The splinterlands team has done an amazing job with tokenomics, coming up with many creative ideas to hold up the value of the NFTS and tokens in the game. Below is a suggestion that I have which I believe may improve an aspect of the game for some people.
Modification to sps tournament entry requirements
I believe the requirement of staked SPS to enter these large scale tournaments is great, I'm in no way proposing to remove anything that is currently in place, just add something to it that I believe would make these tournaments more accessible and competitive, while also adding to and encouraging HODLing more SPS. My proposition: add another voucher-like system to the game. In addition to earning bonus SPS from staking it and getting vouchers over time, holding staked SPS would also generate "tickets", in a similar manner to that of vouchers. These tickets could then be used in sps tournaments by players that don't meet the staked SPS entry fee. Instead of holding 100,000 staked SPS to enter the sps tournament, a smaller player could instead go on hive engine and purchase these "tickets", which could be exchanged(the game would burn them when cashed in) for temporary points in entering the tournament. For example: a sps tournament has a 5000 staked SPS requirement to enter. You can either enter by having 5000 staked SPS, OR, you could pay 5 tickets and enter the tournament for that one time. I think this will be another amazing incentive to HODL staked SPS, and by doing so make tournaments accessible for aspiring competitors.
To clarify, since I know my suggestion wasn't well written: another system such as the voucher system could be put in place in addition, which would generate players that hold staked SPS "tickets" that can be used to enter a tournament by a player that doesn't meet the staked SPS requirement, as an alternative.
Once used to enter a tournament once, the "tickets" are then burned by the game.
The primary sellers of these tickets would be whales that hold a large amount of staked SPS, and this could be another incentive to stake more SPS.
The purchasers of these would be smaller players that don't have the funds to stake a large amount of SPS, but would like to participate in the tournaments.
However, this could be exploited by bringing access to multiple accounts to enter the tournaments, which could lead to feeding wins to the main account. This is a large obstacle I see with this, let me know if there is an alternative in doing this, or a way to get over this obstacle.
The goal of this is to give smaller players another option in the game, without taking away anything from larger investors. If there is a flaw here that would decrease the value of SPS, that would nullify this suggestion, as in no way is this more important than the value of SPS.
If you see any flaws or holes in this suggestion, just comment it or ping me on the splinterlands discord. If you agree and think this suggestion could be beneficial, upvote so it can reach more people. As always, thank you for taking the time to read this post.