This is the 8th post in my regular series where I implement the method I recently posted to evaluate the ROI of a single card in Ranked (here). I have a number of cards I want to test using this approach, and want to share my results with the community.

As a reminder, the method is to rent a card for 48 hours and see how often that card is used in a winning team (where each win is worth ~$0.27) and determine a card's APY based on that. To be worth it, a card needs to beat the ROI I could get in other methods, such as renting the card out, or putting the money is a Liquidity Pool.

The Card

Today, the card I'm evaluating is Obsidian, one of the rare summoners from Chaos Legion. As I've now finished evaluating all the legendary summoners, I want to test the rare summoners. Having Lux Vega means that each summoner needs to be more useful than her in a given scenario, which is not terribly often. So at baseline, I expect few of the CL rare summoners to be better. The exceptions are Thaddeus and Obsidian which are hugely impactful in magic-oriented rulesets where Lux is not.

Since Obsidian hits a niche entirely separate from Lux (when magic is good, obsidian is much better), I expect it to win a few battles that Lux would otherwise lose. So at baseline, I expect Obsidian to perform pretty well in the presence of Lux Vega.

How did it do?

I rented Obsidian at level 8 on 20 February for 48 hours, during which my bot played 96 battles. Obsidian was used 4 times, and won one of the matches it was in.

Based on this, the APY of Obsidian would be 36.5%. So even with only one victory in that time, Obsidian did almost well enough to be over the line. One more victory would have made it the best value card I've looked at so far. But I'm still surprised it didn't do better. So at this time, I won't be adding Obsidian to my deck.

Conclusions

Why didn't Obsidian do better? My best guess is that it and Immortalis compete for the same niche. When Magic is a likely play, both Obsidian and Immortalis make good picks. But Immortalis makes a better pick. If you're up against magic, void shield is likely much stronger than +1 magic damage (and the extra health is always nice), even considering Immortalis costs 2 extra mana. So given the choice between Immortalis and Obsidian, I expect Immortalis to almost always be the better choice. Given they're in the same splinter as well, if one can be used, the other almost always can.

Referral

Interested in Splinterlands? Want to start collecting cards like this one and join in on the fun? Use my referral link here and shoot me a message. I'll set you up with some early cards to get you a good start from day one!

https://splinterlands.com?ref=badrag