It's a Time to Neither Be Greedy Nor Fearful... Reallocate

The Opportunity to Re-invent Splinterlands Holdings is Now

FORWARD:

None of this article is financial/investment/legal advice, it is the description of one individual's strategy with a completely different situation than yours. You are suggested to seek out a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) for all investments and the author is not an RIA. Splinterlands' Terms of Service identifies Splinterlands/Steem Monsters as not being an Investment Company. As defined by the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Steem Monsters (the parent company of Splinterlands) and the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) that was published by Steem Monsters can be argued to rise to the definition of being classified as Financial Institutions in the United States. This is a duty to warn and inform given that the actions to be described regard the purchase and sale of assets.

With these caveats and knowledge explained, this is an opportunity to explain a Splinterlands asset strategy that I am implementing during these tougher times in the ecosystem.

Rather than sell all my assets and quit, buy assets aggressively, employ a Dollar Cost Averaging approach, whine about misfortune or pretend all is well, I have taken a different approach entirely. I'm re-assessing my holdings and putting less productive and non-productive assets for sale and with the proceeds purchasing more productive assets. Not all assets are created equal and not all participants place the same value on the assets.

Clearing out the Regular Foil Junk Drawer

Not all Regular Foil cards are gems. A collection might have a bunch of Regular Cards that go unused, are underleveled, and simply have no interest in leveling up. These cards just sit there and do nothing. They cannot generate rental revenue, they are not put to use on Land, and they offer absolutely no benefit in battles of any kind.

The answer is simple. Sell the non-productive assets and use the proceeds to buy more productive cards that would be used. This sounds so simple, but yet many people just hoard the cards and get nothing out of it.

Are these cards going to get the best price in the marketplace? Likely not, but it will free up capital to be used in a more productive fashion. This is the opposite of a flipping situation, the objective is to clear the junk cards out and then purchase bargain cards that fit individual objectives and playing style.

Regular Foil Common and Rare cards that went unused were shipped out and the DEC came in. Not all non-productive assets were able to be sold within a 24 hour period due to card dumps bringing prices down to All Time Lows. These cards were removed from the card market so that they could be sold at a more advantageous time.

Most will likely have more assets to sell than mine, but I have a collection of assets with more holes than the University of Tennessee Football Team's secondary.

Moving Toward Productive Assets - Gold Foil Cards

Given that there was an overprinting of Regular Foil cards and the lesser print rate belonged to the Gold Foil cards, it places Gold Foil cards at a premium. On top of this knowledge, Gold Foil cards earn a 10% bonus for battles and have higher rental prices. Converting Regular Foil discards into Gold Foil Cards could increase Collection Power and provide more utility to the collection as a whole.

The decision was to purchase Gold Foil cards that would actually be used in matches or would enhance already owned Gold Foil cards.

This decision reduces rental load by a little bit, but what it does is make better use of the assets. If card prices appreciate, it may provide an opportunity to sell and purchase other Gold Foil cards, but the purpose of purchasing these cards is not for short-term profit. This is just the start of the enhancement of the card holdings.

Leveled Up Regular Foil Cards Will Face the Chopping Block

Regular Foil Cards that are leveled up, even if they have utility, are being considered for conversion over to a Gold Foil version of the card at a lesser level or other Gold Foil cards. This is an opportunity to transition out of Regular Foil toward Gold Foil. In bear markets, there is a flight to quality and relative stability. Gold Foil cards offer more of it than their Regular Foil counterparts.

It can be done with Rewards cards with ease and this is the easiest way to start transitioning toward a deck that is more productive and has greater long term value.

Going from New to Old

A glut of newer Rewards and Chaos Legion cards of the Regular Foil variety that provide little productivity can be sold and the proceeds can be put towards Alpha, Beta, Promo, and older Rewards cards to fill out a deck. Alpha and Promo cards offer a 10% battle bonus and Beta cards offer a 5% battle bonus. Having these cards will be extremely valuable as there was a much smaller print run on these editions and they provide access to tournaments that are not available to most players without renting a lot of cards.

Not Sitting on Vouchers

Vouchers have fallen in value and the use case of them is extremely limited. Holding these tokens is not necessarily practical. Dumping Vouchers to purchase other Hive Engine tokens with more upside, older packs, Gold Foil cards or even choosing the stability of SWAP.HBD is an option as this is Hive's stablecoin.

Actively moving assets around is critical and just as important as any other part of Splinterlands.

Opening Packs is Risky, But Pack Stringing is Possible

Opening a pack and finding a Gold Foil Rare, Epic or Legendary Card is an exciting moment. It's also an opportunity to use the asset to buy more packs (Chaos Legion or older editions) and accrue more cards for various uses.

On Hive Engine, Chaos Legion packs presently sell for $1.48 per pack. A Gold Foil Prismologist is worth 5 packs. Is this Prismologist a card that will be used in battles or earn sufficient rental revenue? If not, it is possible that one would want to sell it and purchase more packs, tokens or more cards that provide more utility.

Over the course of time, it is possible that one pack can result in hundreds of packs purchased. However, it is also possible that the cards can all be duds and there is no opportunity to string packs along. Most would be sorely disappointed to see a Hardy Stonefish, Lava Spider, Portal Spinner, Kulu Swimhunter, and Binding Reflector all of the Regular Foil variety in a pack. However, that is a distinct possibility.

Pack Opening is a gamble.

A Lot Can Be Done Without Adding New Money

In the Northern Hemisphere, it is Meterological Winter, but think of this time as an opportunity to do some Spring Cleaning with a Splinterlands asset collection and holdings.

Putting holdings to better use will improve the value of a collection over time, battle win rate, and revenues.