Good day, I've been playing Splinterlands for way over a year and it is indeed true that Level 1 bot farming becomes such a headache now. To address this issue, Splinterland has decided to implement an update requiring an account to achieve a certain Collection Power before it can advance to a higher league. Some are quite happy about it, including me, while many aren't. Let me share to you a story about my early days here in Splinterlands.
When I started playing Splinterlands around January 2019 and playing only 1 account, I got so luck enough to pull out a GFL Prince Rennyn on the very first beta card pack that I purchased and I was able to sell it at $180 SBD during that time which is worth $180. Using that, I purchased some beta cards to increase my battle strength and to conquer the higher tier.
As I know more about the game, I started renting out level 6 - 8 summoners and some normal foil beta cards and it was actually great, I moved on the league much faster and was able to reach Diamond and even Champion league. As far as I can remember, my rental cost me about $0.50 and what I'm getting in return is much much more.
I'm playing until my capture rate hits 80%, that's basically around 23 battles, while completing my daily quest. Each win, I get around 100 DEC or so and there are instances wherein I get 150 - 200 DEC per win. On a daily basis I get around $3 - $4 gross just on DEC alone. Other players on higher rank (Champion with 4700+ ratings) used to get 350 - 500 DEC per win especially if they are using alpha gold cards.
Few months later, I decided to open up another accounts. Due to the fact that I only play 23 games per day to maintain my capture rate at 80%, I added up 4 more accounts and its taking me around 6 hours to play all of my 5 accounts.
Now, how much do I get after playing? ... enough for me to almost quit my job and focus on playing instead. This is DEC alone, including daily quest, I get about $15 - $20 gross on a daily basis and End of Season Rewards gives no less than $15 per account. Too bad I wasn't able to experience getting beta packs as daily quest reward instead of cards but early players used to get these before.
So now, going back to the issue about Level 1 Farming Bots, those who doesn't have any other cards on collection aside from the default phantom cards and some reward cards from quest. Collection Power can indeed address the issue however it doesn't only affects the Level 1 Farming Bots but also the low - mid level investors. Take note, by purchasing the $10 Summoner's Spellbook, that individual can already be labelled as "investor" whether he/she puts in more money on the game or not.
Although there are some questions that needs to be answered first before the full implementation of this update or else, it will just hurt those low-mid level investors while Level 1 Farming bots still continue to operate.
Will the rating continue to increase even thought that person is not advancing to the next league due to insufficient collection power? Example, at Silver 1 wherein the max rating is 1899, will a player continue to gain ratings until the necessary collection power has been met?
If the answer on question #1 is YES, then the 2nd question will be - What if that individual was able to achieve 3401 ratings at Silver 1 and met the necessary collection power to climb up to the Champion League, will that individual become a Diamond 1 already, skipping the gold league?
If the answer on question #1 is NO, then how will ranking work? Is Collection Power going to be the tie breaker?
If the answer on question #2 is NO, then what's going to happen then?
Currently, these are the issues that I'm able to identify and there might be more of it soon. I do have some sort of "Possible" resolution to this matter wherein Level 1 Farming Bots can be prevented without affecting the low-mid level investors.
What if instead of calculating the total DEC burn value of the account including the delegated one, they'll just compute the battle strength of the account. I made some tables on excel to somewhat explain how Battle Strength works.
Let's check out the table below:
These figures are just made up, a better scaling is needed to properly get a better value and to distinguish each card from one another. As you can see on the table, a level 8 summoner disregards if it's a gold foil or not, will give you a Battle Strength of 80 while the epic and legendary gives a higher value due to some of its advantage, may it be the mana requirement or the added skills.
As for the monster cards, it also has different battle strength depending on the rarity of the card. Let's try to see the maximum deck that can play on Bronze League.
... and below is an example on how battle strength will be computed.
So that being said, this account has 1 level 2 rare summoner and 10 different monster cards with different rarity. To prevent Level 1 Farming Bot, I'm thinking that to advance to silver level and up, at least 600 Battle Strength is needed which, based on the sample table, will basically consist of 3 level 2 rare summoner and 30 monster cards. Silver III will basically act as the gateway to a higher league because level 1 accounts can achieve Bronze I without renting or buying cards but on Silver League, it's a different store.
Basically, the Battle Strength needed is only at 600, this is indeed quite low but take note, if the goal is to prevent and/or stop Level 1 Farming Bot Accounts - accounts with no other than Phantom cards + some reward cards, by doing this, it will address that concern without hurting those low-mid level investors. In reality, everyone should be allowed to advance as high as possible whether they put more money on the game or not and even if there is no bot at all, low to mid level investors will continue to push each other up once all of the strong opponent hits champion league rank.
I understand that Splinterlands needs to make profit to sustain and maintain the game and I guess, I'll be making another post about it, this one becomes too lengthy enough and thank you if you actually read my post from top to bottom. Have a wonderful day ahead and keep safe everyone. Feel free to leave your comments below.
P.S: I'm currently using bot service from 
