Hello, Splinterlands friends and family! 👋
For this week's Splinterlands Social Media Challenge, I want to share my first baby steps into the Land expansion that I took a few weeks ago, along with my thoughts behind this decision. I'll also discuss how much it cost me to set up the plots and what I expect to gain from them. 🌱💰

Introduction: Why Now? 🤔

What I did is basically what many people do when entering this scene. I was primarily interested in buying 5 plots for the prefix title. I have to admit, I was never really into Land mostly because it’s not my type of game. I’m here to battle, not to farm! 😅 But also, like many people who joined after the SPS release, Land has been quite expensive and felt more like a luxury than anything else. There was always a better investment or something else I needed more than a few overpriced plots.

What really changed my perspective on Land—and the main reason I decided to buy 5 plots to start—was the introduction of Prefix Titles and the fact that land its not that expensive anymore. 🏷️

Prefix Titles 🏷️

Prefix Titles are titles that go before your name and are awarded to players who own a specified number of surveyed plots or meet other specific conditions, boosting rewards during ranked gameplay. These titles are Soulbound, meaning they cannot be traded and are "permanent," but they can be removed if eligibility conditions are no longer met. You can check your Prefix Titles through the Production Overview screen. Prefix Title icons appear wherever player stats are shown, including during Ranked Battles and Brawls. The system checks eligibility for these titles every hour at 45 minutes past the hour, though changes are not applied instantly. If you qualify for multiple titles, only the highest-level one will be automatically equipped.

Here are the titles available right now:

As you can see, to start with, I only got the smallest title, which provides a 5% boost. Other titles offer much better percentages and benefits, but they are also quite hard to obtain. 💪🌟

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How Much Did It Cost to Set Up My 5 Plots? 💸

Now, let's talk numbers. Specifically, how much it cost me to set up my plots. Keep in mind that by the time you're reading this post, these figures might have changed substantially. 📉📈

First, I want to give a special shoutout to @brybro27, as I bought all my plots from him. Land can be a complex world, and he's truly an expert, so I sought his advice when making the purchase. He sold me the plots at a great price (around $12 per plot) and even cleared the plots and set up the research building so I could start working on them right away. 🙌

All things considered, buying the 5 plots cost me about $60. Next, I had to buy 5 power cores to get the plots operational. This cost me 25,000 DEC, which was around $20 at the time. At this point, I had already spent about $80. 💰

Third, I needed to stake some DEC. Since I was always planning on using max-level cards, I required 250,000 DEC staked in my land to get started. This wasn't really an issue since I already had a lot of idle DEC in my accounts. Since the DEC you stake can be unstaked whenever you want, I don't count this as a cost. If I ever decide to use these funds elsewhere, my plots will stop working, but that's okay, I’ll still get the bonus for ranked play. 🏆

Lastly, I needed to stake 25 monsters to work the land. Workers aren’t much of an issue nowadays since Chaos Legion (CL) cards are very cheap. I decided to buy a bunch of max-level legendary and epic cards from the market close to the burn rate. If I ever decide to stop working my plots, all I need to do is burn the cards and get most of the DEC I spent back. I might incur a small loss of around $4-$5 by doing this, but it's not substantial. 🔥🃏

So, in the end, the cost for setting up my plots was around $85. 💵

Was It Worth It? 🤷‍♂️

If we consider that out of the $85 I spent, I still have the 5 plots that I can resell whenever I want for around $50-$60, then to fully recoup my investment, I’d need to earn about $25-$30.

The 5% bonus in ranked play is tricky to calculate since it’s applied to the base boost modifiers, and I’m not exactly sure how much extra SPS that translates to per match. However, if my calculations are correct, I’m getting around 0.25 SPS extra per match. Considering I play about 24 matches a day and win 12 of them, that’s roughly 3 extra SPS per day. If these numbers hold, I’d need around 800 days to break even—that’s about 2 years of ranked matches. 🗓️

But let’s be honest, this math is shaky at best. It assumes I’ll actually play every day for 2 years straight and that the token prices will remain stable during that time. Both of these are highly unlikely. 😅

The real answer to whether it was worth buying the plots doesn’t rest solely on the ranked bonus I get from playing. All my plots are already working and producing resources. 🌾📈

You might think that since I bought 5 common plots and filled them with Regular CL cards, I’m not aiming to be in any rankings—and that’s true. I don’t intend to compete with players like Vugtis, Azircon, or other big landholders. But all my plots are already generating Research.

And this is my biggest bet. I genuinely believe that Matt will design Land in a way where Research will have significant utility in the future. 🌌 There’s still a long journey ahead for Land to become fully operational, but in the meantime, people are already working their plots. This means Research, Grain, and soon other resources are being produced in bulk.

It’s a safe bet to assume that there’s already an oversupply of these resources. This is something the team will eventually have to address. My guess is that they will tackle this by implementing one of two solutions:

1. A promo card that requires Research Points. 🎴
2. Additional ranked bonuses that can be exchanged for Research Points. 🎮

Whatever the team decides to do, I’ll be ready to claim my small piece of the pie. 🥧 My bet is that I’ll recoup my investment when something like this is implemented. I’m aware that my 5 common plots won’t be able to compete with even a single plot owned by major landholders, and my Research Points will be just a drop in the bucket. 🌊

🏁 Conclusion – Final Thoughts

Setting up Land isn’t really a fun part of the game for me. 😅 I find it a bit boring and tedious to manage resources—it’s just not my style. I’m here for the battles, not the farming! ⚔️🌾 But I still chose to invest in Land because I believe it has potential. Honestly, it’s a calculated bet—not a huge one, but in my opinion, a pretty safe one.

If we consider the resale value of the plots I acquired, plus the SPS ranked bonus, and the Research Points I’m accumulating (which I hope to exchange for something valuable in the future), I think it’s fair to assume I’ll get my money back—and maybe even a little extra. 💸📈 Like everything in crypto, it’s hard to predict how things will turn out, but I’m optimistic that my investment in Land will pay off eventually.

At the end of the day, my decision to buy plots was driven by the introduction of Prefix Titles and the belief that Research will play a bigger role as Land becomes fully operational. I may not be competing with top landholders, but I’m confident that my small piece of the game will still be worthwhile. 🏷️🔍

I wanted to share my journey with Land and my thoughts behind this decision with all of you. I hope you enjoyed this post, and if you’re on the fence about buying your first plot, maybe this will help you decide. 🤔✨

Wishing you all a fantastic day and the best of luck in your upcoming Splinterlands battles! 🏆🔥