Splinterlands | Accumulation of Cards & SPS #4

(Edited)


After 5 years of grinding Splinterlands, I now am upgrading my collection to Max Level cards as prices are extremely low at the moment. With the price of SPS falling below 0.01, I also actively started buying again.


Wild Tax & Dropping SPS Price!

The new Wild Season started today introducing a tax which in total lowers the overall reward pool while favoring players with a high-level collection and a lot of SPS Staked. This pretty much put most of the reward-leeching bots along with the more casual players in a position where they have to capitulate. I have now also fully given up on my Alt account also because I simply don't have the time and will just use it to help my guild play Brawls waiting for card prices hopefully one day to recover.

While many see this change as 'those who keep playing will earn more SPS' even after the tax, the reality however is that this has an equal if not more negative effect on the SPS Price which will decrease earnings which further will decrease card values. That is pretty much what we are seeing and the death spiral of Splinterlands keeps going. I do expect lower prices going forward and for it to take more time for the devs and the community to come to their senses that card values matter a lot.

Right now, card prices are so low that the fail-safe mechanism is kicking into gear that players are burning cards for DEC which is starting the reduce the supply but at the same time is getting DEC well under peg further putting downward pressure on card prices.

I still see the solution in 2 main things that need to happen

  • a Card Burn Mechanism preferably for the need to burn a similar type card as one of the requirements to unlock soulbound cards. The game will never see adoption if its a sure thing that players who buy packs get crushed on their card values over time.
  • a New Fun Game Mode where everyone is on a level playing field and where there is an entry fee as an indirect way to buy packs. Cards for this should be provided by those who own them in a 1-click easy rental way while it earns part of the fees that come in.

In the end, new players need to come in while right now every change or Community Vote is getting more players getting out. The main thing that Splinterlands has going for it is that the game itself still is actually fun. So I continue to slowly but surely re-invest earnings buying more cards and SPS...


Weclome To The Family New Max Level Cards

I did slow down my pace of accumulation as it feels like each week prices go lower and lower and lower. This off course until a bottom is reached after which it could go up quickly.


Summoners

By now, I have 12 Summoners at Max level and I'm pretty much waiting until I can spot a great deal on some of them. So I didn't add any last week even though I'm still eying some.


Premium Cards!

I only leveled up 1 card which I consider Premium last week which is the Kelp Initiate. With the overpowered Weapons Training Ability introduced to the game, No Attack Monsters have gotten a major Boost and the 2-Mana Kelp Initiate which has 9 Health, 6 Speed, the Cleanse Ability which is really useful at higher levels and with specific game rules, and also the Triage ability it overall is an extremely stong and useful cards especially al lower mana battles. I plan on using this one quite often going forward in combination with the Possibilus + Kraken + Kulu Mastermind + Double Tank Heal.


Chaos Legion Cards
Chaos Legium continues to be dirt cheap right now as the overprint based on the current player base is insane while I believe there are still 2 Million Unopened Packs.

5 more cards I managed to get to Max Level

Merdaali Guardian: This one I use all the time and I was well overdue to get it to max level where it gives all other monsters +1 health.

Goblin Psych: This is another card that I use all the time even when I just had it at a lower level.

Stitch Leech: The 1 extra attack and 4 health really makes a difference for this card even though I don't use it all too often. The price is soo low that the upgrade was really cheap.

Nerissa Tridawn: The main downside of this one is that I don't have the expensive Arlic Stormbringer Summoner at max level which is where it is most useful. However, it is another one where the price got so low that it was worth the upgrade as It at times is useful in other games where there is a high mana cap.

Chaos Dragon: It cost 3$ to upgrade from level 3 to Max Level which puts it not that far away from the actual DEC burn value. So on these cards, the downside risk is actually much lower compared to the upside potential in case the game would see another adoption wave.

The Carnage Titan with double strike now getting 4 instead of 3 damage will make a difference while the others mostly bring small improvements.


Other Cards

I kind of missed the fact that I only had the Tide Biter at level 5 and upgraded it to level 6 where it gets True Strike. I also upgraded one of the Beta Rare cards that I really love to Level 7 in the Haunted Spirit. This is a great card in low-mid mana games and the Void Ability is pretty big. Getting 1 more health ,needing 88% of the current value extra is a bridge too far though so I won't get it to max level.


SPS Accumulation

I also started accumulating more SPS but it's such a crazy hassle with high fees to actually buy at the moment and I have no way of bridging it from Binance Chain to to game as it always gives the error messages that it can't estimate gas fees with crazy prices and when I change them manually the transaction never succeeds. This not even talking about the gas fees to allow the dex to use my funds, gas fees to swap, gas fees to send, and the 0.5% cut Terablock is taking. Just buying 100$ of SPS that way sees you lose a couple % and it all isn't even working! I did manage to buy some on Hive-Engine but for the regular user this never really is an option and it also includes 0.75% fees to get hive on there.

I did reach 183K SPS and have started to unstake the SPS on my Alt account and will be moving that over. I also have 16.2k SPS stuck on Binance Chain and no energy to really go through all of the hassle to figure out how to get it over or use another browser and another app than Metamask.


Conclusion!

The Death Spiral of Splinterlands continues and it's crazy hard to actually buy SPS and get it in the game properly with no indication that this is about to change anytime soon. However, I still keep believing that the game will survive and at some point do well again so I keep adding during these very bearish times hopefully for it to be a good call in the longer term.




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7 comments
(Edited)

I have also given up on my alt account now and started unstaking. I hope the team come to their senses soon and stop the spiral, I am just renting SPS until some sort of floor is reached, it feels like a falling knife right now.


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(Edited)

Wow you've really thought through the impacts of these changes on the game and your strategy. I agree, balancing card value and gameplay enjoyment is very good for long-term sustainability, wishing you the best of luck in your SplinterLands future bro

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