As Splinterlands players and investors are aware of, this Thursday the soulbound reward set switched in the Glint Shop from Chaos Legion to Rebellion.
I didn't have time until today to check out the Glint Shop and decide what path to take. I preferred to take my time and analyze the options carefully, especially since the prices have changed compared to the past.
I also wanted to learn from the past, when for a set with an identical distribution by rarities, I completed relatively easily the lower rarity cards, and missed two maxed legendaries at the end.
So, my decision for this new attempt will be to reverse the process: focus ONLY on legendary and epic draws, to have some targeted draws toward the rarities where I expect to have issues, and then pick up ultimate chests instead of the lower rarity draws.
I even bought a number of major chests this time, but I don't think I'll repeat this again, mainly because I don't expect to have enough Glint for everything.
I started shopping with around 700k Glint, almost 400k saved from last season when I didn't buy more draws, and the rest gathered after burning the remaining of my doubles (plus what I earned since the beginning of the season). This also means I made my decision: no unbinding from my part. Who has unused DEC lying around? Not me.
My first stop was the ultimate chests. I purchased the entire first batch (30 chests) for 135k Glint. The cards I pulled weren't fantastic (2 legendary, 8 rare, 41 common), but their "value" in rarity draws was 82k Glint. That means the remaining pulls from the chests should have been worth more than 53k Glint to be more profitable than the rarity draws.
Before starting the shopping spree, I had 5 energy points. After that, 37. Which means I pulled 32 of them in chests. In the Glint Shop, an energy point is valued at 2800 Glint. That means I pulled 89k Glint worth of energy from the chests, which is higher than 53k.
Then there are the merits (I purchased 9 Gladius cases after this, but can't say how many merits were from the chests), and potions.
But from the extra rewards, for the goal of completing this new set, the extra energy could prove more useful because it can help me earn additional Glint.
I haven't purchased energy before to see how much more Glint I'll get by doing that, but I know enough top players do that. So, it's a start for everything.
Overall, I believe the ultimate chests are more than worth it in my new strategy. They provide multiples for the low-rarity cards (and even legendary ones - I pulled a double this time), get more energy which in turn earns more Glint, and let's not forget about the 0.1% chance to win the jackpot, whatever that may be.
After the ultimate chests, I purchased 1st batch of the legendary and epic draws, and 25 major chests, more like testing the ground in the latter case. If I discover I'll have spare Glint at the end of every season, I'll decide between major chests or rare/common draws.
What I can say is that I am surprised that I haven't pulled even a single GF. That's rare. But I'm ok with that. GF are only useful to me if I can max them or if their burn value is higher than their cost.
Here's the end result on what matters to me, the cards, from the highest rarity to the lowest:
- Legendary cards:
- Epic cards:
- Rare cards:
- Common cards:
... or in percentages:
What Do I Think About the New Set?
I like how it looks, the individuality of each card and attention to details. That's regarding the art.
I haven't delved into the stats of every card, but at a broad view, I am a fan (in general) of low-mana cards, and therefore I love the 1-mana cards they introduced.
Regarding debilitations, they are... difficult to manage. There will certainly be situations where they can be used (one of them being the Back to Basics ruleset, where abilities are disabled, but high stats come very handy). At the same time, if you forget a card has a debilitation and in the rush of the moment you include it in your lineup, it can do more damage than the enemy.
Otherwise, I don't like to individualize cards from these sets since we can't pick them to level up. The end result must be, in my case, a full set maxed out. And this time without any missing pieces that aren't fully upgraded.