The Splinterlands community has been going wild with speculation and theories lately surrounding the recent sellouts of both land and the 1.5 million Booster Pack Untamed Edition. Starting with the news of the upcoming Splintershards (SPS) governance token a few weeks ago, the floodgates were opened and new attention from all over the world began pouring into Splinterlands.
Typically for its last three years in operation, the successful and popular blockchain TCG has kept its head down, striving to design, develop and deliver a fully functional and multifaceted reward economy, but now Splinterlands is 100% ready to scale, and the world is ready to hear about it. Take it from me as a member of the Splinterlands team: We could not be more excited or more ready for this transition.
No Booster Packs = Unknown Territory
In the next few months, Splinterlands players will enter unknown territory as we prepare for the release of the next core set of Booster Packs, Chaos Legion. The unknown is not about a new set of cards or any of the massive updates over the horizon. Instead, it's the unpredictable results of a Splinterlands ecosystem in which unopened Booster Packs are only available on the secondary markets. This is a Splinterlands game that many of our players may never have anticipated, and one that will take careful planning to stay competitive and on top of rewards.
The fact is that it will be at least a few months before Chaos Legion Booster Packs are released for $2 sale, and what will happen to the individual card market before then is anybody's guess. When you combine the following points, you may get a glimpse of the next few months that aligns with what I'm seeing, which is nothing short of cutthroat card mayhem.
Accelerated Growth
It's pretty plain to see that Splinterlands is growing now more than ever. New players of all levels are constantly joining the game, and with all the new partnerships, deals and exposure Splinterlands is getting worldwide, that growth is not expected to slow down any time soon. Those of us who have been around the game for the longest have heard this for years now: there aren't enough cards to go around. This doesn't mean that it's not possible for every player to have a collection. It simply means that the days of easy max cards are quickly coming to a close.
Fewer Cards
More players means more combined/leveled cards, and that means every single card will have a drastically reduced circulating supply. In the past, there have always been $2 Booster Packs to keep the value of single cards from the current edition (Untamed) from getting out of hand... Not any more. The good ol' reliable Booster Packs are gone from supply, and as the value of cards increases due to scarcity, those willing to sell unopened Booster Packs on the secondary markets will do so only for increasing prices.
These are the cheapest Beta Boosters currently listed on Atomic Hub.
Everyone Needs Summoners
This is another thing that veteran players have been repeating over and over for years to noobs. Summoners are a necessity for playing the game, and in terms of gameplay, your collection is only as good as your Summoners. Summoners may be depended upon by your Monster cards to increase in level of play, but they are indistinguishable from any other card in terms of rarity and supply. They come in Common, Rare, Epic and Legendary; if anything, they become scarce even more quickly than Monster cards because of their necessity to be combined.
As Beta Summoners became too expensive in the market for many Gold and Diamond players to level, those players have counted on Summoners from Untamed and Rewards. When the Untamed Summoners grew more valued in the secondary markets (Mylor Crowling, I'm looking at you), players could always fall back on Booster Packs. Now it's not so simple. Every new player to the game will need to assemble a decent collection of Summoners, and every advanced player will need to continue building their Summoner collections, combining cards and always reducing the already dwindling supply.
The Summoners' market - zoomed way out
Only About 1000
Here's something to consider that has been well-known by the most experienced members of the Splinterlands community for years now. For most Splinterlands cards, there are only enough in supply for about 1000 max versions of that card to exist. Let's break that down, using Reward cards, the only Splinterlands cards whose print numbers are exact (because of the way they are printed).
A Common Reward card is printed 400,000 times. Considering that it takes 400 BCX of a single Common Reward card to reach the max level, there are only enough for exactly 1000 max versions to exist, and that's only if every single one is contributed to a max combined card (which would never possibly happen).
A Rare Reward card is printed 100,000 times, and each Rare Reward card takes 115 BCX to max. This means that even fewer (869) max Rare cards can exist than Commons.
An Epic Reward card is printed 40,000 times, and each Epic Reward card takes 46 BCX to max. So only 869 max versions of each Reward Epic could ever exist.
A Legendary Reward card is only printed a mere 10,000 times, with each Legendary requiring 12 BCX to make a max version. So only 833 max versions of each Legendary would exist if all were combined.
You can find the detailed stats of Reward card printing at THIS PAGE, a community-built creation by KioKizz.
What Does it all Mean?
It's very possible that card values on many Splinterlands cards will increase quickly and enthusiastically. This is already being observed every day by watchers of the card market, who usually report these findings immediately in the Discord channel. Even certain Reward cards that only a matter of weeks ago were selling for just a few pennies have increased 5, 10 or even 20 fold in some cases.
For players who want to continue growing their collections and earning maximum rewards through this no Booster Pack wasteland over the next few months, preparations will be in order. These preparations begin with strong Summoners, and once most of the Summoners have been bought and rented, there will be one single reliable source for Summoners remaining: ΛZMΛRÉ Dice. And there aren't that many left.
ΛZMΛRÉ Dice: Your Summoner Savior?
The ΛZMΛRÉ Dice miniset contains a total of 300,000 Booster Packs that can only be purchased with Dark Energy Crystals. The DEC spent on DICE are not counted toward Splinterlands company revenue, but instead, burned to reduce the total DEC supply. The miniset contains 20 different cards, and here's the interesting part: DICE are 30% Summoners. 6 out of 20 cards are Summoners, one from each Splinter. You'll find a complete list of these cards (fun lore included) at THIS POST.
Each DICE pack costs 3000 DEC (Guild discount pictured above), making them 50% more expensive than typical Booster Packs, but I imagine that once the realization catches on that DICE are the cheapest and easiest way left to get Summoners now, the remaining DICE will sell at an absurdly quick rate. At the time of writing this, just under half of the DICE supply still remains.
Some Summoner Food for Thought
Only 12 out of 41 Summoners are currently listed with a lowest sale price of less than $1.
Only 1 Legendary Summoner (Camilla Sungazer) is currently listed for less than $10 per BCX.
The lowest listed single Beta Alric Stormbringer (Rare) is currently $9.49. The cheapest combined max Alric Stormbringer is $3.04 per BCX.
It's time to get serious with your Summoner planning, no matter your level of play. No one wants to get stuck with leveled Summoners who aren't quite enough. Many of you may want to plan for Chaos Legion Summoners, accumulating them when they're available in Booster Packs, but you'll have to prepare for that as well. Who knows? The time between the core sets (like now) may go down in Splinterlands history as Summoner Famines. Will you have enough food stockpiled to get through the trying times?
Thanks for reading NON-FUNGIBLE STEW!
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