Card Flipping in the Chaos Legion

Chaos Legion has brought a major upheaval to the Splinterlands card market. The volatility is an opportunity for players that are looking to increase their in-game assets.

Card flipping is buying cards at a low price and selling them at a higher price. It's easy on the surface, but it can be risky. Here's some rules and tips to guide you.

• Don't buy cards that you wouldn't want for the price offered.
  The market is currently dipping. I think the influx of the new Chaos Legion cards has the monetary supply of the card market being spread out. This is just the tip of the Chaos Legion iceberg with 14 million more packs to follow.

  Leading up to Chaos Legion, 50 CP/Dollar was the low end of the market. Today 70+ CP/Dollar is in play, and I think we'll hit 100+ in January. You can get an idea of what the market values CP at by looking at the current reward cards.

  If you start flipping cards today, at some point you'll end up either selling at a loss or having some cards that become long term investments. It might as well be cards that you'll play and level up.

• Get familiar with the ebb and flow of the market.
  The market is moving like crazy. A card doubling in value (or halving) is commonplace. How will you know when to buy or sell if you have no baseline for the market?

  If you are in a rush to get flipping, I think the safest bet is to start with Chaos Legion cards that are selling at near the bottom price of the current reward cards.

• Don't forget about the market fee to sell.
  You'll pay 3-5% to sell the card, so you'll want a big enough markup to cover those fees.

• Use PeakMonsters or MonsterMarket
  The in-app market is just not up to snuff for short term card flipping.

• Use a desktop/laptop and Keychain
  If you have tips on how to card flip from a phone efficiently, I'm all ears. I find it to be a huge pain, so I recommend an actual computer and the Keychain browser extension.

• Always check the order book
  At this point, the pricing displayed on the aggregate pages is often inaccurate. The cheap price you see in the aggregate view might be long gone. On the other hand I've bought cards for 30% less than the aggregate view showed. Either way, click and look at the order book to see what is happening now.

• Stick to 1 BCX cards.
  Multiple BCX cards sell at a discount. Also, it's an easy mistake to accidentally list a leveled up card at a single BCX price. Ouch!

• Remember to account for DEC price fluctuations.
  The cards are priced in United States Dollars (USD) but paid for with DEC. Card prices remain steadier than DEC prices, making them a better store of value. If you flip cards, you will end up will some value in DEC at some times.

  Look to buy cards when DEC value is comparably high. If you buy cards while DEC is high and sell them when it dips, you'll make more money. However, keep in mind that if you flip a card for 10% profit on a day DEC values shoot up 15%, you would've been better off holding DEC.

• Beware the HIVE RC failed transaction.
  Buying and selling cards uses Hive Resource Credits (RC). If you start doing a lot of buying and selling, you will deplete your RC faster than it regenerates. During that time, you won't be able to buy, sell, delegate, rent cards, open reward chests, or anything else that uses the Hive blockchain.

  You can buy Hive and stake it, and it will increase your RC and regeneration rate. If you do this, it appears that Splinterlands will stop auto-delegating Hive Power (which increase RC, temporarily) to your account. You can see your current RC in Keychain or in the upper right when logged into Peakmonsters.

  You can make multiple accounts to buy and sell from. I haven't done this because of the headache it would cause me to track multiple accounts.

  Limit your buying and selling to a rarity tier. I don't usually buy Commons to flip. The RC cost to buy and sell a Common is the same as a Legendary. I find Rares and Epics give me the best bang for my buck, but I'm building from a small holding.

• Space out your pricing.
  If you list a bunch of cards at the same price level, you'll create a temporary ceiling and reduce your chance of selling them. A single card listed 5% under the rest of the market will sell quickly, but 10 of them will have buyers waiting to see if the market drops more. If it appears like there is plenty of supply, then there won't be a rush to buy.

  Changing a card's price after listing also costs RC, so it will cost you opportunity if you change your prices often.

• Fill the pricing gap to maximize gains.
  When you go to buy a card, look a few pages forward in the the sales book. This is easiest to do on MonsterMarket or PeakMonsters, because they will order them by price ascending as default.

  I look for a price gap that'll give me a 20%+ return within the first couple pages of listings. I set my price just under the high side of the gap. If I have more cards than I want to list at a price level, I'll either wait to see some sell before listing more or set the next set's prices a bit higher than the next seller up.

• Be patient.
  Sometimes it takes a while, but if your pricing was realistic, it'll likely sell. Give it a couple days and re-assess. Maybe it'll be a card you use instead.

• Diversify.
  It's easier to sell 2 copies of 5 different cards for a gain than it is to sell 10 copies of the same card. Also, sometimes you'll buy a card you thought was at the bottom of its pricing only to see 20 more cards listed at that price. Having different cards makes it more likely that while some will be selling while others are not. Each card has its own cycle.

• Don't get greedy.
  The market is currently going lower. I expect this trend will continue into next year. Don't aim for yesterday's high price, or you may end up waiting months or years. I expect lower lows and lower highs. There's gains to be made, but you'll need realistic expectations or you'll end up owning 20 copies of Goblin Tower.

• Read my Anatomy of a Card Flip post
  Coming soon!