I believe that, like me, the title "Is a new format coming?" surprised you, right? At the Splinterlands Social Media Challenge, an event whose goal is for the community to comment and discuss a specific topic, the theme could be none other than the arrival of a new format to the NFT card game, Splinterlands.
We'll explore the objective of this new format, its differences from Wild and Modern, and what its name will be, a topic that has been debated by the community in recent days! Come and discover everything about this new format!
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[ENGLISH VERSION]
What will this new format be?
The Splinterlands developers say they listened to the community about creating a new ranked format that would be 100% free to play! According to one of the team members, the main objective of this new format is to help with the onboarding of new players, providing an entry point for them to start playing in ranked mode as soon as they complete all the tutorials.
Unfortunately, there seems to be some uncertainty in the community about what this new mode will actually be. The idea of being free-to-play is to be an extension of new player onboarding, not to directly compete with existing ranked modes. That's what I understood about this new mode, but some people think it could end up going in a different direction. This new mode needs to be well-structured so that it doesn't "lock" players into F2P mode, but rather simply serves as a gateway to an established ranked mode.
Intended to be a beginner-friendly mode for free-to-play players, the only cards currently available for use in this mode are the Foundation set, which players earn by completing the tutorials/chapters in each campaign book. Therefore, since everyone will have almost the same cards, strategy will be the most important factor. In the future, there will be other ways to obtain these cards, as well as the option to fuse them to increase your level.
Considering the experience of new Splinters players, it's important to consider balance during matchmaking so they don't end up with a much better player. It might be a good idea to add some simple accounts for them to play against at the beginning, as there might not be enough players.
What will your name be? Frontier x Academy
The first question about this new format that has been hotly debated by the community, besides its specifications and purpose, is the chosen name. It all started with a post from Splinterlands on their official social media channels announcing that they would be accepting name suggestions until July 20th on their UX-related discord channel.
However, I also believe they considered comments and posts that were well-received by the community to compose the options that would be added to their poll in future posts, such as the option shared by The People's Guild on X, which suggested the name Frontier. According to its creator, the name represents more than a new format, but a sign that the doors are open to something new.
In the end, the names entered into the vote were: Academy, Base, Frontier, Gateway, Initiate, and Primer. Overall, the community ended up choosing good names for this new ranked mode. With 62 votes to 59, Frontier ended up taking first place, beating out another very interesting name: Academy. I liked the choice because Frontier will represent more than just a newbie mode, like Academy, but a mode where pure strategy and card selection for each ruleset will be the main focus. So, Frontier seems like the name that encompasses all of this.
