I keep saying I'm almost done buying but the deals never seem to stop around here!
Since my original post just 3 days ago, my account value has moved from $68k to $84,500. Some of that from buying and some from price appreciation.
Here's a snapshot of my rental activity today. As you can see my rental income in this 24 hour period is 21,446 DEC or at .0075 cents it comes out to $161 roughly.
OK, on with the show!
First is Axemaster! 1 Gold and 12 regular. $267 Total
I picked up one gold Axemaster mainly because I didn't have one and I didn't think I'd be lucky ebough to get one. I haven't gotten a gold card from rewards in months and it was already at $150 and threatening to go higher so I just got it. At the same time I got this I also picked up 12 more regular Axemasters to to bring my total up to 43. These are strong on the rental market and because they are still being minted, they are cheap. Costs a little and rents for a lot is my favorite and I'll buy it every time.
Purpose for buying: Rental Income/just had to have a gold one too
9 Naga Warrior (Alpha) $50 each = $450
This is my third time dipping into the Naga warrior well. The first time was July 5th when I bought them for $2 each. The second was July 28 when I bought them for $18 each. And now in Mid August I find myself buying them for $50. Now these don't rent particularly well. For a $50 card I'm lucky to get 5 dec per day which is crazy because Naga Warrior is awesome. SO why did I buy them? Because they were it. I bought the floor here because after these 9 at $50, the next one was $125. Which means, each one of these instantly gained 150% in value the second I bought them. But there's one more reason I bought them that I'll discuss with my next buy.
Here's ashot of the market right now (a day later).
Purpose for buying: Instant valuation increase...and...
2 Dark Enchantress (Alpha) $59 and $69 = $130
Last time I bought these it was because 16 of them were sitting at $24.95 and the next one up was at $45. So the same as Naga Warrior from above. Also like Naga, they were the cheapest of all the Alpha Epics at the time and buying those 16 units bright it in line with the next cheapest alpha epic which was also $45.
This time, after I bought Naga which were the cheapest at $50, Enchantress was only a little ahead of it at $59. But if I bought the two bottom, the new lowest was $94. So it raised the entire floor and instantly took the now 21 of these I have and put them to a valuation of $94. More importantly though, it made the Naga's I just spent $450 on more valuable because the entire floor jumped to the next cheapest monster which was $72. If someone saw Naga jump and wanted to list theirs, they could look at the market and say well the cheapest epic alpha is $59 and so I'll undercut that and go $50 which means I bought for nothing. But if the floor is $72, only a crazy person would list at $50 and if they did, it would be snapped up instantly.
So essentially I bought Enchantress to lift the whole floor, give me instant value in my enchantresses and to lock in value in my Nagas. I've been doing this across the market to safeguard the outcomes of my bigger buys. You want to look a tthe whole structure of the market when you decide to buy out a floor or you'll just be sold into. Sometimes that means creating your own set ups.
Purpose for buying: Buy the laggard, increase the floor, insure my larger purchases.
2 Gold Wood Nymphs and 5 Regular Wood Nymphs = $161
OK, nothing complicated here. So many people play this wood nymph against me and somehow it never even occured to me to look her up. Finally I did and found that the gold ones were relatively cheap at $65 each which is crazy with how many people use her as an unstoppable team with Flesh Golem. Thinking about it now, I'm not sure that 2 of these is enough and the floor is thin. Ugh, always something else to buy.
Purpose for buying: She's such a badass that I just had to have her/rental
2 Golden Furious Chicken = $360 x 2 = $720
This was by far my most exciting purchase and also probably the dumbest. I had the foresight early on to load up on chickens but I passed on the golden chicken when it was $24 because I thought it was ridiculous. And then I passed on it at $72 and then again at $160. But here's the realization I had about Chickens. Last month we had 5k players in all of Splinterlands. Meanwhile there are 27k chickens. That means the most popular card int he game outnumbered players 5:1.
What about now though? Yesterday Splinterlands sprinted across to 106k active accounts, adding 7000 accounts (more than we even had in the beginning of July) in one day. That means in the span of a month, we have gone from 5 chickens for every active account to 1 chicken for every 4 active accounts. And I personally have 50 of them. That means if no one had more than one, onely a quarter of the players could use a chicken in daily play and I'd venture to guess that by next week that's 1 in 6. Chickens just became rare so $360 for a gold chicken with only 1700 in existence is cheap.
In other words, go get yourself a chicken if you can afford it. It doesn't need to be gold. Regular chickens are $34 but I'm betting they'll eclipse $100 in September and never look back.
Purpose for buying:Chickens just got scarce and people don't realize it yet.
OK, that's enough for now. I know I went a little deep there with strategy and I also know it's going to clash with how some of you might think about playing the game. As I've said before, my goal is to be able to make a living playing Splinterlands and it takes a bit of strategy if I'm going to get there (almost there!)
Question: If Chickens are going to become scarce, do you think they will come out with a chicken alternative in the next pack or is 27k it for the 0 mana fodder cards?