I struggled with this question all week. Any calculations we make based on the numbers shared by the Splinterlands team in their monster post, as I called it, can be shuttered by how the actual play patterns change.
Because we either draw conclusions using the new numbers, based on our old play history, or we try to imagine what everyone else will be doing and apply the new numbers to that.
There is, of course, this uncertain territory at the end of this season, which won't resemble the following seasons.
Now, you have and you don't have rules from the new ranked battles system applying.
If you keep playing, you earn much more DEC than before with every battle won, unless you use ghost cards. Reason: the DEC rewards are the same, but accounts that use ghost cards either stopped playing or win less DEC rewards than before because of the ghost cards. This shows at least this part of the new ranked rewards system already works as expected.
At the same time, most rules that affect gameplay aren't in effect:
- reward shares determining season rewards
- reward shares determining focus rewards
- previous season's top league achieved determining the type of chests you earn
As you can see, besides the starting league, the best result in the previous season becomes very important going forward.
This season you can afford to position yourself where you want for the coming season, even if that means to stop playing when you are where you want to be and renting out your play deck until the EOS.
This strategy is very unlikely as a rule from next season forward. Because the season rewards are directly influenced by how much you play and your performance in battles. The season rewards are no longer fixed, based on tiers achieved.
The question to which everyone wants to find the right answer is:
Depending on how much time I spend in different leagues, where should I position myself for the following season?
This question makes sense now, but more importantly the following seasons.
The question can be translated as: Is it worth earning Champ chests next season if you play mostly in Diamond? The same question applies to lower leagues' correspondents.
This is not an easy question to answer. But we start from this table:
One thing we can easily see from this table is that it gets harder and harder to earn more chests the more you earn.
But if you actually make the calculations, you see the ratio between 10 chests and 1 chest is the lowest for the Champion chests at 10.88, while for the Diamond chests is 11.18 and for the Gold chests is 11.54. I assume it grows the lower it goes, which means you need to win more matches to earn more chests at lower leagues, just from this observation.
Ok, but let's say your league taken into consideration for the following season is Champion, so you will earn champ chests. How does that compare to staying in Diamond to earn Diamond chests?
What happens if you play most of the season in Diamond, or even if you drop for a day or two in Gold? Or if you don't reach Champ at all next season?
Well, I made these calculations, but only with numbers corresponding to earning the 1st Champ chest, without the increasing difficulty to earn additional Champ chests (linear instead of exponential).
I ran different scenarios, based on my own experience playing mostly in Diamond, sometimes dropping to Gold, most often reaching Champ, but considering what if not. Also considered how soon I reached Champ.
From the numbers I ran, things are surprisingly similar between the different scenarios. Hopefully, I didn't make any mistakes.
It looks like if champ chests are at least 2.2x better than diamond chests, in theory, it's best to play for champ chest, REGARDLESS of the scenario you fall into (which I analyzed). That without taking into consideration other aspects, I'll talk about next.
But first, let's see if a champ chest is at least 2.2x better than a diamond chest.
At about the same chances to drop DEC, the champ chest has a 3x better DEC reward than the corresponding diamond chest. The question is how do you rate a +5% better chance to drop a reward card with doubled chances of being gold or legendary? If you count in the +1% chance to drop a pack compared to diamond, I'd say champ chest is at least 2.2x better than diamond chest. But maybe someone else has a different opinion.
So, the first point is that it makes sense to go for the champ chests because they are at least 2.2x better than diamond chests.
The second point I already mentioned is the fact that for champ chests the progression from one chest to another is smoother.
And the last point in favor of the champ chest is the fact that you need to keep playing to increase your rewards shares for the season. It's not like you hit a target and stop. Check out the formula again, if you need to:
And here come the possible counter-arguments to going for champ chests instead of diamond ones.
If you start losing matches, you don't win any rewards. At the same time your rating drops (which is cubed in this formula), and ECR drops. If you can't sustain the necessary level to win enough rewards, maybe it's better to drop to a lower league and try there.
Also, in the formula, you can see that 'bonuses' are a part of it. This means win streak and all the other bonuses matter, to some degree.
What Is My Strategy?
Not very smart to share my strategy, right? :)
Well, I suppose you can almost guess it from what I wrote above.
Except I decided to try the Diamond chests next season, as this would be the only time perfectly suitable to do that, for me.
The only (major) drawback is that I'll start in Gold next season. But I'll survive.
The advantages are that I can have an element of comparison with the following seasons when I expect to play for champ chests.
It's also the final time when I stop and rent out my playing deck, most likely.
If my calculations (and not only mine) were correct, I'll probably lose some rewards next season. Maybe that compensates with the extra rewards I receive from renting out my playing deck until this EOS.
It also gives me more time to max more cards, because I tried twice to reach Champion League 2 this season (without pushing too hard), and both times dropped back to Diamond.