Greetings Splinterfolk!
My IGN is "kuhnchun" or "KnCn" for short. I have been playing competitive games for the past 10+ years. I started competing in games when I was 14. I initially competed in my local esports league with the Call of Duty franchise but eventually transitioned to DotA for 5+ years. I have also been a massive TCG enthusiast since I was a child. I would always play Yu-Gi-Oh with my friends during lunch breaks and collect Pokémon cards with them after school.
I see Splinterlands as the combination of my two passions. A blockchain based TCG with an esports league that is still in its infancy. I believe that Splinterlands and the whole NFT gaming scene is still ahead of its time. While cryptocurrency has been the most innovative achievement in the 21st century, I believe that NFT/blockchain gaming in general and Splinterlands is the second wave.
The Beginning
I began my Splinterlands journey at the beginning of October 2021. Initially, I only created one account in order to try out the Play2Earn scene and have some fun on my commute to work. After a week or so of playing with only the starter cards and completing my daily quests each day, I managed to accumulate around 500 DEC (This was before the nerf to the bronze league). The price of DEC was around $0.011 back then which means I managed to gain around $5.50 in just a week's time. Not bad for an initial "investment" of only $10.
After seeing the "returns" of my one week experiment, I decided to analyse the Splinterlands ecosystem more thoroughly in order to optimise my time. I took into consideration many factors, such as:
- Energy Capture Rate (ECR)
- End of Season Rewards (EOS)
- The Rental System
I came to the conclusion that I needed more accounts in order to be more efficient and systematic. I ended up creating six more accounts, giving me a total of seven accounts.
- 5 accounts for battling and doing daily quests
- 1 account for utilizing the marketplace (Buying/Selling/Renting)
- 1 account as a "vault" to keep all my SPS, Vouchers, Card Packs, etc
There were many reasons why I chose to utilise multiple accounts over growing one account, but the main reason was for the EOS rewards. I figured I would rather have 75,000 collection power split amongst five accounts, so each account is at Silver III league, which would give me 60 chests in total compared to 75,000 collection power in only one account, at the Silver 1 league, which would only give me 18 chests.
The Strategy
After much trial and error, I feel as if I have developed somewhat of a successful and sound strategy. By no means is it perfect and I am sure that it can always do with more refinement and tinkering, but without further ado, here it is:
- I keep 800 DEC on each of my five battling accounts in order to rent the necessary cards and power to play in the Gold III league
- I only rent cards for 24 hours and play until my ECR is down to 30% or less
- I am usually able to complete 3 daily quests (which gives me 18 chests in total as you get 6 chests per daily quest in Gold III) within the 24 hour rental period (If you do not know how this is done then stay tuned as I will be making a guide on it soon)
- When my rentals expire then I usually:
- Transfer any and all cards that I received from my reward chests to my marketplace account to rent out (Sometimes I have to wait until I have enough copies of some of the same cards before I can rent them out reliably so I store them on my "vault" account)
- Transfer any and all DEC profit I make off of my winnings to my "vault" account to place bids on specific cards (I try to get the best CP/Cost ratio cards as I believe collection power is and always will be more important than meta cards in the rental market - I am currently prioritising the latest reward cards as their collection power should be counted for both the Modern and Wild Format or so it seems
- The next day I play on a different account with the same strategy outlined above - I have to wait around 3 days for the account (that was just played on) to recover its ECR and I also need to prepare the account in order for me to complete 3 daily quests when I rent on it next
- As a bonus, any and all DEC profit I make off of my rentals (on my marketplace account) I use to buy more cards to rent out (this creates a nice compounding cycle)
As with any sort of competitive card game, the meta is highly unpredictable which is why I prefer to rent out cards to battle with and not commit myself to buying cards/splinter decks that might lose most of their value once the meta shifts (For example, Venari Wavesmith which was worth around $8 at its peak and is now only worth $0.2 - Luckily, I was able to sell most of my copies for around $5 just before Chaos Legion was introduced and they shuffled the starter cards, thus resetting the meta). In addition, while I might be losing out in the long-term (as I have to constantly pay rental costs), I prefer the flexibility and peace of mind that I don't have to constantly be playing since I don't own any decks or meta cards. As a bonus, I enjoy the "passive income" side to renting out the cards I do own and the thrill of opening a lot more reward chests at EOS than I would normally be able to.
The Results (So Far)
Cards - $335,62
I own 103 different cards, with a total collection power of 31,500, and I rent them all for 100 DEC/per day on average.
SPS - $39.41
I have 222.699 staked SPS. At the time of writing this post, the current trading price is $0.17697.
Dark Energy Crystals - $16.56
I have 4,000 DEC which I keep on my 5 battling accounts (800 on each). At the time of writing this post, the current trading price is $0.00414.
Vouchers - $9.93
I have 4.119 vouchers. At the time of writing this post, the current trading price is $2.4112.
My "Investment" - $70
I bought 7 Summoner's Spellbooks at $10 each for my 7 different accounts.
Return on "Investment" - 473%
The total value of my account is $401.52, which is $331.52 in "profit" or 473% ROI. Just as note, I think of my account in terms of value and I know that if I were to ever leave the game (which I don't plan to anytime soon) then I would most likely lose 10-20% of the total value to market prices and fees when converting to fiat.
The Highlight of 2020
In the second last EOS for 2020, I managed to hit the ultimate jackpot by not only getting the best legendary in the current reward cards, but getting it in a gold foil edition. I wonder what my best pull for 2022 will be... A gold foil Queen Mycelia, maybe?
Thoughts and Comments
If you made it this far, thank you for reading. This is my first blog post and will be my pet project for 2022.