that’ll redefine our battles!

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My quest for more Gold Foil Legendary cards from my rewards chests "The New Glint Shop" continues on ("Greed is Good!" 😈). It's STILL a 0.008% chance, at base level, ridiculously low chance to pull a legendary gold foil, in case you were wondering 😉. Here's to more jackpot strikes in the future (i hope) 🤞🏻🍀🤞🏻🍀🤞🏻🍀.

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⚔️🛡️My Battle Showcase🛡️⚔️

The removal of League Level limits in battles allowed some really interesting matchups. No longer are "low level" players protected by their league limits. This often leads to some very lopsided battles. However, there is also the opportunity here to punch above your weight and secure a David VS Goliath win. As always, let me once again showcase some really great underdog victories I have achieved this past week!

Let me present a battle (or some battles) I fought recently in which I managed, against all odds, to win these players who out levelled me on an order of magnitude that I couldn't imagine. Victory or defeat would lie in the small details. 😱

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LINK TO MY FIGHT

I would say this was a fight of epic lop-sidedness! 😱

If it wasn't bad enough that I was facing a MAXIMUM level RARE Summoner opponent VS myself at just a "puny" level 5 RARE Summoner, I was also using mostly level 1 units. That meant despite my "middling Summoner level", my team was actually a lot lower in level in reality. Simply put, it was more akin to a level 1 VS max levels! 😱

The opponent was using a max level deck with his MAXIMUM Level 8 RARE summoner Obsidian from the CHAOS LEGION edition while I was using a Level 5 RARE Lobb Lowland from the REWARDS edition. And if that wasn't enough, his units were maxed out with far superior levels to mine! This opposing matchup battle of "Earth VS Earth" had me at the clear disadvantage as I was going to lose out to the opponent purely to sheer power and level.

At the end of the day, there were a few factors which resulted in my unexpected win.

• Firstly, the rulesets "UNPROTECTED" meant that my opponent would be, in all likelihood, be restricted to unarmoured and possibly hard hitting physical melee and ranged units in his team. 😱 This would also infer the probability that his unit choices would be restricted to said units and that I should focus on fielding the most advantageous strategies as possible in order to take advantage of such a ruleset.

• This inadvertently also benefitted my lineup as I could then just focus on just choosing the most suitable units I owned for my team, instead of trying to fight on multiple fronts, seeing as I would have suffered an overwhelming disadvantage just based off the difference in our levels.

• In fact, to throw the opponent off guard, I would completely defy his expectations by focusing on an army of "HIGH HP HARD HITTING TANKS WITH A BACKUP BEEFY HP TANK WITH THE REACH ABILITY, ALONG WITH SOME NON ATTACK SUPPORT UNIT THAT ALSO BUFFED HEALTH AND MELEE DPS, AND A DOUBLE ATTACK DPS THANKS TO DOUBLESTRIKE AND BLOODLUST ABILITIES" lineup in a pure DPS glass cannon build (so to speak). This lineup, combined with a high armoured and high hp tank unit capable of surviving as many hits as possible, would throw him off guard and allow my plan to take effect.

• My strategy would be to depend purely on lasting as long as possible using the TANKING abilities of my frontline units. The COEURL LURKER & BRAMBLE PIXIE were lined up as my frontline tank units with their great abilities (high hp, high dps and the TAUNT, DODGE & REACH abilities), to absorb the brunt of the initial damage. More offence was also added in the form of THANE NEWSONG with the STRENGTHEN AND INSPIRE abilities. To further improve my offensive ability, I also utilised a COMMON KATRELBA GOBSON GLADIUS card, which had DOUBLE STRIKE AND BLOODLUST abilities. To further enhance my strategy, I would depend on the +1 SPEED and CONSCRIPT abilities thanks to my Summoner, LOBB LOWLAND, to give me the ability to buff the SPEED of my units AND also allow me the use of a powerful GLADIUS unit. This would be a risky move as a similar move by a higher level opponent with superior unit stats would have derailed my strategy completely.

• Next thing of note was the MANA COST RESTRICTION of 50 mana. This meant that my opponent would very likely be unable to unleash his full arsenal of heavy hitters with a vast array of abilities against me. I would thus be able to take advantage of this by fielding a leaner and more focused specialised lineup.

• Of course, this was not going to be a walk in the park as the opponent still had the obvious advantage of much superior levels.

• Fortunately, and surprisingly, the opponent played right into my hands by arrogantly deciding to field an entire army of MOSTLY magic dps units, with just 1 melee and 1 ranged physical unit, instead of anticipating that my units would be solely focused on being able to land as many hits as possible on all the unarmoured vulnerable targets (and thus take advantage of the unprotected ability granted from the ruleset). This meant that he would be completely open to all my attacks once his tank fell, and would leave his units open to hard hitting attacks from my multi target multiple hit dps-ers, thus putting him at a severe disadvantage. He was likely thinking that he would be able to blitz me through sheer force of his superior DPS, thereby ignoring the effects and implications of the ruleset.

• Making the most of such restrictions would turn out to be advantageous to me.

• This turned out to be my saving grace in the end as my hyper focused gambit succeeded in gaining an advantage against the opponent's superior levels, eventually wearing him down. Even though my units were seriously lacking in levels and stats compared to my opponent's, my unit choices managed to absorb the brunt of the damage as I had hoped for. This allowed my HARD HITTING DPS units to destroy the entire army 1 unit at a time with their DPS capabilities, thus growing stronger with every kill, and then simply destroying him by letting the prevailing conditions and ruleset do the dirty work for me! I guess this was akin to a desperate roll of the dice hoping for that 1 in a million jackpot win! 🤣

In the end, all I can say is that luck was on my side. 😜

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Who would have guessed that my lowly teams would have been able to pull off such David VS Goliath upset wins? I guess nothing is impossible and sometimes, all you need is some luck and great strategy!

💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

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I definitely can appreciate how utilising the most of your deck's strengths can lead to unexpected outcomes. This is one of those situations in which Davids can beat Goliaths if surrounded with the proper team. The role every single carefully selected unit brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

For any players who feel daunted with the new battle level changes, I hope this article has given you some insight into the potential of every single card regardless of it's level. 😉

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🤑💰🍕Added Bonus of PIZZA Token🤑💰🍕

_{I will use my staked 🍕PIZZA🍕 to share a slice of 🍕PIZZA🍕 with anyone in the comments who also FOLLOWS & REBLOGS my post in the interests of spreading the Word of Pizza 🤣🤣🤣
Just let me know if you've done that so I can easily keep track. 👍
Any fellow 🍕PIZZA🍕 connoisseurs who !PIZZA me will also receive 🍕PIZZA🍕 back from me. 😊}

📣🍕SHOUTOUT to HivePizza📣🍕

_{The guys over at PIZZA DISCORD have been very helpful throughout my Splinterlands journey. I strongly recommend that you guys check it out if you haven't already done so.
PIZZA is an active gaming and creative arts crypto community on the HIVE blockchain. Popular games on HIVE like SPLINTERLANDS, RISING STAR, EXODE, HASHKINGS, WOO, TERRACORE have their own PIZZA communities here.}

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_{Don't miss out more events that are always being organised. Join the PIZZA DISCORD. Even if you aren't interested in the 💰🍕🎁GIVEAWAYS & AIRDROPS💰🍕🎁, there is a vibrant and friendly community there awaiting you.}

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_{Here's to wishing everyone all the best for the upcoming week 🎉🍀.}

_{To any new players who wish to explore the world of Splinterlands, do feel free to sign up with my REFERRAL LINK😊.}