Introduction

When I watched the last town hall I was a bit shocked on the news about the staking "requirements".
I know it was coming but honestly did not expect it had that great of an impact.
First I toughed it was mainly a reduction on the SPS that can be earned, turn out to be a reduction on the complete R-share, all rewards by playing ranked.
Secondly I toughed it would be inline with the staking requirement for tournaments, I prepared for that.

Matt dropped the following table in the town hall meeting:

later in mav chat he shared the intended calculation:

rshares_modifier = Max((staked_sps / (staked_sps + rating_constant)) * 1.33, 0.1)
rating_constant = ((rating - 100)*0.007)^3.5

The planning:
I like to visualize it so I created a small spread sheet to simulate some scenarios.

With my current rating (3600) and a staked SPS (12K) I would be earning around 19% of the rewards I currently receive.

Explanation:
X-axis = rating
Y-axis = percentage of the total r-share you will receive.
The vertical, straight lines, represent ratings. Black vertical line is the current selected rating for the scenario.
The horizontal line with color are example staking SPS from 100 till 950.000 staked SPS. The black line is a selected staked SPS for the scenario.

I was planning on increase my deck towards more diamond level, just upgraded most of the CL rare summoners.
Now reconsider if that is the right step to take.

If I increase my staked SPS with 38K (~850$) it would still only be 50%

Realistic this is not going to happen I do not have 850$ to spare to only inject into staked SPS.

An other option is to drop down to gold rating around 2800 and upgrade my staked SPS towards 20K, 8000 SPS (180$) investment. Still a drop of 54% of gold rewards but more realistic. Only a waste of investment on diamond level cards for now.

Negative

What I see as an consequent is that players, myself included, are not upgrading there decks any further because the SPS investment is getting to high rapidly.
Before this I was striving towards higher leagues all the time. When I was in silver I wanted to play in gold, then diamond. Now I need to step down to have any progress in the game (based on current feeling/emotions).
This how it is currently is I think 54% of gold rewards is better than 20% of diamond rewards because the win rate is also lower at diamond.

Soulbound cards grind will take longer, less chest less change on cards, this is for me a greater downside than the decrease in SPS.

Positive

This will impact also the large bot farm. Large bot farms have to invest big time e.g.: 1000 account bot farm that want to earn 80% of the rewards is now getting needs to invest 1000*1000SPS=1.000.000SPS let alone the 10.000 account bot farm.
So maybe this will turn the bot discussion, for the long run this is good. Short term it will cause a flood of cards on the market, that needs to be sold.

Very small account, or new users, can grow a in the beginning a bit faster. Good for the on-boarding of new players. 1 account with with 2000 SPS (~44$) can get the 100% of the current rewards. Only will the new player understand the system it is pretty complicated. If it understand the new player can get some delegation or rent some this might be scary and overwhelming in the beginning of your splinterlands journey.

Rewards pool (SPS) will go up less account fighting for it

Conclusion for now

For now I think my next investment will be in increase staked SPS and downgrade my level which I play in from diamond to gold.
This is a bit counter intuitive and not expected. I would have liked to see that it incentivize myself to even more upgrade my deck.

One big disclaimer this is just released information so anything can change also my stand in this. Just sharing my current mind of thinking

That's all for this week hope you enjoyed reading this. See you all on the battlefield.

Not playing splinterlands yet consider using my refferal link. Even if this post is a bit overwhelming/critical for new players just try it out, the game is fun to play and addictive. Still love to play the game.