Holy Splintermania, Batman! What a week! Where to even begin? So much happened this week I doubt I can get it all in.
Well, let's start with the Soulbound rewards cards. (Pictured below are the 6 new Summoners)
If you follow the game at all I'm sure you've heard these are coming. Soulbound cards are not your typical cards. First of all, you can't buy them. The only way you can get them is by playing the game and receiving them in your rewards chests, both season and daily. The idea is to reward the people playing the game. Since you can't buy them, everyone starts on a level playing field with these cards and the more you play, the more you will earn. You will also get higher probabilities of receiving them the higher you rank in the game. So Champions League players should get more than Diamond League who get more than Gold and down the line. Again, the idea is to reward the players who have spent the most time and (most likely) money on the game by giving them better odds. But everyone will be able to get them.
It's going to be an interesting race to see how fast people can get to "max" levels on these things. Most of the cards will be unplayable for Diamond/Champion Leagues because it takes 400 just to max 1 common card. I might get 200 chests in a season counting dailys and that's probably a little high. That's two weeks of playing for 200 chests.
To put it in perspective, by my calculations, you will need 7324 cards to max this "set". That doesn't count Goldfoil and it doesn't count the "extras" you'll get while still needing other cards. Realistically, you could be looking at needing to acquire 10,000 cards plus to get close to maxing everything. These should last a while I'm thinking.
Once they decide they are done issuing this set and want to move on to a new one, then and only then, will they become tradable and people will be able to buy them from the market. But first, to even place them on the market, you'll need to burn some DEC to "take off the chains". So you'll actually have to pay before you can sell. This is assuming there even are any sellers. Who knows how many people will actually have "extras" to sell? They could end up being pretty expensive. A lot will depend on how well the bots are able to farm them. We'll see...
Along with these cards a couple new abilities are being introduced.
Conscript will be one of the abilities on the new Summoners. Players who use a Summoner with Conscript will be able to use a Gladius card in their Ranked Battles. Again, the idea is to reward players who are participating in depth in the game. Gladius cards can only be acquired with Merits, the bulk of which are gained by participating in Guilds and the Brawls those Guilds participate in. The more you participate, the more Merits you earn, the more Gladius cards you can get. Simple. Again, you can't buy these. They have to be earned through playing.
Martyr will simply give a +1 to the stats of the cards adjacent to it when it dies. So, positioning will be important because you'll actually want this card to get killed first if possible. But you don't necessarily want it in the first or last position since it will only give it's bonus to one card at that point. Plus, if you are able to Resurrect the card, it will be able to give it's Martyr bonus again. Lots to think about with this one.
This ability will give adjacent cards that do not have an attack the ability to attack in the same form as the Weapons Training card. If the Weapons Training card has a melee attack, then the adjacent no-attack card(s) will get a melee attack. If it's Magic, then they gain Magic. Again, positioning becomes even more important when using these.
To go along with these new abilities, Oppress and Dispel will now become important counters. Oppress will still hit cards with Weapons Training as if it was still a no-attack card. Dispel will actually remove both the Weapons Training and the Martyr effects and will also remove Bloodlust going forward. Cards with these abilities now gain a LOT more utility. Lots to think about.
The new Rulesets are pretty straightforward but definitely add a major new element to the game. The first addition is actually not a Ruleset at all, it simply adds a third ruleset to the battles. Whereas most of the higher ranked battles used two rulesets, now they will use three. It adds a lot more thinking and creativity to some battles while basically limiting your choices greatly in others.
The actual new rulesets are "Only Magic" and "Only Ranged". Pretty self-explanatory but, as I just said, they can really limit your options so you basically need as many different cards as possible to compete.
While we're talking about new cards, the second to last Airdrop will be happening within the next week and the card was just revealed.
The Legendary Summoner Astral Entity will give -2 Armor to opponents while adding Dodge to your side. It also has the Resurrect ability. These three traits will certainly give the Death Splinter a lot more options. At 6 mana, it's not cheap, but with those three traits, it shouldn't be. I can't wait to play it.
