Splinterlands: Impacts of Lands

The community of Splinterlands has always known that the introduction of land would change the ecosystem forever. Not only will it introduce new ways to play but it will expand the economy enormously as resources are added for future use. While it is only phase 1.5, the implications that Land brings to the ecosystem are game-changing as the scales of demand and supply will be severely impacted despite the current over supply it seems we currently have of well, everything. There are no assets that will avoid being impacted from the introduction of Land.

The first clear impact is that of cards. This is a huge turnaround from what we have recently lived as the surge of accounts in 2021 led to the current over supply we currently have of both Reward and Chaos Legion Edition cards in the market. Despite attempts to balance them with demand, the current bear market in addition to the attack towards the bot farms have rendered the card market flooded of themselves. It has even impact cards with only a tenth of the supply of recent editions. However, land will be the next sponge thrown at the market to soak up the excess supply.

This will have among the largest implications because the same assets will continue to be required for both only the incoming land but also the traditional and new gameplay to be seen. Not only will they be needed to remain competitive in tournaments and ranked play but recall that there will likely be needs for cards on for the Soulkeep tower defense game as well. These uses have seen a substantial decline in recent months as the bot farm have been shown the door. No more evidence is needed than the material decrease in rental activity seen as of late. This will be an area to watch as demand from land moves these cards off the market and into land. I think it will be the most coveted asset in the ecosystem.

Next to consider will be the tokens. Many have always spoken plenty about the “flywheel” and how it can get started with land approaching. The first goal is for DEC to reach its peg but that has been a long time in the works with the discount growing and shrinking as the team implements strategies to help get the flywheel going. Whether it was DEC-B, promo cards or the great burning; none were able to achieve the peg. However, what they did do was to reduce the supply quite significantly.

If only half of the land is optimized, the DEC needed to be staked will probably be enough to move the market towards peg. However, with only 80% of land surveyed, I think that is an unlikely scenario. Even my own experience, despite having 5 years completing my Collection and accumulating everything I can get my hands on with my earnings, I will likely be unable to service even half of my land. It is an good start though but really will depend if the resources we are chasing have a demand themselves. Unfortunately, this will add another layer to the flywheel.

The same implications remain across all the other assets in the ecosystem. Titles and Runi in addition to the unopened packs that remain in accounts. Many will be needed to optimize land. However, the promise of land remain contingent on the value it provides to the ecosystem. While the gameplay is exciting in terms of farming for resources, we will need more insight as to what Land 2.0 looks like in order to determine the value of these expanded resources coming. Without them, they remain as what Alpha cards once were when I started, a potential. However, the development team has so far delivered since then so I cannot remove my faith from what they have achieved over the past 5 year.