Are the Visions of Verico visionary?

Prologue

Land Cards! So cool! I was really excited, then I learned they're not crafted, but bought. The price seemed fine, 2$ per 20 cards, so 10 cents each card. But all commons, so 40$ each maxed, in theory.

But then I saw the abilities...

1. Toil and Kin gives you up to +10% PP if a card of the same bloodline is working the plot.
2. Light Rationing reduces the grain needed by up to 20% if the plot is BELOW 20k PP.
3. Alteration - Skin airdrops.
4. Glint Recovery - Chance for glint airdrops.
5. Dark Discount - up to -10% DEC needed
6. Fortune Seeker - chance for GF and BF of that card.

I immediately thought: That's not worth it. But thinking and knowing are two different principles, so I did the math today.

The Setup

We can't go above 20k PP. The maxed Verico card is already 2000 PP. Also, we want to take advantage of the terrain bonus. And we'll assume we have a Bloodline card, so another 10% bonus. So we have to get around 16.6k PP to not surpass the 20k and still get the grain bonus.

Low PP cries out for Chaos Legion. So I updated my calculator:

Based on that, I opted to get 3 GF Rares, and 1 GF Common maxed, getting me 16k PP total with the Verico. I ran it with both a Stone and a Grain plot, just to see the difference as the Grain factor of Stone is above 1 at the moment.

Base Costs

Item	Cost	Cost in DEC
Stone Plot	$7.49	31,899 DEC
Grain Plot	$17.77	75,681 DEC
3x GF Rare	$35.25	150,128 DEC
1x GF Common	$5.62	23,935 DEC
Verico Maxed	$41.60	184,000 DEC

Variations

Besides the Grain/Stone variation, there is the Verico variation, and one with a GF Common instead of the Verico.

Simulation	Cost in DEC	Boosted PP
Stone Verico	389,963	19,200
Grain Verico	433,744	19,200
Stone Regular	229,898	17,600
Grain Regular	273,630	17,600

Obviously, the Verico seems very expensive. But hey, we have all those beautiful boni! As you can see there with the Boosted PP for example. 10% more than the regular!

Boni

DEC Reduction

It's all maxed cards, so the total DEC to be staked is 50k. Verico gets a 5k reduction due to the 10%! Hm. Doesn't sound that much when looking at 430k Cost. 5k are 1.15% of that.

Grain Cost Reduction

-20% must be quite a bit, right? Well... It's generally 0.01 for each base PP. After shaving off 20%, it's still 0.08 Grain/Base PP. But let's just do the whole thing.

Simulation	Boosted PP	Net production	Grain Cost
Stone Verico	19,200	34.56 Stone	128 Grain
Grain Verico	19,200	384 Grain	128 Grain
Stone Regular	17,600	31.68 Stone	160 Grain
Grain Regular	17,600	316.8 Grain	160 Grain

Looks good! But we still have to convert it to DEC, and that costs us another 10% pool fees. Let's assume we use our own grain at the Stone plots, and don't have to swap stone for grain.

Simulation	Boosted PP	Net production DEC	Grain Cost DEC	Profit/h	Profit/year
Stone Verico	19,200	2.58 DEC	1.024 DEC	1.55 DEC	13,615 DEC
Grain Verico	19,200	2.49 DEC	1.024 DEC	1.46 DEC	12,827 DEC
Stone Regular	17,600	2.36 DEC	1.28 DEC	1.08 DEC	9,490 DEC
Grain Regular	17,600	2.28 DEC	1.28 DEC	1.00 DEC	8,763 DEC

All that is, of course, based on prices right now. If resource prices go up, the profits go up.

The Result & Conclusion

Tables are nice, but graphs are nicer:

It's actually anual return on investment based on today's prices. As mentioned, everything can change, so it's just a projection. The 5k DEC discount is taken into account.

Interestingly enough, the Verico, although seemingly expensive, does give almost enough boni to justify the buy. And that is without the chances on airdrops. Only 0.6% difference in Stone, and mere 0.3% in Grain.

The 10% Dark Energy/DEC reduction does not make much of a difference. It's around 1.25% of the total costs in both scenarios. The real impacts are in the Grain Cost reduction and the PP boost. That is a 30% advantage there, and could pay out nicely in the future when prices for resources go up again.

Unfortunately for now, it's an inflation for Grain price, as many plots might require less grain.

Feeling lucky?

Packs are at 8,088 DEC now, so 404 DEC per CC. That's 8% less than on the open market. Just saying...

Collectible Status?

Could be. I mean, being able to design your own card might be cool (the mystery ones). And then comes the Manager-Thing that Dave mentioned. That could extra value to them, too. In case you missed that:

Conclusion

Honestly, after this calculation I feel a lot more inclined to get myself one of those cards. It seems like they will be providing a nice value, and considering that there are plenty of them that are bisplintual makes it even more versatile.

5% of the rewards will go to @beaker007 for creating the tool, and 2% to @saydie for free Dividers - Click here. Always grateful for all of that! Remember to support those who give you cool stuff for free 😉

Former Calculation Posts

Calculations around Land

Basic Land Card Calculations

Stone is a losing game

Land - Setting it up.

Calculating Land part 1 - How to get your ROI
Calculating Land part 2 - Are pools worth it?
Calculating Land part 3 - Organic Growth
Land Plot Efficiency for non-whales
Card-Production-Coefficient - Combining LPE and ROI
Renting for Land - at what cost?
What do refined resources cost?
Calculating Totem and Title boosts
Calculating Plot Rarity Boost
Setting up a Rare Stone Plot

My perfect plot - Conclusion of my calculations

Land Plot Calculator

Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it at least as much as I enjoyed writing :-D If you have any comments or feedback - please let me know! And don't forget to leave your own posts for me to curate. Thank you very much!

If you don't play the game yet, you can use my referral: Click here for referral :-)

Dividers by Saydie - Click here. Always grateful for those!