The addition of rentals to the Splinterlands interface has changed a lot of things. For one, it has made them more accessible to all players without having to get them from a secondary interface.
Let's be real. We don't use most of our cards and they're mostly collecting digital dust sitting in our collections. So having them available for rent is great for owners.
At the same time, for players, it is making things a lot more competitive. My title screenshot is from a Bronze league game. My opponent had a legendary summoner and 2 legendary monsters. That's insane for Bronze.
The rental math
Does the rental math make sense? When they were first rolled out, you could rent a legendary summoner for ~20 DEC a day if i remember correctly.
As you can see, the rental market has definitely picked up. It would now cost around 380 DEC per day to pull off the Last Stand strategy.
You make around 15-20 DEC per battle at Bronze I. So it would take winning around 20 battles per day just to break even. I'm not sure this makes sense unless you're playing for Silver/Gold at least where a battle nets you 45-60 DEC.
Also, the new season rewards system means you will need to rent the cards till the end of the season to qualify for the season ending rewards. What happens if the person you're renting from cancels the rental at the last minute? Sounds like a risk if you play it too fine.
All in all, these are positive developments for the Splinterlands game and economy.