In the beginning of most players' history on Splinterlands, there is a need for a few good cards in order to enable the move to Silver, or something equivalent.

Typically, people would (will?) opt for a Flesh Golem, Undying Kron, Scarred lama, Yodin, Kitty, or something along those lines.

KITTY NO MORE


When you have been playing for a while longer though, you start to plan more strategically, more long-sighted. You start to see that you really need the economic outlook. In other words, you need to develop some cheaper cards that do very well in the highest levels.

But what cards should you plan for?

You need maybe 400-500 of one card for a high-level edition of the same... So it's not a trivial matter to invest in, even if the cards only cost around a few cents apiece.

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Now enter my plan, my selection for my grinding battles at this given time and place.

First of all, I'm in Gold most of the time, aiming for Diamond-3 and upwards in every season.

And here are the cheapest cards that I also have found to be quite intriguing, if not outright indispensable:

1. Chaos Legion Summoners This is just an indispensable group, one for each splinter. If very poor *(relatively speaking and only in terms of the amount of investment chosen for this game)*, one can focus on one or two splinters, but we all know what happens next... You will want to expand to the next splinter anyway, so let's just grab them all while we're at it.  All of these need to be level 6 (for where I am at present), but you can grow them slowly, one splinter at a time, a few cards per night - trying to purchase through the open market. Starting at level 2 with five cards for each and then growing from there until 60 pieces of each at a few dollars apiece.
If you are rich beyond your means... and need that little bit of extra to show off, then you also go big for the legendary 
Now, the Devious Quix is legendary, you need only 6 pieces for a level 3 *(which is as good as a level 6 of the other five summoners)* but it tends to be a **little** bit more expensive. Enough said.
Now for the cards. I assume there is already a bunch of cards - say from a pack-opening sceance of sorts, and now we need to focus on purchasing hundreds of cards, aiming for those few high-level cards that really stick out and make a difference. In other words, my favorites:
***2. Supply Runner.*** The Supply Runner speeds up your entire game. And at level 8 you get 50% more ranged damage, going from two to three. IF you choose the speed-battle way to fight, you need this card in your collection. The Supply Runner currently costs around 0.13$and gives you a high-level (8) card for around 25-28$ in total.

The Supply Runner works with all Splinters! A must-have that should be more expensive - and I am counting on that (though not financial advice - ever)






3. Riftwing.
The Riftwing is a fabulous no-damage card that grows in life, has high speed, and whenever it does not get hit, it backfires. I have seen entire backlines of Gold Foil melee fighters annihilated by this bad boy. Oh, and it flies as well. FANTASTIC for high-speed battles. It currently costs around 0.15$and gives you a high-level (8) card for around 25-28$ in total.










4. Chaos Agent.
The Chaos Agent is a small "filler" card that at high levels can be quite tricky to get rid of - saving you precious time for your big cannons to finish off the opponent before he does you in. It currently costs only around 0.095-0.01$and gives you a high-level (8) card for around 20$ in total.

The two abilities Phase and Dodge makes him rather difficult to hit in one go given the high speed environment of a Speed-Kill battle.







5. Flying Squid
The Flying Squid provides "Blind" ability to a speed game, making every card even more difficult to hit. I love speed games, as you must know by now, and the water splinter is exceptionally good at speedrunning.

It currently costs around 0.095-0.01$and gives you a high-level (8) card for around 20$ in total.








I have come to realize that this article will be so much longer if I also have to describe all the Chaos Legion Reward cards that I currently make use of and love to play with.

That will be in a part two article coming to your hometown soon :-)

Please argue, comment, make your opinion heard... The more we ignite the place (all in the spirit of battling it out on the field), the more fun it is.

/miko

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*For new players:* If by any chance you haven't tried Splinterlands yet, please do go and use my [Splinterlands referral link](https://splinterlands.com?ref=miko67). It's free for you and beneficial for me 🙏 Oh, and you risk making SPS (Splintershards) that sells for fiat money on exchanges, if not directly then at least via other cryptocurrencies. ***