End of Season rewards (got into Silver III) - and my thoughts about future investment

Hi all!

Season has come to an end and here I post my results and tell you why I decided to change my plans for investing into the game.

Here you can find my previous post from last week

First let`s talk about the rewards I got. I have to say I only managed to play on three days after my last post so I missed out two reward chests. Because I knew I was not able to play every day I rented power on a daily basis in addition to my already rented cards maxed for Bronze League.

Here is my season reward:

It's okay but not overwhelming if you compare it to the average chest value on Splintercards (today 32.6 DEC / chest). In addition I got three daily quest chests and some DEC for won battles. All in all I have to say that in most cases it did not pay out to rent into Silver League for me. Perhaps I can only play in a crowded time window when many players are battling and DEC reward is divided upon many players, but at the last day for example I only got between 2.5 and 4 DEC per won battle. And that while being in silver league winning more games than losing - my rating in the end was 2057 which would have been good enough for Gold III at least from the rating. I would have to play 40 wins a day to get even without chests, have not that much time after work for playing on most days 😅

So here I list all rewards from my last 5 days of the season:

won asset	~ worth in DEC
Venari Wavesmith	~ 92 DEC
2 x Exploding Rats	~ 42 DEC
Gargoya Lion	~ 13 DEC
Pelacor Mercenary	~ 14 DEC
Pelacor Bandit	~ 12 DEC
Venari Heatsmith	~ 12 DEC
73 DEC from (6) reward chests	73 DEC
3 Alchemy Potions	~ 24 DEC
2 Legendary Potions	~ 12.8 DEC
756.261 DEC from won Battles	765.261 DEC
TOTAL WORTH	~ 1060.061 DEC

On the other hand I spent 708.512 DEC on renting cards over the last 5 days. This leaves me with a growth of ~ 352 DEC. Again, this would be okay - especially regarding the fact that I missed two days of playing.

But the development of the tokens not only compensated for that win in $ value, the worth of my total assets dropped again rapidly from 458$ five days ago to now only 403$ now. From my initial Investment of 630$ from December 2nd this makes a loss of 227$. That makes playing splinterlands more expensive for me than playing competitive paper Magic The Gathering 😜 Sure, the dropping of the main crypto currencies did their part but I do not think that alone was the reason for the value dropping that fast.

Don't misunderstand me, I like the game and from a players view that price movements are not influencing the gaming experience that much. Prices of the tokens are going up a little the last two days, too. And It's cool to see the community here around the game having discussions, showing their fights and strategies and having contests and all that stuff. The possibility of renting the cards you do not use also is a brilliant mechanic and should be used in many other games, too.

But - and I know many of you may think otherwise and I have not been a player for so long, nonetheless this is my opinion - some aspects made me a little reflective and I withdrew most of my 46K DEC I had put into the game. This is my main issue:

As a player not capable of investing thousands of dollars it feels a bit like flying in the "wood class"

I have no problem with working hard on climbing the ladders, renting cards and getting better by making small steps and growing slowly. But here the difference between a new "normal" player and the players that already have big amounts of assets or at least enough money to afford them is way too big.
For example I would have liked to buy some Chaos League boosters. Unfortunately I had "only" around 630$ invested into the game and did not want to stake too much in SPS first in order to be able buying cards when having had enough experience to choose the right assets. So there was no way to get any voucher drop, I would have to buy vouchers from the "rich" players who got them in abundance for having their SPS staked just to be allowed to buy packs. Or I directly buy the packs from them from the secondary market. Today the prices are better than paying 25$ for a voucher like in the first days of the drop but you still pay at least 50% more for a pack than a player who got free vouchers. Perhaps I will buy one pack this way just to have the fun to rip a booster, but sorry, that somehow costs me quite an effort to do it often - I will always feel a bit like a 2nd class customer having to do it that way. In the meantime the new cards are flooding the market and make my assets drop in value.
It's similar if I read about the land plots and the features that are planned being implemented. Sounds cool, but again this is not within my budget.

Nonetheless I will continue playing, the game itself still is fun! But I will adjust my plans:

I will set me a 20$ monthly budget for the game I can spend on cards, rentals and perhaps a booster. That's like I do it with any other game with ingame purchases and/or monthly subscription I have played so far. Then buy cards that reduce my rental and let my collection power grow in order to someday get into higher leagues.

Okay that's it for this week. See you next time and don't be too mad with me for my criticism ^^ Have fun and good luck on the battlefield!