Splinterlands | A Look At Tasoshi Drakamoto!

The Theme on the Community Engagement Challenge for Splinterland This week is the new Tasoshi Drakamoto card which can be bought for Vouchers...

Printerlands

Splinterlands has a history of just printing new assets out of thin air which caused all kinds of problems in the past. DEC was given out as hot candy during the hype adoption phase, SPS was created when DEC no longer worked with the invetion of the Flywheel, Vouchers were created out of nowhere in an attempt to give SPS more value and use case and all of it was kind of turned back a lot aside from one asset which are cards as they are still printed at a high rate. It feels like every solution that is come up with ends up with 'let's print a new card' with the idea that 1 more won't cause much harm. So to save vouchers from becoming totally worthless, a mechanic of new promo cards that are sold only for vouchers was created. I believe now the Tasoshi Drakamoto is the 3rd Voucher promo card created.

While I understand that card printing is the Revenue model, the reality though is that there still is a massive oversuply and there are not enough new players coming in to really support prices especially for older cards, which creates a price gap between them and doesn't really make it attractive as a long-term investment.

Power Creep

Another danger aside from the Printing is the fact that in order to be able to get sales, they need to make sure that these cards are powerful which introduces Power Creep into the game devaluing older cards.

The Tasoshi Drakamoto!

This card right now is for sale under the Shop - Exclusive Tab on the Splinterland site and goes for 250 Vouchers. As it is an epic card, 46 copies are needed for a Max Level Copy. Currently, this is around 6$ for a single copy (counting DEC at Peg Value) so a whopping 276$ for a Max Level card which is just way too expensive given that the cheapest Max Level Epic Wild cards go for 5$ or less and the powerful ones for 30$ or less at max level. So buying this Tasoshi Drakamoto card at max level for let's say 250$ is almost surely an investment where you just throw money away as it will be hard to earn more that the expected value decline over time. So it really is a card for players who enjoy the game and have fun with cards like this but not for those who still put importance to the investment opportunity like me.

This card has the Spite Ability which previously was seen on the overpowered Helloise The Hollow & the expensive Oridum Graybrow cards. It makes it so when the card dies, it has a 100% chance of a counterattack. It also has the sneak ability which is rather rare for a Magic Attack card and also the Stun which is less interesting but also the Inspire Ability which tends to work well with the Fire Monsters as this splinter generally is Melee Focused. So overall I would say it's a solid card but as a wild and Survival Player, it's not a must have for me.

The influence on Voucher Prices

I have been tracking the price of Vouchers as a way to know my overall Splinterands Earnings and it can be seen that each release of a new promo cards it spiked before it came back down again. The first card was undershelming but the 2nd card was quite strong and so it looks to be the case for the new card as quite some have been sold.

In total based on the stats from the website, a total of 11 Million+ vouchers have been used with 761k Vouchers so far on this new card.

My Personal Action Plan

So I took somewhat of a break from Splinterlands as Survival Mode was put on pause as that (along with Brawls) is what I still play manually. If anything, it was quite the relief to get away from the grind and I didn't miss it at all. Even more, when Survival mode was put back in place with little to no changes, It really felt like an obligation that I rather skip but that comes with the downside of decreased SPS earnings from Splinterlands which are needed to somehow make up for the ever decreasing asset prices.

This along with the dissapointment in the Game which remains highly Pay2Win and a forced grind with rarely battles that really bring out the fun, I stopped buying more cards so I'm skipping on this Promo card.

So far I kind of always kept my Vouchers at times using them for the 2000 DEC Wild Entry Tax. However with 641 Vouchers in my account right now and the price which has gone up quite a bit while they continue to be printed daily, I'm taking the opportunity to sell what I have before the demand and price goes down again.

The 641 vouchers will give me close to 16k DEC or 8 Seasons worth of the Wild Entry Tax and I gladly take that right now. In case the price of vouchers would tank again, I might buy them back for less.

Conclusion!

Taking a break from Splinterlands with Survival Mode really pushed me away from the game a bit more as now that it is back on it feels like an obligated grind in oder to limit the asset devaluation. This Tasoshi Drakamoto promo card pushed the price of Vouchers up to the point where I was happy to sell the ones I had left in my account with an eye to use them to pay the Wild Entry Tax. This card is for players who enjoy it and don't mind the high likelyhood of taking a financial hit on it over time.