Revisiting the ROI of cards in conflicts: one week later
One week ago, I wrote a post about the ROI of various cards for staking in conflicts, coming to the conclusion that 1) the ROI varied from 30-80% depending on some assumptions, 2) that GF were better than RF, and 3) rarer cards were better than less rare.
But things move quickly in this space, and that post is already out of date. So today, I want to revisit that post, and revise the numbers then.
What's changed?
So you might say "it's only been a week, what's changed?" The answer is a lot. Specifically:
- The set has sold much more than I expected. Given the EV of a pack, people were buying and selling a lot of packs over the last week. So while my previous calculations assumed ~100M CP in conflicts, there are now 134M, a 34% increase in just a week. While I'm still hoping this slows down now that the initial buying frenzy is over and people's potion stores are depleted (mine is!), the sales rate will slow back down. But this means I need to change both my baseline CP and long-term CP assumptions.
- GFs got more expensive. I assume very few people read my posts. So I assume that my post saying GF were underpriced relative to their value for conflicts largely went unnnoticed, but that other people realized the same thing at the same time. Since then, GF prices have gone up significantly. A GF epic which was selling for $15 was now selling for $20, significantly reducing the value for conflicts. This has started to revert already as people settle in for the wait for conflicts, but still isn't where it was.
The updated assumptions
Based on all of that, I've revised my assumptions as follows
- Each airdrop is legendary
- Each airdrop has 4000 BCX printed (this is less assured than I previously thought. I may fiddle with this number in the future)
- The first 3 airdrops will be units and the last 6 will be summoners
- A unit has a value of $10
- A summoner has a value of $30
- The CP staked will start at 150M and go to 450M by the end of the conflicts
- You, like me, have crap luck and you'll only get RF
- The average value and CP of cards is as follows in the below table
| Rarity | RF price | RF CP | RF CP/$ | GF price | GF CP | GF CP/$ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Common | $0.22 | 5 | 22 | $2.78 | 125 | 45 |
| Rare | $0.76 | 20 | 26 | $7.0 | 500 | 71 |
| Epic | $2.18 | 100 | 22.9 | $20.3 | 2,500 | 123 |
| Legendary | $10.30 | 48.5 | 50 | $112 | 12,500 | 111 |
*Note, the prices of most, but not all cards have gone up in the intervening week. Notably, the average price of GFEs has stayed pretty stable. The biggest change in many of these is that the floor price increased, lowering the CP/$ you can get.
The results
When you use the above assumptions, you get the following ROIs for different rarities.
Notable Differences
Everything is lower. This is the reason for this post: to see how much lower the ROI is based on the recent changes. And it's reasonably significant: down to ~38% at best for GFEs.
The ordering has changed slightly. GFLs are more expensive so they have fallen below the average GFE. RFLs are actually slightly better than GF commons now, which is nice if you want to get a playset of the legendary cards.
A caveat - average vs. floor
One key things I've done here is use the average price for each rarity, rather than the floor. This is to reflect the average player's likely desire to have cards they can play with, and not 100 GF copies of Karst Harpy.
But, if you are solely interested in cards for their value in conflicts, you can do better by buying the floor of these cards. E.g., GF Zabajin, currently priced at $80 could have an ROI of 48%.
Personally, I primarily only want a playset of the cards, as then you can double-dip: the cards can be used in conflicts and can also be used in you ranked battled earning rewards there.
If enough people are all-in on conflicts, and say they want to see the analysis looking at the floor rather than the average, I'll do that next!
Conclusions
At this point, I am considering unloading my GFs. The value of conflicts are down, and as I noted the BCX assumption may also be in the air, I am less confident in the likelihood of earning value from conflicts. I may sell my GFs, get the RFs I want from the set and call it a day with whatever few BCX of airdrops I eke out. And then place the excess into an LP, which is currently earning 35% and I am much less concerned about the volatility or the assumptions there.
That said, the right time to unload is probably right when the conflict releases and demand for GFs spike.
I also will likely buy into vouchers in the short term, expecting a big spike in their price in a month.
Referral
Interested in splinterlands? Want to put some GF cards in a conflict and earn some airdrops? You've come to the right place! Use my referral code below and I'll set you up with some cards to get you started!
