I have finished playing for this Splinterlands season after tipping over the line into the Champion 2 league. One day, I will push on and make a run for C1 for the first time, but I have so much work in the coming week that I just don't have the time to dedicate.
Even this season, I played more than I planned, considering that I have only played the last three or four days. It has been a while since I ended up with more than a 50% win rate - just.
50.47%
The "max streak" was from the first night, where I started in D2 and got a few wins under my belt, atop the final wins from last season. My longest ever streak is only 14, so 11 is okay. However, I see some accounts with 50+ win streaks. I don't think my card set will ever allow for that, not to mention my card choice!
It is coming up to the one year mile marker for playing, as I started at some time in July and I think that my stats show, I played far too much. Overall, my win ratio sits at 47.5% - which means it is very unlikely that I will ever make it over the 50 mark with this account at least.
While I have always had difficulty getting into Champion 2 (and used to celebrate getting into C3, I find that the last few seasons have been more difficult as the playing meta keeps changing with the release of the new cards.
The new reward cards with reflection damage protection have been a gamechanger for sure and as more people get their maxed versions, it is going to throw a bit of a curveball for many people who like me, like summoners and monsters with reflect abilities. Guess I have to change my gameplay up a bit more.
One of the reasons I don't want to play that much also is, I want to rent my cards out and my playing set rents for more than all of the CL cards I have combined. This is because there are key cards that rent very well (in DEC relative terms) and with the rewards being boosted, they rent higher throughout the season. I need to rent many cards like this to compete too - so my own rentals offset the costs, which makes the economics quite circular in this respect.
I have to remind myself that this is also an investment for me and I am pretty well invested, so have to ensure that I keep at least some kind of ROI ticking over in the background. This comes through playing to earn (not a lot for me), renting, node licenses earning Vouchers, SPS stake earning on the airdrop and pooling of SPS:DEC earning on the airdrop too.
The airdrop ends in 30 das from now, so that is going to make things interesting, because currently, DEC is under the loose peg of $1 = 1000 DEC, which Splinterlands honors for in-game purchases. Currently, it is about 70c = 1000 DEC, and that means that buying Chaos Legion Packs with DEC is $2.80, instead of the fiat price of 4 dollars. At the end of that airdrop - it is going to get interesting as people pull their DEC out and drop it into cards. This also means that people are able to buy "cheap" DEC with fiat now and use it to buy cards later at 4000 each.
$400 = 100 packs
$400 worth of DEC = 142 packs
Not a bad deal if buying with fiat.
And, while a lot of people are looking at the current card prices and saying it isn't worth it, what they have to remember is at some point, LAND is going to be released and it is going to soak up a massive amount of those cards as people stake them to earn and build on their plots. That doesn't just drive up card prices, it also fundamentally changes the rental markets, where already, key cards are hard to get at times and, are very expensive when available.
There is no Llama available, but there isn't much of much at the top:
And it is 4000 DEC for a Kitty - that is a pack of cards - a day.
I own three of those cards. The other four, I have to rent if I need.
And interestingly, looking at the highest prices of the cards that are available, Mylor and Lorna are DICE cards, with a MAX Mylor outperforming the price of a MAX Zaku. See, the meta is changing. And remember, there are only about 1800 Zakus in circulation in total and 15,300 Mylors.
That is very interesting!
Even with the release of the new Summoners coming with the Chaos Legion sales and likely Rifwatchers too, after LAND, summoners are going to be in short supply, as people will have to make decisions on how to maximize their land capabilities. Is it better to stake the cards or, rent the cards to people who want to play?
The shakeup should be immense.
What this does to the card markets is hard to say in detail, but I am expecting prices to increase and all of the complaints about the value of the packs not being worth it, will melt into history- as it has done with the release of Untamed (I wasn't in Splinterlands at that time) and Dice.
I am not sure what I will do at that point, as I only have 10 plots, so it isn't going to take many of my cards - but I am also expecting that there are going to be people with underutilized plots, looking for stake cards through some kind of delegation system. That means weighing up the potential of playing, renting out my cards to play and, renting out my cards to farm LAND.
Playing is going to get hard if there aren't key cards suitably priced, making renting more likely but, but that is going to cause a faceoff between rent and LAND ROI. Which will be better? Well, it is hard to say at this point, but whatever it is, I suspect that the dynamics will keep changing, so there is unlikely to be a way to "set and forget" for too long, so it is going to require, paying attention to the ecosystem and all that is constantly happening that affects not only the game, but the entire economic structure...often.
I don't know if I can keep up with it all now, let alone later with land. This is not exactly "passive" income, though it is far more enjoyable than many other streams that might be available and I get to do it from home and as a hobby.
Not too bad....
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]