We're 1 week into the new Ranked Rewards system and it's safe to say that it's been a complete game changer.

We're seeing all kinds of wacky stuff from broken bots earning NOTHING, to high league players farming 30 chests a day.

I'm writing this guide to help everyone have a better understanding of what it takes to earn chests in this new system.

If you haven't read my previous post on how the system works, check it out below. It will give you a good base on what you need to know:

https://peakd.com/hive-184309/@atbui89/a-deep-dive-into-the-new-rewards-system-and-how-to-maximize-your-rewards

My Daily Strategy for Earning Chests

With the new Rewards System and the changes that come along with it, I have basically boiled my strategy down to the following:

#1 Only play down 25% ECR regardless of starting ECR and chests earned
#2 Maintain ECR depending on your available time commitment
#3 Play to the top of your league rating
#4 Don't be afraid to rent for your Focus
#5 Play in the highest league you can reasonably maintain a rating for

#1: Play Down 25% Only ECR per Day

This one is pretty self explanatory but the most important rule.

ECR recovers at a rate of 25% every 24 hours (1.04% per hour). Since ECR is now tied to your chest earnings, you do not want to play it down more than 25% if you are a daily player.

Daily chests are harder to obtain as you approach the max of 30 chests. It's best to stop playing after 25% ECR drain regardless of how many chests you have since you'll be burning more ECR per chest when you could wait 24 hours and earn "easier" chests for the same ECR burn.

This effect isn't nearly as apparent in Diamond and Champion but as you can see, Bronze and Silver chests grow exponentially in Rshares required.

For example, the first Bronze chest is 300 Rshares while the 13th chest is 2,675 Rshares. At 100% ECR in Bronze I, your first win will give you 1000 Rshares. Good for nearly 3 of your first daily chests!

With your 13th daily chest, however, your ECR would be drained to about 75%. At that point, 1 win is now worth about 750 Rshares which means you need 4 wins for that 13th chest! Even if you won all 4 battles, you've effectively burned 3% ECR. Compare that to your 100% ECR win with a fresh new set of chests. You're gaining 3 chests for 1 win and 1% ECR burn.

This is why I recommend quitting after 25% ECR drain regardless of chests earned!

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The exceptions that I have are for:

• Increasing your rating early in the season
• Maintaining a top leaderboard position

Early on in the season, there's a rush to regain your rating and rightfully so. Your rating is the greatest factor in determining how many Rshares you can earn. You can spend the first day or two burning more than 25% ECR per day if it means you are climbing back up in rating. That way, your subsequent days will be maximized.

The other reason for playing more then 25% ECR is if you're playing for the top of the leaderboard. Obviously, you don't have to use a lot of ECR to do so, but if you need to, it isn't a big deal since leaderboard rewards will far outweigh the chests you miss out on.

#2: Maintain ECR Depending on How Much You Want to Play

It doesn't matter what your ECR starts at for the day as long as you only play down 25%. Whether you start at 100% and play down to 75% or start at 50% and play down to 25%, your earnings (and Rshares) will be nearly identical. The only difference will be the amount of games played.

In this example, the two players have the same stats and are only playing down 10% of their ECR. Player #1 wins all 11 of their battles, dropping their ECR from 100% down to 90%. Player #2 wins all 19 of their battles and drops their ECR from 60% to 50%.

Their total Rshares are nearly identical. However, Player 2 played nearly twice as many battles as Player 1.

If you're pressed for time, start your day at 100% ECR. It will take 29 games to play down to 75%. At roughly 2 mins per battle, you're looking at around an hour of play time.

For comparison, playing from 60% to 35% will take 55 battles or nearly 2 hours of play time for the same rewards opportunity.

#3: Play to the Top of Your League

Because the Rshares calculation is based off of Rating and capped at the league max, you want to ensure that your rating is at the top of the league in order to maximize rewards.

What this means is if you're in Silver III, get your rating above 1299 as quickly as you can. After that, your Rshares will be capped regardless of how high your rating gets unless you have enough CP to graduate to Silver II.

In this example, you have two Silver II league players, one plays with their rating around 1300 and the other is well over the 1599 max rating of the league (but is capped at 1599 for the calculation). As you can see, if they both win their first 5 battles of the day at 100% ECR, the player at the top of the league earns TWICE as many Rshares at the player who is "only" 299 rating points below them.

That's 1 extra chest for the same 5 battles played!

#4: Don't Be Afraid to Rent for your Focus

Like it or not, spamming your Focus Splinter will generally allow you to obtain the most chests. This does NOT necessarily mean that you should spam one summoner. That will make you very predictable and your win rate will suffer.

I find that the best method is to rent additional summoners for your Focus and then play the one that fits best depending on the strategy.

Since the update, rent prices have dropped dramatically while rewards have grown considerably. This allows many people to rent decks that they would otherwise be very hesitant to rent for fear of spending more than they earn.

#5: Play in the Highest League You Can

In terms of chest value, you want to play as high as possible where you can reasonably maintain your rating. The key words here are "maintain your rating."

With the new system, you are no longer rewarded for simply renting up to the league that your rating allows and scraping by wins to collect your daily rewards. You now need to be able to maintain your league status by winning if you want to collect the most amount of rewards.

In the charts below, you can see the drop rates of the items and the current estimated value of each chest.

You may have heard some frustration from players who aren't getting enough chests or less chests than before. You may also see some recommendations to start a new account and earn Bronze chests while playing in Silver/Gold/Diamond in order to get the max chests.

We all love opening chests, but they are not all created equal.

Let's consider what it would take to earn as much, or more than a maxed out Bronze player.

Max chests for all leagues is 30/day and 150/person. This equals 570 chests over a 14 day season.

As you can see, the value of 570 Bronze chests will be about $17.10. Remember, a Bronze League player earning Bronze chests CANNOT achieve this. You MUST play at Gold or higher in order to SUSTAINABLY earn 30 Bronze chests a day without reducing your ECR too much each day.

To match this, a Silver player needs to earn 11 chests a day which is completely reasonable for a Silver I player.

Gold players only need 5 chests a day, Diamond players 3, and Champion players 2! With full ECR, you only need to win a handful of battles in each league to out earn the Bronze grind.

Ultimately what this means is that it is much better for you to play at the league where you can maintain at least a 50% win rate in order to keep your rating up and earn a decent amount of chests.

Even "graduating" from Silver I to Gold III with a reduced win rate can be much better in terms of average value. That will need to be another post by itself!

Final Thoughts

I hope these tips help you understand the new system better and allow you to efficiently earn a good amount of chests!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my take on Splinterlands!

Referral link : https://splinterlands.com?ref=atbui89

Use my referral link and I'll help you get started by sending you a few cards!