There are two proposals currently active right now. One looks to pass easily, the other looks like it might go down to the wire. The first is a proposal for the DAO to issue a promo card which will only be able to be obtained by staking SPS. The idea is for it to reward people who have staked SPS and demonstrate a way it (the DAO) can be used by the community.
This proposal seeks to illustrate the power of the DAO to interact with the developers of Splinterlands and provide rewards for the community in exchange for performing actions that are desirable to the ecosystem (e.g. Staking SPS).
I can't say it any better than that so...there you go.
The second proposal is a little more controversial. It asks that Potions be able to be bought with DEC that double the chances of Land being worth more, be it rarity or resources. The vote is right at the pass/fail line with less than 4 days left to vote. The issue is basically that some people feel this is a "tax" on land owners that wasn't included at the time Land was originally purchased. The proposal calls for 10k DEC per plot for a potion. People who have hundreds or even thousands of plots would be forced to come up with millions of DEC if they wanted to double their chances on them all.
On the flip-side, smaller land holders would have a better chance of getting a "better" plot of land for a relatively cheap price. Their argument is also that someone that has 1000 plots or more can afford to sell a few to cover the cost if it's that much of a burden. After all, the vast majority of them have done at least a 5-10x in value over the last two years. It's hard to believe they should be complaining.
I see both sides. I certainly think it's unfair to bait-and-switch people by promising one thing and then upcharging them later. By the same token, these same people stand to make thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, some of them much more than that, when Land is finally implemented. It's kind of like someone who won the lottery complaining about the taxes. There are some smaller arguments to be made on both sides, but realistically, it all comes down to the money per usual. Being a small land-owner, I'll probably vote for it, but it won't hurt my feelings if it doesn't pass. It would probably save me some DEC that wouldn't have gotten me anything anyway with my great RNG history. :-)
Here is a table of their holdings. You can read an explanation of everything here if you'd like. This thing is getting too long already.
Well, that's the news. Now on to my doings in the game...
As I said, I'm working back up to Champion League. I've been bouncing around the 3600 ranking and need a little winning streak to take me over the 3700 necessary. I've still got a couple days left so hopefully I can get there. These new rulesets and the three-rulesets-per-battle thing have definitely been a blessing and a curse. There are some that I put together a pretty good team on and some where I just get torched. It's amazing how little time two and a half minutes is when trying to put together lineups. I actually like these three-ruleset battles though because it feels like there is a little more creativity able to be used with your monsters, although as I said above, some are very restrictive.
In the meantime, it is also showing me places I need to improve my deck. So, with that in mind, I added a few more bargains. Unfortunately/fortunately prices are starting to go back up so the bargains aren't quite as good anymore. But they're still out there if you're patient.
My first one is:
When reading through the new abilities, cards, and rulesets, I took one thing to heart: Dispel and Oppress are going to be important abilities to have moving forward. Being that there aren't that many cards out there featuring them, I figured I had better find the ones that do and grab them if I can. This is one of them. I didn't even own this card at all before the announcement, but I found a max level for a reasonable price and scooped it up. It's actually not a bad card in it's own right for only 4 mana. Happy to get it.
Another card with Dispel. I had this at level 6 and bought it up to max. Not the greatest card for most situations, but again, with the new abilities and rulesets, it could end up being pretty powerful in certain situations.
A Flyer with Stun. Life doesn't have much in the way of options for Stun so when I saw this for a decent price, I grabbed it. The Redemption at max level isn't bad either. It's surprising how often that one little hit to the enemy can make a big difference. Especially in low mana battles.
And finally, Lensmaster. I got this to level 3. While the Shatter at max would be nice to have, it doesn't come into play very often. The Blind on the other hand, can make a huge difference. Having a one mana card that can throw blind into the mix is not a bad option to have.
That's it for this week. It was a monster for things happening in the Splinterlands world. All of it good though. The game has started to pick up a little steam as prices have crawled off their lows for both the tokens (DEC & SPS) and the NFTs. Hopefully it continues throughout the months ahead.
See you next week. Happy Battling!
