My Starting Point for Land Exapansion
So I own 12 Plots of land way back from the day when they were given as a reward to provide liquidity (thanks to @stimp1024 for giving me the opportunity to pool funds together on this). I have yet to claim a deed mostly because there is no definite info on the entire expansion and what the different regions represent)
Basically, I see 3 options:
- Fully Exit Splinterlands and sell all my assets taking profit in case there is a major adoption cycle similar to the last one. It would purely be a financial decision as it would make no sense to continue to play each day while the rewards likely would be far lower compared to the eventual decrease in prices again.
- Fully Play the Land Expansion and try to get the most out of it. The Fact remains that Splinterlands has been a profitable game to play for me and even now, everything that I invest just comes from the profit that was made while I also occasionally take minor funds out to use elsewhere. This however also comes with a time investment that surely adds up. Right now I have that time and enjoy it so that is no issue.
- Partly take some profit when the supply shock eventually kicks in and Cards + SPS price goes up while keeping enough assets in the game to keep playing and earning.
Honestly, I'm not sure what it will be which makes me hesitant to really lock in the needed funds getting DEC-B. I don't mind getting the needed cards now as it's hard to see them drop in price much further.
What We Know About Land Expansion
Owning a plot likely is going to be turned into a very basic requirement to play the land expansion kind similar to how you need to spellbook. I also fully expect this to be a management game where it's all about getting to a point where you are able to mint the spells and items as efficient as possible to get the highest return. A Land Plot right now costs ~142$ and there are 150k plots in circulation
As a way to increase the production, there will be a need to stake Cards on your land, the older the card, the more value it will have in the system and also higher level cards and gold cards will give bonuses. I assume 5 cards will be needed and it possibly will be a Summoner, Common Card, Rare Card, Epid Card, Legendary card. There are still many question marks around this though and the main thing that holds me back is that it is unknown if similar to regular deck building, the level of monster cards will be restricted based on the level of the summoner card. If that is the case it will be really hard to get. There will also be DEC needed to be burned into Buildings and the main question there is how much and how long it will take for players to recover their investment.
It's also very unclear how to best claim your deeds, I assume that each region represents a certain splinter with those cards giving a boost in production. Claiming your land also will have a chance to give you a Castle or a Keep which both will be worth a lot more
My fear is that Summoners similar to regular decks are the bottleneck and that DEC burn requirements are high similar to the Guilds to a point where it takes years before actual profit can be made also highly cutting into that. Also, I'm quite skeptical on if the land expansion game actually is going to be fun which sets me up with an option to actually be pleasantly surprised.
How I'm preparing: Buying Cheap Cards!
The devs have hinted at this and Matt even was saying that he himself started to buy cheap reward cards which now also made me pull the trigger at it. I recently got my 2nd Gold Foil Legendary Reward card from a Gladius Case that I opened which will be the first card even that I burn in the game. It's worth 50k DEC which currently equals ~38$. I'm fully using those funds to re-invest now.
So That's what I did getting a bunch of these cards to a point where I have enough single copies (400 for commons & 115 for Rares) to potentially level them up to max level if it shows to be worth it when the land expansion is released. There is very little downside to buying these cards since their DEC burn value is very close to the actual price that I paid for them. It was 0.012$ on average for each common card of which I bought 1500+, and it was 0.040$ on average for rare cards of which I bought 250+)
Conclusion
I got a big step closer to being ready for the Land Expansion already buying a bunch of cheap reward cards without putting myself in a position where I'm yet committed. It's the only real play that can be made right now with almost certainty and low risk since the cards in the worst case can be burned for DEC which will equal close to the cost value. I'll be patiently waiting from here on out for more info to make up my mind how to proceed.
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