I've been wanting to properly test out Modern Mode in Splinterlands after Bots were banned there but this forces me to grind my way up in the rankings first. Today I made an attempt that turned out to be an Epic Fail kind of making me change my view on the game...

Wild vs Modern

So far I always continued to play in Wild mode since I have the needed card collection for it, however the changes a while ago really indirectly nerfed that league as all bots moved over from modern creating a big earnings gap between both leagues.

Currently, my place is around the top of Wild Gold winning just over 50% playing manually. In Modern League however I'm still in bronze and would need to grind my way up. I already somewhat tried in the past seasons but never really got further than Silver always being set back in the new seasons as never played enough to really make enough progress.

Modern Grind Attempt

So with a rating of 952 in Modern, I aimed to play ~25 matches with focus aiming to just play the game an have fun regardless of any earnings seeing how far I could grind my way up.

These were the results:

Overall Experience: So I didn't get far with 20 battles to my surprise making my rating go from 952 down to 901 after 8 WINS & 12 LOSSES. While I got plenty to in Modern coming over to wild, I didn't expect the 'gap' to be this big. In some games I simply got outplayed and I learned from those matchups

In many others, I was just up against Llamakron which was unbeatable. The average SPS earnings for a win in Bronze was 0.8 SPS which actually is quite high compared to Gold Wild where it is not even double that. At the same time, I didn't manage to get a single Gold Chest since the gap is so big which in that regard makes Wild Gold obviously way more profitable. I'm sure that if I stick to it, I would easily make my way up to Gold league near the end of the season also because I'm learning and improving along the way but I'm not sure that I will continue and likely move just back to Wild League.

New Insights

This experience surely gave me some new insights and direction how to move forward. Purely as a game without looking at any earnings potential, I do really enjoy Splinterlands and think it has got a fun & challenging gameplay look that continues to be interesting since all the variables make each match unique. This said, I'm not really interested in fully 'wasting my time and money' on playing game and I kind of fear that this is mostly what Spinterlands has become going forward. There are simply too few mechanisms in place in order to make old cards hold up, let alone rise in value which is a real problem.

One of the main reasons many people are willing to put money in the game is because they not only anticipate being able to sell at some point, but they also believe card prices will hold up and even go higher. Without this belief, it just is not worth it knowing you most likely will lose money over time.

I'm quite sure that there is some good potential for card price increases if there is another adoption wave, but in terms of buying Rebellion packs, I feel that I'm fully out. As much as I enjoy the game, the belief to actually make money over time is simply more important for me. Luckily, I have been playing the game for years grinding consistently which puts me up in what I invested even if all my assets would go to 0.

How To Go Forward

My plan for a while has been to get out on the next adoption wave not so much because I no longer enjoy the game but because it gets increasingly hard to reach another boom after the bust. I also will just continue in Wild League for now and give up the idea to get things going in Modern since Untamed will fade out soon with rebellion coming in which would need a big investment to keep up with that. Right now, I will continue my accumulation mode at current prices but I'm going to slow things down and at some point if assets start going up reverse this around into taking some profit.

Conclusion

I tried to switch from Wild To Modern which turned into an epic fail which makes me stay in Wild. The fact that there is an incentive from the devs to make new cards more valuable makes it not worth to hold on to them for the long run with an eye that they at least hold up their value unless something changes or if there is a new massive adoption wave. So Splinterlands when getting in now feels more like a game you put money in for fun and get a bit back later down the line instead of something to actually make profit from.