The Accumulation Phase (NFA)
As @bulldog1205 likes to call it: we are currently in the Accumulation Phase.
I do agree and see the ongoing period as an opportunity to build, on my own scale, a nest of Splinterlands' assets at an affordable cost. Nonetheless, I also understand that people, with maybe slightly less conviction in the game, can gradually lose interest.
The key, I believe, is to feel that we are constantly making progress, even when the dollar amount doesn’t reflect it. Below are a few suggestions that personally drive me on a daily basis.
The 5 KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that keep my progress in check
1) Collection Power (CP)
CP is at the heart of this card game.
The more cards we manage to accumulate, the more Collection Power we basically own. This system is far from being flawless, however, because the main structure of the whole game revolves around it (Burn Value, Leagues, Tournaments, and so on…), relentlessly chasing the next threshold in terms of CP is a fairly good indicator of our progress in the game.
Unless we’ve reached the 500k CP that allows us to compete in the highest league (Champion I) of the Wild Format, there will always be room for improvement and incentive for building our Collection Power within Splinterlands.
So far, by systematically reinvesting what I’ve earned during the last six months, I have been able to clean the following milestones one at a time:
Note:
My first thresholds were based on the Wild Format as the CP requirements for the Modern Format weren’t yet revealed at the time. Furthermore, as long as the Modern Format is not officially released, those numbers might still be subject to change.
- 1k CP: Bronze II Wild Format
- 5k CP: Bronze I Wild Format
- 15k CP: Silver III Wild Format
- 20k CP: Silver II Modern Format
- 35k CP: Silver I Modern Format
- 50k CP: Gold III Modern Format
I am now chasing the 75k threshold to qualify for Gold II once the Modern Format is introduced. A few months back, I would have never thought it possible to acquire that much CP in that short amount of time without spending my own money.
2) Deck Value
This is another indicator I like to keep an eye on as it helps me gauge if I have made any progress in terms of accumulating value.
In the last 6 months, I've managed to grow my $40 initial investment, Spellbook included, into a deck value approaching the $400. This is a clean 10x even though I’ve joined the game, arguably at the worst time, as everything was sky-high and with Bronze leagues already nerfed. I’ll expand on how exactly I grew my deck value in an incoming post after half a year of playing Splinterlands. Stay tuned!
The Deck Value fluctuates from day to day, but having started with a fairly small amount, I am able to keep my motivation up by looking it grow by tranches of $50 at a time:
- $50
- $100
- $150
- …
- and so forth
My next threshold is $450. That being said, before that, I would like to solidify my Deck Value around this $400 mark first.
3) Hive Power
Splinterlands is part of the Hive ecosystem, which allows me to earn Hive tokens while blogging about the game. Accumulating Hive was another way to keep my momentum going. Incidentally, the slow powering-down process of 13 weeks gives me time to see a few months ahead of time while still getting a few bucks per week from my past efforts.
For this indicator, I honestly don’t have any precise numbers in mind. Partly because I never know how much a post will be able to generate before it is posted, and partly because I keep on powering down to help me grow my Splinterlands’ assets during this Accumulation Phase.
Nonetheless, there is something that for now makes me keep posting once a day even though the itch of giving up on this “consistency” obsession gets stronger and stronger. Besides the weekly challenges, my other posts don’t generate much money, but after a quick reframing, I noticed that those could still roughly afford me a Chaos Legion’s Legendary after each season.
4) SPS Staked
As I’ve said a number of times in my posts, I do enjoy the game but I still see myself as an investor in this project first and foremost. That might not always be well regarded or well interpreted, but I prefer transparency over shallowness. Therefore, SPS is, to me, a major play. Most of the money I’ve injected into Splinterlands went into its governance token.
Since I started to dollar-cost average into this token, my goal was to reach 10k of SPS. Having reached this milestone not so long ago, I now try to go for 15k. We’ll see if I’ll be able to do so because I am not maximizing my SPS airdrops as I still want to enjoy playing. Thus, every time I have extra DEC, those automatically go into purchasing more cards.
Yet, having a number in mind helps me keep track of my progress.
5) Abilities Unlocked
The player in me likes to keep on building a more competitive deck. To do so, what I shoot for is to unlock abilities for different monsters, even though I cannot make use of them yet, mainly because of my Summoners’ limitations.
This is, for me, a more subjective KPI. I could count the number of monsters I’ve managed to level up, but my choices often take several other parameters into consideration, such as the probabilities for me of leveling up a given Splinter in the foreseeable future for instance.
I currently own a few high-level Reward cards that I can’t play with. Still, they provide me with a daily rental revenue while contributing to my Collection Power over the long run.
In a nutshell
First of all, formulating explicit numbers to reach in Splinterlands provides me with the clarity I need during times when things don’t work so well. Secondly, relying on a variety of KPIs gives me a sense of progress even when one or two of them don’t seem to move up for a while. And finally, these short-term goals (small wins) keep me on track to achieving my overarching objective, which is to accumulate as many assets in this game as I possibly can over a sustained period of time.
I hope you’ve learned something in this post or at least, got entertained!
Thomas
For new players interested in joining this amazing game, you can support me by using the following referral link (at no extra cost to you!):
https://splinterlands.com?ref=tt88
Thank you.