Pretty much all Play2Earn games for me are in essence 'money-management-games' where the skill factor comes from doing well financially actually making a profit & most of the fun from the community aspect. This is no different for Splinterlands and I'm not buying packs just for the gambling thrill of opening them having a chance to get lucky. I do enjoy the game to a certain extent but I wouldn't play if it wasn't for the earnings part and I think that for 95%+ of the player base this would be the same.
I also try to see earnings from the game as real money and not 'free money' that can be spent for fun in the game, everything needs to have a positive expectation (+EV) with a good risk/reward ratio. In reality, however, I would say I'm much softer on this since the game has given so much.
Pre-Sale Voucher Strategy
My belief has always been that the prices of Vouchers were crazy high mostly caused by whales who just want their fun not caring about money and players that either see airdrops and earnings as free money or didn't do proper calculations. Or I am completely wrong on this which certainly also is an option. I pretty much sold what I got each day turning it into Hive partly taking profit when the price pumped like crazy.
General Sale Expectation
Honestly, I would not be surprised for the 12 Million packs that are left to completely sell out within 24 hours. They managed to sell 3 Million at crazy high prices that required vouchers and many of the players that were willing to pay this are likely to get more packs today. Then there are the ones like me who stayed on the sideline wanting to get some and I think there are plenty of those. There will also be investors who are going to buy packs without the intention to open them as an investment since the risk is rather limited with a nice upside. If you buy a packs in the first 24 hours with the intention to hold them, you will:
- Get a Ton of Airdrop Points which gives SPS for the next 190 days
- Get the Airdrop Cards
- Be Able to sell then on the 2nd Hand Market possibly for a higher price after Chaos Legion Sells out.
In that regard, I would say the risk/reward is limited especially when you also count Guild Discounts and Bulk Buy Discounts and I do believe many of the bigger investors will scoop up a lot of the packs because of this reason.
General Sale Plans
I never bought any Untamed packs (aside from right before they sold out as an investment to flip some profit) mostly because It doesn't make sense for buying cards on the market not to be cheaper (especially when hunting for deals) as players would just be able to buy packs and instantly sell for a profit. Of course, there were the airdrop cards which turned to be crazy overpowered but that was an unknown factor.
Potions / Guild Discount / Affiliate Earnings
The combination of having a ton of Potions Stacked while getting a nice 6% Guild Discount and having some Affiliate Earnings from years of onboarding new players makes it a no-brainer to buy packs at least to a certain extent.
Right now, I have a total of 1855 Legendary Potions and 1904 Alchemy Potions saved up from years of daily quests and Season Rewards. That is enough to open 350+ Packs all with potions which would cost roughly ~1200$ including the 6% Guild Discount and bonus packs. This will be the max of packs I'm willing to buy and open as I always rather just target buy cards on the market. I do expect there to be a supply overload. A lot will depend on how the sale goes and the potential affiliate earnings I will be getting. In worst case, I will just get 110 Packs, in the best case somewhere around 350 Packs.
Unopened Packs Investment
The way it generally goes is that when a set sells out, the prices on the 2nd hand market are higher than the price they went for in the store. I did make some profit last time around with the Untamed set buying packs just before they were about to sell out. I will likely do the same with Chaos Legion especially if the demand is that big and there are signs for it to completely sell out today. The extra airdrop points and the increase in airdrop cards should make that into a low-risk gamble. I do have quite some hive saved up in Hive-Engine from selling the Vouchers for this.
Conclusion
It's going to be really interesting to see what will happen in the next 24 hours with the General Sale and I anticipate to cautiously buy some packs to open without going crazy on them, and maybe also get some packs as an investment to sell on the 2nd hand market at a later time. I just hope the entire sale doesn't turn out into a fluke where everything is bought by a couple whales in no time similar to what happened with the initial land sale.
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