An important part of the upcoming Land Expansion is the Secret of Praetoria which, as the name suggests, is a well kept Secret that we know almost nothing about. In this post I will attempt to analyze the best options available for people that plan to focus on the Secret of Praetoria, or for people that are wondering whether they should do so, using the limited information that we have.
First things first. When Land 1.5 goes live, we will have three options to choose from, when it comes to "working" our land plots:
- SPS
- Grain
- Research Points
SPS is pretty straightforward. If you choose to work your plots in that way, you will be getting SPS in return.
Similarly, you can choose to work your plots for producing Grain. I won't go into details about Grain here, as this post is about the Secret of Praetoria, but suffice it to say that the cards/monsters you assign to a plot consume Grain, and given the fact that this is a new resource there might be some arbitrage opportunities in the early days of Land 1.5.
But what about Research Points? This is a well kept secret. We can choose to "do Research" on our plots and in return we will be getting Research Points, although we know almost nothing about them, apart from the fact that these Research Points will contribute to unraveling the Secret of Praetoria. However, 
Do we know anything at all with regards to the Secret of Praetoria? Gathering bits and pieces of information here and there, this is my current understanding of the situation:
We know (Matt has said so) that gathering Research Points for the Secret of Praetoria will be a "territory thing", in the sense that when you work your plots for Research then the Research Points that you accumulate contribute to the total Research of the Territory. So it looks like the Secret of Praetoria is going to require team effort.
Please note that he has said Territory, not Region. How many Territories do we have in Praetoria? Seven. I will present them to you below, but while looking at them please notice the borders between each Territory (the colored curves). They all follow the mountain ranges that we see in Praetoria. More on that later. So, from top to bottom, left to right, these are the seven Territories that will be competing for the Secret of Praetoria:
Pristine Northwest
Broken Lands
Land of Prosperity
Central Fire
Wild Northeast
Great Lowlands
Shimmering Coasts
Land owners in the above Territories will have the option to do Research in their plots in order to accumulate more Research Points for their Territory, hoping they will outpace the other Territories in the race for the Secret of Praetoria. I think it is safe to assume that, if you own your plots in a particular Territory, the more people on that Territory do Research, the better your chances are for winning the race and benefiting from it. We don't know how long will this last. It could be a seasonal thing (biweekly), or monthly, or yearly. Who knows. But Matt said it will be worth it, and he plans to focus on Research. If you do focus on Research as well, and your Territory ends up winning the race, then your rewards will probably be proportional to what you have contributed to the pot of your Territory's Research Points. It remains to be seen what the other Territories will get (the ones that lost the race) but if Brawls are any guidance then they will get some rewards, but not the best rewards.
Having said that, if you plan to focus on Research, what should you do? Assuming you don't already own land or are planning to trade land plots to relocate yourself, then you should consider the following two things:
Choose to buy/work "Magical" plots for Research Points. This is a no brainer. These plots give a 100% production boost for Research.
Choose a Territory with the "right people" in it.
What does that even mean? Well, first and foremost, you want to choose a Territory with active land owners. Therefore, the Shimmering Coasts is probably not suitable for maximizing your Research chances/rewards. That's because the Shimmering Coasts will never be completely claimed, for reasons that are beyond the scope of this post. So if you choose to do Research there, and given that Research is going to be a team effort, you will have a disadvantage to begin with.
But what about the other Territories? Let's go through them one by one, and see who are the people with the most presence in each one (many thanks to 
Who do you think is more likely to let go of some SPS and Grain and focus on Research instead?
Who do you think is more likely to follow Matt's lead and focus on Research?
Top 10 land owners in the Pristine Northwest:
So, in Pristine Northwest 
Top 10 land owners in the Broken Lands:
Interestingly, in Broken Lands the top 3 land owners have more than 6000 land plots, collectively. On top of that, these are familiar names. They are not going anywhere anytime soon, and if you look at their DEC holdings these guys are probably going to be among the most active land owners. 
Top 10 land owners in the Land of Prosperity:
So here, 
Top 10 land owners in the Central Fire:
Top 10 land owners in the Wild Northeast:
The great power of the Wild Northeast, when it comes to Research, is none other than
Top 10 land owners in the Great Lowlands:
I have to admit I don't know who 
To summarize the above, given that the Secret of Praetoria is going to be a team effort at the Territory level, if I had to choose a Territory in order to focus on Research I would go for either the Broken Lands or the Wild Northeast, for the reasons mentioned above. I didn't take into account the Shimmering Coasts, given the high probability of unclaimed plots in that Territory.
We had a look at the top 10 land owners in each Territory, but what about the rest? I can't possibly estimate what each land owner will do, but here is how many plots are for sale in each Territory, just to give you an idea of the diamond hands in each one:
Plots for sale:
| Pristine Northwest | 328 |
|---|---|
| Broken Lands | 171 |
| Land of Prosperity | 362 |
| Central Fire | 141 |
| Wild Northeast | 223 |
| Great Lowlands | 227 |
| Shimmering Coasts | 289 |
So here, Central Fire has the least plots in the market, followed by Broken Lands. If we take into account the total number of plots in each Region, these numbers are insignificant, but they could give a general feeling of future inactivity in some plots of these Territories. Please note that the above numbers are just the numbers I got at the time of writing this post.
Last but not least, the Secret of Praetoria itself. I have no idea what it is. But last year there were two lore stories that were published which mentioned the Obelisk Shield. To make a long story short, there are eight Obelisks in Praetoria and there is a network that connects these eight Obelisks. If this network is brought online and the Obelisk Shield is restored, then Praetoria will be safe again.
As mentioned before, we have seven Territories in Praetoria. Together with Mount Praetorous in the center, we have eight places of interest. I believe, and this is pure speculation, that the Secret of Praetoria will have something to do with these eight Obelisks, with the ultimate goal to restore the Obelisk Shield to its former glory. Here are the relevant lore stories, for reference: