Purchasing Energy in Game!

Today I saw a video by @synist3r which is quite thought provoking for me. I liked a lot of the problems discussed in the video. I requested him to post an expanded version and potential solutions at hive if possible. Following are the highlights discussed: (full disclaimer: these are his opinions, NOT mine!)

🤖 Liquidity bots are a problem in Modern Ranked mode, causing rating inflation and skewing SPS rewards.

📈 Top players have achieved unprecedented ratings (7,000+) within days due to liquidity bot activity, which is unrealistic for manual play. Basically argument is that they are too weak.

💰 Top accounts at Modern league exploit a loop of purchasing energy with Glint to generate SPS rewards that exceed energy costs, effectively minting SPS profitably.

🎮 Survival Mode is largely bot-driven and fails to serve its original purpose of supporting older card values.

🔄 Card staking is proposed as a better alternative to Survival Mode, providing transparent rewards for card ownership without bot abuse.

🔍 The community and developers need to analyze data carefully and adjust mechanics to maintain fairness and game integrity.

@ghostlybg mentioned in the comment of this video: "... As for energy purchase with Glint - they should remove this option"

There are five bullet point and with that quote in the comment section above: I will only discuss the 3rd point because I think the data doesn't support it. Thanks to @vugtis as he provided the energy purchase of top 6 Modern ranked players currently. In fact it is top seven, because the 6th ranked player didn't purchase any energy during the last 31 days! That already is a debunk of this claim! Here is the plot:

Nothing beats data, because when we show and present data in a consumable visual form, usually the argument stops. Here are top 6 modern players, the bottom row, doesn't even purchase energy using glint regularly. Most common purchase is 25 energy per day, and only @kesryn does it consistently and only once a day, which I can't say that is excessive at all.

Player	Sum of Energy Purchase in 31 days	Average
kesryn	748	24.13
xawi	600	19.35
khazrakh	400	12.90
lorkus	314	10.13
magehan	178	5.74
hanv	167	5.39

You look at this data and tell me that what do you think. I see no evidence of any abuse or any excessive energy purchased claimed by Tales in the video or commented by @ghostlybg.

Here is all the data

Here is the total plot:

Sorry, I don't see any abusive behavior here, if an individual purchase energy once a day, and most far far less. They can do this all they want with their glint and play as much as they want from my point of view.

Rating Inflation

Yes, that is a problem. Yes, that is due to the liquidity bots. Yes, they are too easy to beat in champions. Yes, they need to have win rate centered around 50%. Finally YES, we need more human players.

PS: Bonus stack plot! I like this one.

Here is the summary statistics for the top 6 (or seven) players. Notice the most common purchase is 25 energy or zero energy.

Player	Mean	Median	Mode	Std Dev	Skewness
kesryn	24.23	25.0	25.0	8.92	-0.47
xawi	20.26	25.0	25.0	14.45	-0.14
khazrakh	15.00	25.0	25.0	14.70	0.14
lorkus	10.77	0.0	0.0	12.24	0.70
magehan	5.74	0.0	0.0	9.27	1.29
hanv	5.81	0.0	0.0	10.00	1.43

Data for Wild League (later edition!)

Statistical Metrics for Energy Purchases

Player	Mean	Median	Mode	Std Dev	Min	Max	Skewness	Kurtosis
Vugtis	32.26	25.0	25	15.37	0	75	0.77	0.62
Bubke	23.55	25.0	25	17.49	0	65	0.79	0.22
Grand High Witch	22.58	25.0	25	7.36	0	25	-2.76	6.02

These are the 3 top players currently at the wild league. Most purchase 25 energy. I see that as completely normal. Again, there is no abuse regarding purchasing glint and buying a lot of energy.