Current Cost of Splinterlands
Right now, compared to the cost of buying packs and manually leveling up those cards, buying individual cards on the market is actually quite cheap. There used to be a time when just buying a basic silver deck with 15k Collection power would set you back 700$+ while now it's fairly affordable to get a gold-level deck. I always aimed to have a wide collection not going higher than level 6 Rare Summoners, yet now I kind of gave in and Leveled up some key cards that I own.
Prices of cards also kind of need to go up not only because there will be a major supply shock when they get put onto land. Right now the rental market is really cheap just because many whales who have cards put aside for future land use all have them rented out. At some point, all these cards will be removed from the rental market. As rental prices go up due to supply and demand, prices of cards will normally follow along. This along with the fact that it would make no sense for anyone (especially new players) to buy Rebellion Packs once they are released when buying older cars on the market is just way cheaper. So the demand should in the first place go there pushing the prices up. SPS also eventually should go up in price as it gets more use cases along with the burning mechanic kicking in which should also reflect on the prices of the cards.
So Generally I do expect prices in the next 6 months to go up in price again after a 1.5 year steep downtrend. At the same time, when things get more expensive again, it will be the time when the devs cash in and turn of the printer again pushing everything back down. I also don't see 10x returns in card prices.
Cards That I'm Leveling Up
Since I now have 6 Legendary Summoners at Level 3 which allow Max Gold League Level Cards, it got too tempting to level up some of my cards that I regularly use. These ware the ones...
Summoners
So far I had all my Summoners at Level 5 which was a Choice for Value as it's possible to reach Diamond League with them. All the singles that I received from reward packs I had rented out in the past but the rental market kind of crashing with new Soulbound Reward Cards, I no longer managed to get most of them rented out at level 1. So I took the extra copies I had and bough some more to get the Kelya Frendul, Obsidian, & Tarsa to level 6 and I will also do it with the General Sloan and The Thaddius Brood later on.
My Facorite Card!
The Death Nightmare is one of my favorite cards in the game and the difference between Level 6 (100 Cards) and Level 8 (220 Cards) is quite expensive at 0.25$-0.28$ a card but it's worth it as the +1 extra Melee Damage makes a lot of difference since it has blast. The High speed combined with the Faze ability makes this one of those cards with crazy synergy. I like to combine it with the Legendary Astral Entity Summoner or the Quix The Devious. I also kind of want to test it out with the new Lily Shieldpaw.
Key Chaos Legion Cards
Some cards are used a lot which makes small increases in stats add up over time while others give massive buffs by just having the cards at 1 level higher. These are some that I leveled up.
The Xenith Monk adds the Void Ability from Level 5 to Level 6 which makes a massive difference since Magic Damage still is very powerful in the game.
I don't like it when there are stats that are decreasing when leveling up and the Deeplurker is one of those cards. I play it in pretty much every Water deck and getting +1 Speed by getting it from Level 6 to 7 is worth the upgrade. I don't think giving up 1 health while getting +1 Attack is worth it though since armor from the opponent is a weak spot and you need want to keep it alive as long as possible. The difference between 6 and 7 life is quite big.
The Goblin Psychic on the other hand is one of those cards where giving up 1 heal at the benefit of getting an extra ability is totally worth it. Having Silence especially when the opponent can play the Obsidian Summoner is massive. This also comes at a price as the card is by no means cheap at 0.18$ for a single copy needing 50 of them for the upgrade. 70 more are needed to get the 1 health back.
Reward Cards Upgrades
I basically leveled up all the reward cards to max Gold Level since there are so many of them in circulation making them cheap.
Getting the Pelacor Conjurer from Level 6 to Level 8 not only gives it the divine shield ability bit also 1 extra Health which both are massive for a card like this making it a total powerhouse for just 2 mana cost.
Future Upgrades
There are some other cards that I'm also looking to get to a higher level which incude the Cruel Sethropod (0.064$ x 120 Copies), The Medaali Guardian (0.40$ x 20 Copies), The Regal Peryton (0.27$x20 copies), & The Riftwing (0.084$ x 120 Copies).
Conclusion
Right now everything points toward Splinterlands as a game being relatively cheap and affordable with Prices of cards likely to go up given everything that is coming to the game. So I'm buying more cards and leveling them up which just based on the fun factor alone is worth it for me. I will continue building my card collection as long as prices are lower compared to where I expect them to be later down the line.
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