Since I have been playing for 3 years and over 23,000 battles I thought maybe it was time to make a little guide for Splinterlands.
I don't plan on going into in-depth strategies or anything too complex, rather I wanted to write a basic guide for new people. How to play, important cards etc.

I am by no means an expert or a top-tier player, but I still feel like I can share some knowledge for some people that may help to lower the learning curve a little.

Gameplay.

Splinterlands is a deck-building strategy game wherein you pick a summoner and a set of monsters to do battle.
Each battle has its own rules and mana limits. Mana is the amount it cost to use the monster or summoner for battle and is indicated in the top left corner.

Everyone starts battling in novice and works their way up through a tier system.
Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond and Champion. Each one has it's own tiers inside of it, for example gold 1, gold 2, gold 3.

Where you battle is determined by both your power (the accumulative dec burn price of your cards) and your rating. Your rating goes up when you win a battle and down when you lose, dependant on the difference in you and your opponents rating.
There are multipliers that improve your rewards for winning including, win streaks, guild level, gold cards used and more.

You will have a choice of a few cards to use when you buy the spellbook, referred to as "ghost cards". These are cards you can use in battle but cannot trade, sell, rent or delegate.

Strategies.

To begin each battle you pick a summoner. In low leagues like novice and bronze you will generally get to choose between most of the summoners each battle but as you move up the rules will block out more and more summoners, more often.

As the game becomes more complex with more abilities and different buffs these strategies become less relevant and you will need to adapt to the game as it does.

BUT these will still also probably also have a place.

Sneak

Sneak strategy relies on using characters with the sneak ability. This means they will attack the last monster on the enemy team (unless they have the camouflage ability which was recently introduced). There are many ways to run sneak. My personal favourites are the life team and the earth team. Goblin sorcerer is fast, his magic avoids shields and his mana cost is low so perfect for low mana battles.

Life can be ideal for higher mana battles, especially if you buff them with extra melee.
I like to use the life team sneak in no magic battles. You can use Shieldbearer to taunt, Silvershield knight to inspire(increase melee) and then use a sneak team. If you are lucky enough to have Chanseus as a summoner that will help as well. Consider using a monster like Armorsmith as well for a super frustrating time.

One of my go to teams when I think a sneak battle is coming

One of my favourite times to use sneak is in a snipe battle(see next section)
Snipe rulesets often make people want to use maximum damage to the second in line and work their way back. If you can use a tank like Lord Arianthus or Almo Cambio to take the damage from the snipe monsters and then use sneak to kill them from the back first you will often take out most of their damage dealers quickly.
This works extra well if you have a reflect monster and they use magic, the damage dealers tend to die very quickly leaving your whole team to finish their tank.

Sneak is easily countered especially with thorns,retaliate or even just a tank at the back to diminish the effectiveness. Sneak monsters also tend to be (not a rule) fast, so they may not be ideal for reverse speed rulesets either.

Snipe

Snipe is an ability that some distance and magic monsters have. Snipe allows them to forego the first monster in battle and attack the first monster with magic,distance or no attack.

Snipe is always a solid tactic, a high speed snipe team with a good tank is nothing to sniff at but it can be countered easily. Magic snipe is prone to reflect, distance can be returned with return fire or a strong tank with a backline healer can take a lot of damage.

One of my favourite snipe teams only has 2 snipe monsters but they generally do well

Almost every splinter has a decent snipe team, one of my favourites being earth(again).
Earth has Spirit of the forest and Child of the forest who both work well together. As well as any neutral monsters with the ability.
Prince Rennhyn and his snipe team is always annoying to go against.

Consider ignoring snipe when the ruleset calls for it. A lot of people go straight to magic damage in a snipe battle but something as simple as prismatic energy can kill half the team with reflect. Also consider getting a prismatic energy exactly for that reason.

Kill the tank?

I don't really know what to call it but basically focus all damage on the tank and then subsequent monsters in line.

In my opinion the best teams for this generally consist of magic monsters. Of course any combination can and will work depending on the scenario but Alric Stormbringer isn't one of the most popular summoners for no reason. Large fast blasts of magic that ignore armour can end battles fast and I like nothing more than using a ruler of the seas and a spirit miner mixed with anything else you want and just tearing through bronze and even silver.

