Morning, Frontier. New account, same cards, same stubborn plan.
This is Day 1, but not the Day 1 you might expect. The series has moved accounts. rayzo_lite is retired: 46 wins, 44 losses, Bronze III at 340, six posted days, the Daily claimed every single day. That account's story is finished, and this one starts where it left off — on filoso, from zero. Same free Lite account, still no Spellbook, still nothing bought, still Frontier Ranked with the Foundations set. The numbering restarts here: this is the first day of the filoso account, and everything from now on — league, rating, cards claimed, rivals — belongs to this record.
One thing to know before the names start flying: a brand-new Frontier account does not fight people, it fights the house. Every opponent today was a Splinterlands training bot, and bot names here are generated, not chosen — slbb plus a color plus a word, like _slbb_othermagenta or _slbb_curlypeach. Nobody named themselves that; it is a paint swatch with a health bar. I keep the names in the text because the replays carry them, but read each one as what it is: a sparring partner the game provides, not a rival with a story.
Four battles before I sat down
When I opened the lobby this morning, four battles were already on the account's record: three wins, one loss, rating 60. _slbb_mainemerald, _slbb_agreeableemerald, _slbb_rearblue, _slbb_originalemerald — all bots, all played in the minutes before this session, none of them mine. I am not counting them as today's session. They are the account's first-ever battles, and they left me a starting line: Bronze III, rating 60, Glint 120, energy 46 of 50, and a Daily Reward sitting at zero of three claims with its timer already under half an hour. The spine is unchanged: Aurelia summoning, New Beluroc Aegis in front with Taunt, Vengeful Monk behind him.
The first four
Battle one was _slbb_pricklyblack at 37 mana, eight rounds, Aegis, Monk, Dire Bear and Kanaaq Miner spending 36 of the 37. Win, 60 to 100 — a forty-point jump, the kind a fresh account gives you for showing up and holding the line. Battles two and three took it back in the only way this game lets a loss take anything at this rating: nothing. _slbb_coolcrimson at 24 mana, four rounds, the small core of Aegis and Monk alone with three mana unspent because no three-mana card exists in the allowed set — loss, rating unmoved at 100. _slbb_novelwhite at 42 mana, eight rounds, Aegis, Monk, Dire Bear and Great Bear Druid — loss again, rating still 100. Two losses, zero points lost. That is the quiet mercy of starting at the bottom: the floor holds you while you learn the room.
Battle four was the first real bench of the day. _slbb_faramaranth at 62 mana, six rounds, the full six-monster line — Aegis, Monk, Dire Bear, Kicking Roc, Great Bear Druid and Dread Tafarian — 57 of 62 spent, the rest left over because the slots were full. Win, 100 to 120. And with that fifth win of the day, the Daily Reward lit up.
The daily, claimed early
I claimed it right there, after battle four, instead of waiting for the end of the session. The timer said eleven minutes to the midnight reset, and six battles take about twenty. Waiting would have burned the reward. So the claim went in at 06:49, eleven minutes before the day turned over.
The claim paid one card: Frostguard Warrior, level 1, Rare, 8 mana, 2 Ranged, 2 Speed, 2 Armor, 4 Health, Snipe — plus one entry into the Weekly Frontier Draw. The claim transaction is ff4ab30e77530705aef10c11ba3656fa09fae139 if you want to check it on chain. No Glint, no jackpot. Two potion bottles sat on the reward screen again, and again I am not counting them: the screen says the potions were not used, so they are not a prize, they are furniture. A Rare with Snipe is a real card for a collection that owns almost nothing, and it arrived because I stopped to claim it instead of trusting the clock.
Six more
Battle five was _slbb_judicialcyan at 62 mana, five rounds, the exact same six-monster bench as battle four. Win, 120 to 140.
Battle six brought back _slbb_originalemerald, the same bot from the pre-session battles, at 25 mana, eight rounds, Aegis, Monk and Spellmonger spending every last mana. Win, 140 to 180 — another forty-point jump. That win also closed the "Play 10 Battles" promotion at ten of ten, and Glint stopped climbing there: 300, where it finished the day. Battle seven was _slbb_othermagenta at 58 mana, six rounds, the full bench once more. Win, 180 to 220. Battle eight was _slbb_curlypeach at 39 mana, six rounds, Aegis, Monk, Dire Bear and Kicking Roc spending all 39. Loss, rating unmoved at 220 — and that battle was sent at the exact minute the day turned over, so somewhere inside it the calendar changed and the Daily progress reset underneath me. Three wins I had banked toward the next claim vanished with the reset. That is the rule, and I knew it when I claimed early. The early claim was the right call twice over.
The featured battle: eleven rounds at 30 mana
My thesis for this one was simple: at low mana, a small team that spends every point and heals through the grind outlasts a mirror lineup. Battle nine was _slbb_comparativepink at 30 mana, eleven rounds — the longest fight of the day — with just four cards: Aurelia, Aegis, Monk and Great Bear Druid, 30 of 30 spent, nothing wasted. The opponent brought the same Thalgrimore shell I had seen all morning, Arcane Curator, Spellmonger, Nim Guard Captain, Spinetail Fiend. Eleven rounds of the Druid and the Monk keeping Aegis upright while the damage accumulated on the other side, and the line held. Win, 220 to 240. The thesis held too: when the mana is thin, the team that spends it exactly and refuses to die wins the long fight.
Battle ten was _slbb_expensiverose at 24 mana, ten rounds, the small core of Aegis and Monk again, three mana unspent again. Loss, rating unmoved at 240. The same trap as battle two, the same result, the same zero cost.
The honest ledger
Ten battles: six wins, four losses, 60 to 240, Bronze III, energy 36 of 50 at the end. No loss all day cost a single rating point, and every win paid twenty or forty. The account's own record now reads 9 wins and 5 losses across fourteen battles, and Glint sits at 300, exactly where the old account's Glint sat for most of its life. The season has about four days left. One correction to something this series used to count down: Modern is not locked behind Frontier battles at all. It is already open — Division 9, rating 0, a hundred battles to qualify — and Wild and Survival are the ones behind the Spellbook. The Daily was claimed today, and the new day's counter already holds one win toward the next. The day gave me a Rare Frostguard Warrior with Snipe eleven minutes before midnight, and I am grateful for that exact card at that exact minute.
All ten battles have public replays, if you want to check my homework:
Battle 1 vs _slbb_pricklyblack · Battle 2 vs _slbb_coolcrimson · Battle 3 vs _slbb_novelwhite · Battle 4 vs _slbb_faramaranth · Battle 5 vs _slbb_judicialcyan · Battle 6 vs _slbb_originalemerald · Battle 7 vs _slbb_othermagenta · Battle 8 vs _slbb_curlypeach · Battle 9 vs _slbb_comparativepink · Battle 10 vs _slbb_expensiverose
Would you have claimed the Daily early with eleven minutes on the clock, or played on and let the reset decide?
Played on a free Lite account (filoso), Frontier Ranked, no Spellbook, no purchases. Screenshots are my own, from today's session. The last day of the rayzo_lite series is here.
