While preparing for the usual brawls, I found myself thinking about the game and it's future. Like every night, I listen to the different content creators and their insight on Splinterlands. As a game that has been around since 2018, it has definitely come a long way, but what made it really come into the spotlight is the PLAY TO EARN mechanisms in place. As a player that joined in August, there is a very big difference between how much I could earn on a per day basis then and now.

How is the Play to Earn now?

Currently, I've managed to create 2 decks to farm at Silver 1. As a test, I created one gold foil farming team, and one regular foil farming team. I did this to determine, which is more cost efficient. We all know as the season progresses, the DEC reward pool is slowly decreasing over the season. Let's check out how much I earn playing per day until only 70 ECR at the lowest.

At the time of writing, the current rate of DEC is around .3 USD/100 DEC. Let us assume that the DEC/ day in the mid season is the average DEC / day for the whole season. If we multiply that by 15, we get the total expected DEC farmed for a season. Now that we have that data, let's look at the cost of the account and how long it will take to earn that money back.

Believe it or not, the costs to get enough CP to Silver 1 made both decks cost more or less the same. It will take so many days just to get back your money from farming, assuming DEC stays the same. It's a good thing that there are rewards from the quest that can help out in the ROI process. It's a random drop situation so we shouldn't count on it in this computation.

Rent or Own?

If nothing happens and the game stays the way it is with no improvements, the play to earn aspect is not sustainable. Even if you were to rent, you would definitely have less risk involved, and can leave the game any time. Owning cards pose a whole lot more risk as things stand. BUT that's only if nothing happens to the game. Improvements to the game are constantly happening and the game is bigger than it was in the past! The way I see is that the money to be made in the future will not come from the battle rewards, but it will come from the cards that we are holding. This makes it more important to keep holding!

Conclusion

Based on the math, it looks like you shouldn't expect to earn your money from the ranked battles, but you should hope to get bonuses from the chests in the quests for the time being. With the updates that are coming, there is bound to be great things heading to Splinterlands, which will hopefully provide more value to the different tokens and NFTs!

P.S. You may check the accounts @madsie and @elizaenchanted if you want to see what cards the accounts have.

Credits

• Cover photo created using canva.com and the included elements
• Logos and images used are from Splinterlands
• Divider by @freeztag