1. Mint a Battledog.

First, you need to mint a combat NFT to participate and engage other players. The cost to mint an NFT is $2 (give or take) in Ethereum (ETH). Note what is required for just this buy is Ethereum tokens itself and not USDC, although USDC will become the only token that will be spent for every action you take while playing the game.

This is a little green soldier of fortune on the right menu option of the dapp.

You can't miss it!

(A little note, minting on any blockchain incurs a little fee we call GAS. Base is among the world's cheapest, inexpensive blockchain EVMs which makes it ideal for gaming, so the additional gas fee for minting shouldn't give you any concern.)

This a prerequisite to play. You need to have enough ETH on the blockchain to cover these fees else your transaction will fail. A good thing to know is there are no charges for USDC transfers, which makes playing Battledogs Arena even cheaper.