I was actually going through the Rebellion pack sales on Splinterlands, and I noticed that there is a great disparity between the price of REBELLION on Splinterlands and Hive-Engine.
Based on these prices, let's compare how much does each option cost (using Ask prices).
| Option | What You Need | Cost in USD |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (Splinterlands website) | 5000 DEC | USD 4.56 |
| 2 (Splinterlands website) | 4000 DEC + 5 VOUCHER | USD 3.81 |
| 3 (Hive-Engine) | 1 REBELLION | USD 2.95 |
Of course, no one is going to spend 5000 DEC to purchase, so this means the difference of the packs between Splinterlands website vs Hive-Engine is USD 0.86 (3.81 vs 2.95). So why is there a difference? And why would people even pay USD 3.81 on Splinterlands website?
The answer is because packs purchased during this pre-sale will have access to these two exclusive cards. So let's do some rough maths to see how much does these cards worth, at least based on the market pricing.
Grimbardun Smith
For every 10 Rebellion booster packs purchased during the presale, including bonus packs available with bulk purchases, players will receive one Grimbardun Smith Neutral Rare card! Each Grimbardun Smith card received will have a 4% chance of being a Gold Foil version of the card, and players will be guaranteed to receive at least one Gold Foil version of the card for every 250 Rebellion booster packs purchased during the presale.
Scenario 1: Let's consider someone who bought just 10 packs on Splinterlands website in order to get Grimbardun Smith.
He would pay USD 38.10 instead of USD 29.50, i.e. an extra USD 8.60. For that he gets a Grimbardun Smith, which could 96% Regular or 4% Gold Foil. So I looked at the difference between Gold Foil vs Regular for Chaos Legion Rare Neutral cards, and for estimation, let's take the average, which is approximately 16x.
Let's solve our equation. Assume x is the price of the regular Grimbardun Smith. So 16x is the price of the Gold Foil Grimbardun Smith.
0.96 (x) + 0.04 (16x) = 8.60
=> 1.60 (x) = 8.60
=> x = 5.37
=> 16x = 86
That implies that a Regular Grimbardun Smith would be worth USD 5.37 and a Gold Foil Grimbardun Smith would be worth USD 86!?
Wait...
On top of that, every single Rebellion booster pack purchased during the presale will have a 1% chance of receiving a Mantaroth Neutral Legendary card! Each Mantaroth card will also have a 4% chance of being a Gold Foil version of the card.
So how much is the chance worth? Once again, let's make some assumptions, using the price of Doctor Blight (also the pre-sale Legendary card) as a proxy.
Since 10 packs would loosely means 10% chance of getting 1 Mantaroth, the revised equation looks like this:
0.96 (x) + 0.04 (16x) + 0.10 [0.96 * 26.82 + 0.04 * 285] = 8.60
=> 1.60 (x) + 3.71 = 8.60
=> 1.60 (x) = 4.89
=> x = 3.06
=> 16x = 49
After factoring in the chance of getting Legendary card, that implies that a Regular Grimbardun Smith would be worth USD 3.06 and a Gold Foil Grimbardun Smith would be worth USD 49!
Is Grimbardun Smith really worth that much? Hmm, I will let you guys decide because we never know.
Mantaroth
Scenario 2: Let's consider someone who bought 100 packs on Splinterlands website. He gets 2 Mantaroth (1 guaranteed and likely 1 from the 100 packs), 10 Grimbardun Smith. On top of that, he pays 25 more VOUCHER and get 5 extra packs.
Purchases of 100 or more Rebellion booster packs from the Splinterlands shop in a single transaction will be eligible for 5% additional packs at a cost of 5 VOUCHER tokens each.
The total cost would come up to approximately USD 382. If he were to purchase the same 105 packs on Hive-Engine, the total cost would come up to approximately USD 310. So the price difference is USD 72.
If we were assume the weighted cost of Grimbardun Smith (96% Regular, 4% Gold Foil) is USD 4.89 (see above), and assume the price of Mantaroth to be y, with Gold Foil being 10x more expensive based on Doctor Blight's pricing, the equation would look like this:
10 (4.89) + 2 [0.96 (y) + 0.04 (10y)] = 72
=> 48.9 + 2 [1.36 (y)] = 72
=> 1.36 (y) = 11.55
=> y = 8.49
=> 10y = 85
That implies that a Regular Mantaroth would be worth USD 8.49 and a Gold Foil Mantaroth would be worth USD 85!
Is USD 8.49 reasonable enough for a Legendary card? I have provided a screenshot of the current Legendary Neutral cards as a comparison. Hehe.
Summary and Final Thoughts
- If you are buying just 1 REBELLION pack, it's clearly more worth it to buy on Hive-Engine. Unless you think you are going to be very lucky and strike the 1% chance of Mantaroth.
- If you are buying 10 REBELLION packs for Grimbardun Smith, the premium that you are paying implies that Grimbardun Smith would be worth USD 3.05/USD 49 for Regular/Gold Foil. In my opinion, it would better off buying off the Hive-Engine, and get these cards separately when they are out.
- If you are buying 100 REBELLION packs for all the bonus stuff, the premium that you are paying implies that Mantaroth would be worth USD 8.49/USD 85 for Regular/Gold Foil. Based on probability, this seems like a better deal and you should go for it on Splinterlands website.
- If you are planning to get even more, there are more bonus packs so naturally, the deal gets better and the "breakeven" cost will be significantly reduced.
Of course, I am aware that I have used many assumptions in my calculations where there is no real data to reference, but I hope this post have provided some useful figures to think about. With that, I thank you for reading this lengthy post and if you have any comments, please feel free to comment below.
Until then, there's 20 days left to the end of the pre-sale!
If you are interested to sign up to play Splinterlands, my referral link is here.