Perfect example where I tried to kill the tank fast and got countered easily. The rules said all monsters have snipe but he focused some melee and sneak and finished my damage dealers quick

Naturally there are tanks designed for magic and all strats have a weakness. Consider an all rounder like robo dragon knight for high mana higher and higher leagues. Often the rules and mana limits will determine which cards are best.

These are BASIC

These are the very very basic strategies that have been used in Splinterlands. As things become more complex with more monsters and abilities you will need to evolve how you play and what with. You can use any combination of team for amazing results.
One of my favourite low mana teams (at higher leagues) consists of a cocatrice, chicken, screeching vulture, brownie, goblin sorcerer and then child of the forest. a 12 mana team of monsters that consists of snipe, sneak and opportunity to make the most of damaging the backline.
Fire Splinter also has some very good options for similiar builds/battles.

My honest advice would be to pick one, maybe two splinters that you like to work on/with. I personally would choose fire and water, you could go earth and death or dragon and life. Whatever you like.
Then play. You will slowly learn the nuances involved in battle, which monsters are best where. Little tricks to protect your high damage but low health monsters.

The game changes drastically as you move through the leagues as well and an OP card in bronze is not so amazing in diamond. Similarly an OP card in diamond may be far less useful in bronze. Don't overcommit to any monsters or summoners until you like how they play and know where you want to play.

Obviously the game has many many different strategies to employ but getting the basics down pat will help you to adapt faster (imo).

How to make money!!

Everyone wants to know how to make money, which is fair as Splinterlands is touted as a P2E.

There are a number of ways to make money. Personally I think stacking assets as a slow grind is the best bet but it does not suit everyone.
I like to try and maximise my rewards without spending much. Reward cards have, historically risen once out of print and are a pretty safe bet for a card to stack. Some will be better than others but a 10c reward card in print can, and has, easily hit $1 when out of print.
Use what you win to buy cards not rent. You can stack cheap cards with your winnings and as you move up you will be able to afford better cards, your power will grow, your rewards will grow and your account will grow.

You can also try and flip cards for a profit, I would suggest having a fairly good knowledge of the game for this as it will help you understand which cards are sought after and why.

You can rent out the assets you aren't using. Cards at level 1 are unlikely to be rented unless they are very useful or a legendary/epic. Consider combining commons to a higher level if you wish to rent them out.

NEVER COMBINE PAST A LVL

The biggest mistake I have made and would change if I could go back was combining cards to arbitrary bcx. For example if it takes 30 bcx of this card for a lvl 4 then do not combine it to 45 bcx. wait until you have enough for the next level
The amount of cards I half leveled and then got too expensive to finish off is crazy. Aside from that when you want to sell it high level cards almost always have a lower price per bcx. Keeping those extras as singles to sell would of made a lot more money. But also there no difference in a lvl 7 with 0 bcx past its level and a lvl7 that's 30 past its level.

Such a waste of some lvl 1 zintars

Conclusion/final tips.

There are many many ways to play the game and if you want to play for fun and a little profit then you can get away with ghost cards and maybe a few extras. If you want to compete at the top of the league for leaderboard prizes and tournaments you will need a large variety of cards.

I built myself to playing in diamond with over 550k CP (have sold a fair bit recently) from a few hundred dollar investment. Just grinding away doing dailies and end of season rewards, slowly buying cards. Start slow and you will get as far as you want if you have patience.

Don't worry about the meta cards like Kron unless you truly want to compete. It's sometimes easier to just take an L on a battle where Kron is the best choice and try again next time.

Don't worry about your capture rate, it will make little difference to most peoples earnings in low leagues and is not something to worry about. DEC is not how you will make money, it's just a handy bonus.

Figure out a strategy you like and work from there. I like to use strong magic teams so things like gold dragon and ruler of the seas are staples. You can always sell your cards and try a different tactic if you dont like it.

Love gold dragon and ruler of seas heavy magic blast combo

Have fun. It is after all a game. It is not meant to stress us out and frustrate us too much. I know I have needed to walk away a few times after a 3 speed monster misses a 2 speed monster 3 times, meanwhile my 5 speed flying gets hit by a 1 speed in 1 shot. I mean WHAT IS THIS BS??? nah, just take a breath. :D

This was just a test the waters post to see if anyone is interested at all, I know it's very basic in strategy and all but if there's any interest I am happy to go more in depth strategy posts and more. See you all on the battlefield!