Splinterlands, a Typical Case of "Just One More!"

After an extended break from Splinterlands, during which I explored renting my cards out, I got back into the game. That was five seasons ago: I started playing daily quests again, gradually moving up through the leagues, hoping to make it as far as possible in order to get a nice fat reward by the end of the season. That was five seasons ago, and interestingly I always just made it into the Gold III league on the last day of the season, though I had to try a bit harder each time. This means, for most of the time I have been moving up and down in the Silver leagues.

As I was using most of of my cards, it became less attractive for others to rent them, since they would be in cool-down for some time before they could start using them. So one by one my on-going rental contracts expired, without any new ones being made. Because of this, as well as due to the increasingly difficult daily quests, I decided to stop playing again for a while, and concentrate on renting them out. But first, I wanted to complete the season, and get as many reward cards as I could.

New Season, and I'm Still Playing Quests

Well, the season ended yesterday, but I am still playing my daily quests as eagerly as before. So what happened? Am I just simply addicted to this game? Or put it the other way, is Splinterlands doing such a great job at capturing my attention? Maybe a bit of both.

One thing is certain, I decided I could not stop playing now, that there are so many good things going on. I was looking forward to getting my hands on some new reward cards, which has worked out all right, though I'm still hoping for a Furious Chicken... maybe even a Gold Foil one...? That would actually be the only gold card I would ever need, and the DECs would come pouring in.

Talking about DECs, I received 2000-and-some for selling a card. I'm going to have to spend it on some potions, and then I want to use them to get some sweet reward cards... So as you can see, I'm in for one more season!

What About the Rentals?

The most curious thing I noticed over the past few days, is that for some reason my cards started being rented again, even though I have been keeping them busy. Okay, some of these rentals are not surprising. My Ruler of the Seas has been rented almost constantly, so I never even got to use it over the last months. As soon as the contract had expired, someone else rented it right away. I'm not complaining about it, of course.

However, my Peacebringer or my Undead Priest I was pretty sure I had used just before it got rented. So what happened? Did my rental fee just become very competitive? I didn't change the terms at all, as I was going to take a close look at the market when I was finished playing. But suddenly, eight of my cards are being rented, by six different individuals. (This certainly means even more difficult quests, but that's not my current concern, really).

The Price of Steem and the Rental Market

Okay, what comes next is my own reasoning. I have no idea how correct it is, or how accurately I estimate the market. For this reason, I will highly appreciate being corrected, if anyone wants to point out a flaw in my thinking.

When renting out cards, I set the daily fee and the escrow in USD (or fractions of cents, to be more exact). But once someone agrees to rent them, they pay me either in STEEM, or in SBD, or theoretically even in DEC, though in practice that hasn't happened yet. What does this mean if the price of STEEM changes, but my rental terms stay the same? If the dollar value of STEEM goes down, as it has around the last hardfork, the renter would have to pay more STEEM for renting the same card, making it seem more expensive. On the other hand, if the STEEM price recovers, which we have been looking forward to, it should seem cheaper to rent at the same terms.

Since STEEM ~~is still around the 13 cents all time low~~ NO WAY, it has moved up to almost 15 cents, Woo-hoo! Okay, so this happy news changes everything. However, since most of my rental contracts were signed a few days ago, it still doesn't explain why suddenly people got so interested in renting my cards.

Conclusion: Keep Playing the Cards AND Renting Them Out

So yeah, back to my plans and intentions. I definitely want to finish this season (just this one more!) and then try to rent out everything I can. I have made sure to keep some cards separately, so while the higher leveled ones are being rented, I can still play with lower leveled cards. Though ultimately, that's how I stopped renting out most of them. I wish there was a way to mark certain cards for not playing, so they wouldn't even be offered to you for battles. Anyway, just an idea... We'll see what I will have to say when the current season ends.