When Land 1.5 was launched toward the end of 2023, I had my strategy ready and had all important plots set up in a matter of hours. In fact, I set up everything I could within the limits of my DEC. The only significant surprise I had back then was that my TCs weren't enough for all my plots. Not even close.
Time went by, and I'm discovering the limitations of my initial strategy. When I created my strategy I thought of my cards in two separate groups: my land cards and my playing deck cards. A third group was represented by the rented cards which would fill in the land requirements as needed. Anyway, my first idea was to keep my playing deck intact.
As such, I used on land the cards I didn't use to play ranked battles, or doubles, or cards I purchased specifically for lands, many of whom maxed-level.
Here comes the reality, and it seems I don't keep my land and playing deck separated at all, I use enough powerful cards from my playing deck on land instead of playing them, and... there's the special case for maxed-level cards.
Now, a maxed-level GFL or even a lower-level one for an older edition will surely deserve their energy cost. But using up 10k staked DEC for a cheap CL reward card when you don't have enough DEC to fill up all your plots, is a bad decision. And I made that decision.
For a while, I've been operating land kind of on auto-pilot, thinking I have things optimized, and being too lazy to go through my plots and see what can be improved.
So, every week, I used up my liquid rewards to start the clearing process of 2 new plots, without realizing that I could free up more DEC from existing plots without giving up on productivity (the opposite, actually) than I could add more staked DEC every week from the rewards.
Today, for example, I removed a series of maxed-level cheap reward cards from my land and replaced them with other cards that offered better PP at lower DEC cost. Some of these cards would have been useful in ranked games, but as long as those results don't drop significantly, I will keep trying to see how much I can push it.
With the unlocked DEC, I started the clearing process for two new plots, without adding any additional DEC. Also increased a bit my SPS and my research production, after the replacements.
It is obviously worth it and wish I had done it a lot sooner. The problem is I kind of run out of suitable better replacements that aren't really useful in combat as well. I'll have to look among my rented cards too. But I think for today I can be pleased with the results.