Getting the best bang for your buck when harvesting in land v1.5

Intro

Hi everyone! One of my favorite things about the splinterlands ecosystem is that it is always evolving. I was really active and posting back in January of this year, and have largely left my account on autopilot in the meantime. But with the shakeup to bot rules and the upcoming land 1.5, I've jumped back in.

The YGG Alliance and Land

One of the big things my guild (YGG Niflheim) and alliance (YGG) are focused on is how to maximize our land yields. Our alliance owns a large number of plots in a sub-DAO, which is broadly owned by all alliance members. We therefore have a vested interest in maximizing the rewards for our alliance, and we all contribute as possible. If you're interested in joining the alliance, we'd love to have you!

Today's post

Today, I want to talk about land. Land v1.5 is coming, and with it we will be able to harvest grain, sps, and research points. But there are so many variables and bonuses: whether you use a title, whether you use a totem, what kind of land you use, and what cards you populate the land with.

This post will focus on how to maximally profit from your land. "But Badrag!" I hear you say "I just put my best cards with the most pp on my best lands. Easy peasy. What do I need you for?" The answer to that is that I'm not concerned with the most pp in isolation, but the most pp per dollar spent. And that number hugely depends on maximizing thing.

The Data

To calculate the best pp/$, I pulled a lot of numbers from the current market. I pulled 1) totem prices at various rarities, 2) title prices, 3) plot prices for different rarities and with different modifiers 4) card prices from different sets, rarities, and GF/RF status.

The Calculations

I used the cards involved to calculate base pp (for the purposes of grain consumption). I then compiled all these, along with the various pp numbers and bonuses in the whitepaper (here), to arrive at the total pp generated by a plot, less the number of pp required to feed your workers (assuming it will make more sense to produce grain than to buy it, at least at the beginning).

I did so for four different conditions based on 1) whether or not you use a runi on the plot and 2) whether you are trying to maximize research points or SPS.

I then rank-ordered the combinations

The results

Below are the four conditions, with a table listing the top 5 combinations for each condition, how much pp it'll produce (less pp spent on harvesting), how much $$$ you'll likely spend on that land, and how much pp/$ you'll get.

No runi - producing SPS

Rank	Totem	Title	Plot	Card	Cost	PP	PP per $
1	rare	none	common - occupied	RF beta legendary	1214	65625	54
2	epic	rare	common - occupied	GF beta rare	4274	225000	53
3	common	none	common - occupied	RF beta legendary	1147	60000	52
4	rare	common	common - occupied	RF beta legendary	1334	69375	51
5	epic	common	common - occupied	GF beta rare	4054	210000	51

No runi - producing research points

Rank	Totem	Title	Plot	Card	Cost	PP	PP per $
1	common	none	common - magic	RF beta rare	507	44000	87
2	none	none	common - magic	RF beta rare	479	41250	86
3	rare	none	common - magic	RF beta rare	574	48125	83
4	none	none	common - magic	GF CL rare	379	30000	79
5	common	none	common - magic	GF CL epic	607	48000	79

Runi - producing SPS

Rank	Totem	Title	Plot	Card	Cost	PP	PP per $
1	Epic	Common	Common - occupied	GF Beta Rare	4010	252650	63
2	Epic	Rare	Common - occupied	GF Beta Rare	3890	244500	62
3	Epic	None	Common - occupied	GF Beta Rare	4230	264875	62
4	Rare	Common	Common - occupied	GF Beta Rare	3715	232275	62
5	Rare	None	Common - occupied	GF Beta Rare	3595	224125	62

Runi - producing research points

Rank	Totem	Title	Plot	Card	Cost	PP	PP per $
1	rare	none	common - magic	GF beta rare	3230	224125	69
2	epic	none	common - magic	GF beta rare	3525	244500	69
3	rare	common	common - magic	GF beta rare	3350	232275	69
4	epic	common	common - magic	GF beta rare	3645	252650	69
5	epic	rare	common - magic	GF beta rare	3865	264875	68

Conclusions

Some general conclusions from the above tables:

1. For sps, Runi are superior to no runi. But to fully use the runi and get your money's worth, you need to pair a runi with a lot of other good stuff.

2. For research points, no runi is superior, largely due to how cheap common magical lands are.

3. Generally, rarer lands are overpriced. Nothing in any of these tables in anything other than a common land with a modifier. For example, going from common plot to a rare plot gives a 10% bonus to production while costing almost twice as much.

4. Cards at either extreme of the rarity spectrum (RF CL common - GF alpha legendary) are both overpriced for what you get in terms of pp. For all the options listed, middling rarity beta cards are currently giving the best bang for your buck.

5. The lowest investment land, one with no modifiers, filled with RF CL common reward cards, will cost ~$107 and give an efficiency of 24, ~1/2 what you could get for SPS and ~1/3 what you can get for research points. This isn't a bad option, but a better option is to sell the overpriced rewards cards and put that money towards more efficient options.

What am I going to do with this information

If you look at my account, you'll see I currently have 0 plots. I've largely stayed out of the land game as it is generally a whale's game. BUT, with these numbers, I've seen you can maximize plots with a modest investment. So I might jump in with a plot or two and see how it works. Once land 1.5 is fully released or I play around in the QA server I might adjust accordingly.

Interested in Splinterlands?

Is this guide interesting to you? Do you want to give splinterlands and owning some of the land in-game a shot? Join the game using my referral link (https://splinterlands.com?ref=badrag), shoot me a message letting me know, and I'll send a few cards your way to get you started!