It's Saturday again. Time for another quick recap of the week that was in Splinterlands. Not a ton of "new" stuff but there's always something to talk about.
Chaos Legion
At the top of the list continues to be the winding down of the Chaos Legion pack sale. After months on the market, the end is finally in sight. As of this writing, there are only 285k packs remaining. With 25k a day being burned, that means there are only 12 days at most left until they're gone. Realistically, they will probably go quite a bit faster than that as there is a final sales contest with some huge prizes for the top 10 buyers. In fact, the top prize is a 100 Plots of Land, with 50 and 25 for 2nd and 3rd. 4th gets 7 Runi's, which the team reiterated quite clearly during the last TownHall are going to have some major benefits on working Land. In other words, chances are there is going to be quite a bit of FOMO as the packs run down and probably some very big buyers coming in at the end to try and scoop up the prizes. Should be interesting. I think there's a legitimate shot that next week at this time, the packs will be gone.
Riftwatchers
The Riftwatchers packs are also close to a milestone with less than 20k left to sell before the next airdrop card is released. Coincidentally or not, this card seems like it will have some uses as a counter to the latest dragon summoner, Lily Shieldpaw.
With 6 ranged damage and True Strike, Fury, and Piercing it could help plow through those first couple cards in a hurry. Of course, there's always Forcefield.... Moves and countermoves. It's what makes Splinterlands fun. Anyway, I'm guessing that once CL sells out, it won't be long until the attention shifts to RW and the final 20k are bought up.
Land
Of course, you can't have a weekly article without talking about Land. The team is still on track for surveying to happen by the end of March. They plan on having a whitepaper out with as much detail as possible by then as well. In the meantime, more tidbits slipped into the Townhall include the fact that it doesn't look like summoners are going to play a pivotal role on Land. They will probably just end up being another card that can be used. The thought is that summoners already hold a ton of value in the game and are fairly scarce (i.e. expensive) as it is. Using another 150k maxed summoners on Land could potentially hurt the game as far as actually playing it. As I said, they are already some of the most expensive cards in the game so taking a giant chunk off the market would make it even harder for new players to grow their decks and compete.
Runi
Another fact the team tried to hammer home is that Runi's will definitely give holders a big boost, probably the biggest of all cards. This was originally one of the selling features when they brought them out last fall, but it's kind of been left behind with all the talk of everything else. The team just wanted to reiterate that they consider the Runi the most important card in the game and it will have some powerful advantages where Land is concerned.
They also seem to have settled on five monsters per plot. That's always been the number floating around, but it seems like they firmed that up a little bit. There will definitely be advantages to using older cards vs newer cards but the bigger advantages will be fully maxed cards vs cards that aren't. It sounds like GF vs RF will hold an advantage as well but all of that continues to be fleshed out. When you consider there are Alphas, Betas, Untamed, and Chaos sets and then legendaries, epics, rares, and commons of each plus GF and RF versions, there are a LOT of variables to consider and include. Not to mention maxed vs lesser cards and their different levels. It's going to take some serious tinkering to figure out how and where that all fits together. Better them than me. lol
Titles & Totems
Titles and Totems will also play a part in how efficiently a player can "mine" the resources on their plots. Plus, there will be new titles that can be earned once the staking on Land gets started. More variables. Hopefully these will all make sense and give players lots of different options to maximize their potential.
DEC & DEC-Batteries
Finally, DEC was once again touted as being an absolute necessity when working Land. You'll need it for staking your monsters, building and upgrading the building you put on your plot(s), and probably for various other things in the game such as moving resources from one place to another. The number floated for staking your monsters was 10k per card but there will be other places it needs to be staked and there will also be some sinks as well. One thing is clear, the team is absolutely 100% committed to making sure DEC regains it's peg and with all they are talking about, it would seem likely it's going to happen. With that in mind, there is still over 1.4B DEC-B left to buy at a 20% discount. Considering the DEC price is around .74/1000DEC, that's a 26% discount on a 20% discount. In other words, $100 buys you @135k DEC which could then buy @169k DEC-B, which (once it's back to peg) means that $100 gets you $169 worth of DEC. Not a bad discount right now. Certainly something to consider if you're a Land holder.
One final note on Land worth mentioning is the fact that at this point, renting out Land will NOT be part of the v1.5 release in Q2. While it is definitely in the cards for later in the development, it will NOT be happening anytime soon. With everything else they need to get done, they just don't have the time to get that implemented right now. That may be a blessing and a curse.
First, it will probably mean that a large chunk of the 150k plots will not be worked in the opening stages simply because running 1000 plots at once is probably not even physically possible, let alone practical. That will also mean that there may not be quite the impact on the card markets if, say, half the plots aren't being worked. On the flip-side, it may mean that smaller landholders will be able to capture better returns in the overall market if it's a smaller pie that's being cut up. Who knows? I'm sure the large landholders will devise ways to maximize their holdings, but it would seem like it might take a while. That's just a guess on my part but...we'll see.
All in all, we're in hurry up and wait mode. We can see things coming down the pike and details keep being added here and there, but nothing has happened yet. Chaos is ending but hasn't yet; the Riftwatcher airdrop is coming, but hasn't yet; Land staking is coming, but hasn't yet; the whitepaper is coming, but isn't done yet. Lots of waiting with bits and pieces being teased along the way. The days continue to pass though. We're already almost a week into March, so it won't be long now.
As for me, I did manage to make it back into Champion last season so I'm building Champion chests again this season. I also went in and bought the last of my missing cards from Chaos and RW. I had already maxed the regular foil decks of both, but I was still missing a couple GF monsters. I don't have anywhere near a max GF deck in either set, but I bought up the two or three I was missing so now I at least have 1 GF of everything. The only big ones I'm missing are Dr Blight and Lux Vega which I'm pretty much resigned to never getting. Other than that, I've got the rest.
The other thing I bought was a title. I'm not sure how big of a role they'll play in land but I don't want to find out its significant and end up having to pay triple down the road. There was an Explorer title for $185 which is one of the earliest titles so...I scooped it up. Pretty sure that worst case I'll be able to sell it later for at least what I put in. The price is now $274 for the cheapest and there are only 10 for sale.
Lastly, mostly for my own benefit (but anyone who wants to comment with their totals would be welcome), I'm now up to 575 common, 135 rare, 18 epic (with 1 card still missing), and 5 legendaries (with 9 cards still missing) of the new SoulBound deck. I also have 28, 3, 2, and 0 GF. So, 733 RF and 33 GF. A long way to go.
Happy Battling! See you next week.
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