I'm participating in this challenge for the first time, I would love to have written about my trajectory in this wonderful game that I love so much, but I ended up missing the boat from the last edition.
Still, I take the opportunity to talk a little about this, because I believe it is part of the current theme. For a long time, since the game was released, I didn't play, I just collected cards that I won by participating in sweepstakes. I was afraid to start playing and get hooked, and I was right because I'm currently addicted! Luckily the Dark Energy Crystals % capture bar decreases and won't let me play over and over. ![rFMzg7qg.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmNXrs3XU7rjdFTGkkEBqaz5o1RWskFa4iT4tWPjT4ZK4y/rFMzg7qg.jpg) Now I know how fun and interesting it is to play, whereas before I saw the game as just an investment. This investment aspect continues to fascinate me a lot, for a long time I observed the Alpha cards and then the Beta valuing in the market and I made the decision never to sell any cards, but to hold them for the long term, expecting its price to increase more and more. After I started playing right away, I became interested in gold foil cards since they have the advantage of having a bonus in the % of DEC won, each gold card you use in a battle gives you 10% more in DEC awards. The next step was to participate in tournaments and I realized that gold foil card tournaments paid out substantially higher prices than other regular card tournaments. ![zUF4FozBoJQgFmX.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVwA84ZcNAxGcLzKVTcHTpK2pJxCUwr72kx1oA5hc6MYD/zUF4FozBoJQgFmX.jpg) So I started investing heavily in gold cards, hoping to become a great tournament player and this would be the fastest way to recover my investment and start making a real profit. At this time, I opened more than 200 beta packs and was lucky to get 1 Selenia Sky gold foil. Unfortunately at the time, I did not take a screenshot of this moment. Soon after I bought another Selenia gold foil and I remember that this single card cost 150 dollars. At the time I thought it was crazy to pay so much on a single card, but I did it on impulse, as I was eager to combine them and get a Selenia Sky gold foil level 3. At level 3 she could play at full strength in the gold league, and after that, I used her a lot in bronze, silver, and gold league tournaments and she helped me get a lot of prizes. ![selestats.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdMvSvGhyJKQrUif6JW65UeQ7EEV9PwnnXaf7vFSm2z85/selestats.png) However, I thought I could never have a Selenia Sky MAX LVL gold foil, as I would need two more cards and the ones that were on the market were costing between 250 and 300 dollars each. Then a few months ago, an insane downward movement in card prices started on the market when a large investor decided for personal reasons to sell all of his many cards. Following this trend, several other players were frightened and also decided to sell their cards quickly perhaps for fear of an even greater devaluation. I was calm because my focus is on the long term and I believe this game will be a great success in the future. I started looking at the market for bargains, but all Selenia Sky gold foil cards for sale, which were cheap, were top notch. ![seleniamarket.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWQ7AfN7kUdZK1Ugzs7wWphBQPxRccpBdZBmcweCBW39C/seleniamarket.png) Buying a top tier you usually get a much lower price for each BCX. Currently, it is possible to buy a Selenia Sky gold foil for $555, which comes out to $139 the BCX, however, the card with only 1 BCX costs almost $260. Desperate to get my Selenia gold foil MAX LVL, I decided to chat on Discord with a player who wanted to sell his MAX level and try to make a Trade. I would trade mine 2 BCX, for your 4 BCX and pay the difference of 2 BCX in cryptocurrencies. He agreed to negotiate and asked me for $300 to pay off this difference, I wondered and decided to accept it, but I didn't know how to make the exchange safely so that one of the parties would not be at risk of being harmed. To my surprise he said he would trust me and would not mind sending me a Selenia Sky gold foil level 4 card (MAX LVL, 4 BCX), as a gift, shortly thereafter I would send him my Selenia Sky gold foil LVL 3 (2 BCX ), and then $300 in HIVE cryptocurrency. It was an incredible trade, and I will probably never receive again such a valuable gift! ![giftgold.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWzoTFPEQCn7q3KoU1nknpwRiWK6Y72bNiyRUh36Gc64L/giftgold.png) Everything went well, and I would like to commend the detachment and wonderful behavior of this player who trusted me to facilitate this exchange. As I am very fearful and suspicious, I would never send my valuable card this way, without any guarantee. I know I spent a lot on this card, but it's a wonderful card that I love, I don't intend to sell, I know that it will help me win gold foil tournaments. This was the only card trade I ever made, I have already bought many cards in the market but I must mention that until today I have never sold or burned any cards, I am very afraid to regret it later. The only cards I discarded were reward cards that I offered as a prize in raffle posts that I did. To finish the post I will show a battle I won with her:

Battle Link: [@marianaemilia versus @frosta](https://splinterlands.com/?p=battle&id=285e70f036fd916d5072e5a2baca5168222c9f8a)

I apologize for the text so long, thanks for reading. Now I'm going to take a look at other people's posts on this subject, which must also be very interesting. See you later! ---

This post was also published on HIVE blockchain and won the BDCommunity Splinterlands Quidditch contest. See on [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/splinter.zine.71) Join the fun now: [Sign up here](https://steemmonsters.com?ref=marianaemilia).

--- Images: @splinterlands and @yonilkar ---

https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYjAHAqszT1tZX1vpsp4mxc9m1iZyMc4GnCpeXJbcC5Du/67392_n.jpg https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWKbuDeSLrjeTpQ6umQ3pkZHKtGh44YQvnW1pgzzb33Qv/357c2c4f186cfec553c7943a4b95a3a8.png --- ![m1981Jxqi.gif](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmR98SkheQpgUjjpPRM37zzP11YwiepRNKKC3cJQTfmDQb/m1981Jxqi.gif)