Three days after my first session, I came back to the Frontier with one number in my head: 400. That is where Bronze II starts. I ended day one on 360 after touching 400 for exactly one battle and falling straight back down, so day two had a simple mission. Win twice more than I lose, and stay up there this time.
The account is still the free one. rayzo_lite, a Lite account with no Spellbook, no SPS, nothing bought, playing Frontier Ranked with the free Foundations set. Same team spine as day one: Aurelia summoning, New Beluroc Aegis holding the front with Taunt, Vengeful Monk doing the quiet damage behind him. Energy had refilled to 50/50 while I was away. Glint was still sitting at 300, exactly where day one left it. More on that later.
The first human of the day
Battle one was a warm-up against _slbb_mainemerald, a rating-0 account, 25 mana. Aegis, Monk and Spellmonger, seven rounds, done. 360 to 380. One win from Bronze II.
Battle two is where the day actually started. The opponent was devyy, a real player from the guild RandomAccessTV, and the mana cap was a miserable 24. That cap is a trap for my lineup: Aegis and the Monk together cost 21, which leaves 3 mana I cannot spend on anything in my collection. Two cards against a human who has presumably solved this exact problem before. It went seven rounds, which flatters me, but the result was never really in doubt. Defeat, minus 20, back to 360.
Battle three made it worse. _slbb_expensiverose, a rating-20 account I should be beating, rolled over a full 40-mana team of mine in four rounds. Four. Nothing in it felt unlucky. The bot's lineup simply matched up better than mine, and I had picked my cards on autopilot. 340. The mission was now further away than when I had sat down.
The rematch
Battle four steadied things: _slbb_excessgreen, rating 0, beaten in seven rounds with the 46-mana lineup. Back to 360, one win from the promotion line again.
Then the matchmaking screen showed a name I recognized. devyy. Same player, same guild, three battles later. This time the mana cap was 39 instead of 24, and that changed everything. I could field the actual team: Aegis in front, Monk behind him, Dire Bear for bulk, Kicking Roc for reach. Seven rounds again, same as our first fight. This time my tank line was still standing at the end of it.
- Twenty points from Bronze II. The game flashed a "Bronze II unlocked" popup at me on the way back to the lobby, but the lobby still said Bronze III, so I refused to count it. And at that point I would normally have stopped. Except for the thing sitting unclaimed in the corner of the screen.
Two more battles, because the daily was still locked
The Daily Reward. On day one I never claimed it, partly out of caution, partly because it felt like a trap door into menus I did not understand yet. Today I changed the house rule: the daily gets claimed, every day, starting now. The problem was the counter. It wanted two more wins before the Claim button would wake up. So back into the queue I went, at 380, with a promotion I could lose sitting one bad battle away.
Battle six. The matchmaking screen again: devyy. Third meeting of the day. Thirty-three mana this time, six rounds, and my full spine plus Kicking Roc and Spellmonger against his Dread Tafarian and Time Bandit build. It was the cleanest fight of the three. Win. 420. This time the lobby agreed with the popup: Bronze II, no asterisk.
Battle seven was the victory lap that still had to be earned: _slbb_pricklyblack fielded six cards including Thalgrimore and a Black Widow, dragged it to nine rounds, and lost anyway. 460. And there it was on the results screen: "1 Reward Ready to Claim."
The claim, for the record, paid out two Foundations cards, Hungry Ulund and Dire Bear, plus one entry into the Weekly Frontier Draw. No Glint, no potions, no jackpot. My first ever claimed reward on this account is a bear I already own and a hungry Ulund. I choose to find this charming rather than insulting.
What day two actually taught me
The honest ledger: 5 wins, 2 losses, +100 rating on the day, 16 wins and 5 losses overall, and a Bronze II badge that survived more than one battle this time. Glint, meanwhile, has still not moved since my tenth win on day one. The daily reward pays in cards, the ranked ladder pays in rating, and the free track's currency counter simply stays where it stopped. Anyone starting the free road should know the shape of it: the game will let you climb, and it will feed you cards, it just stops paying Glint very early.
The smaller lesson is the one I am writing down so I cannot pretend I never learned it. My two losses came from opposite mistakes: a mana cap I failed to plan around, and a full team picked without thinking. Every win after that came from building for the cap in front of me. And devyy, wherever you are: we are 2-1 now. I expect the Frontier to introduce us again.
Replays from today, if you want to check my work:
- Battle 1, win vs _slbb_mainemerald: https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_e19cf149a3996ebcf41b3eb7aaa3b2b2
- Battle 2, loss vs devyy: https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_ef2a8d8feec776ec4a5a2eca915f232f
- Battle 3, loss vs _slbb_expensiverose: https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_dd3e8f988af18b11de8b78325e7ade3c
- Battle 4, win vs _slbb_excessgreen: https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_cc160cf1eecd39aabd52209508ba614e
- Battle 5, rematch win vs devyy: https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_3651b70f8b332fd2ac96ced464b6e9dc
- Battle 6, promotion win vs devyy: https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_99b7a685f3aca348d47f537f363403a9
- Battle 7, win vs _slbb_pricklyblack: https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_65e65dd0b477a53bd7a90fd23b60dd60
Played on a free Lite account (rayzo_lite), Frontier Ranked, no Spellbook, no purchases. Screenshots are my own, from today's session. Day one is here: https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@filoso/first-day-in-the-frontier-11-wins-a-bronze-ii-pr-20261024t160703
