Thoughts on the great tournament debate as we approach the close of phase 1.5

People have asked, so I just wanted to chime in one more time before this vote is all over. I do think people are a bit exhausted from the months of bickering and arguing, but I think it’s only been in the last week that any real progress has been made and that discussion has been productive and goal oriented vs. attack oriented.
I stopped talking in this chat room weeks ago for this very reason. I’d just scan to see if anything was getting done, then bail when I realized we were not at a point of constructive discussion. Now that we finally are at that point, it would be amazing to actually give this last push and follow through instead of seeing a lot of players throwing up their hands and saying ‘I just want this finished’. We ALL do, but just a little more effort in these last stages goes a long way towards a less divided community. Just for the record, I’m personally of the opinion that we should have a pre prop reset for tourneys, taking the revised models we ended up with now and giving everything a fair vote. I know this is not going to happen, but I feel it’s important to state I feel this would be the least divisive course of action that could prevent a lot of salt moving forward. If the process seems fair to everyone, more people are inclined to chill out knowing the option they support got a fair shot.

That said:

Land is not the solution for card utility. It is an OPTION for card utility.
Gameplay is the solution for card utility, and building a strong legacy system is integral to long term sustainable growth. I have good bit of land at 2.5 tracts. I have spent a LOT of time since 1.5 came out tediously working land (grinding and clicking feels like a more appropriate word) and I’m pretty sure I do NOT want to spend this much of my time clicking away on land moving forward. It’s way too time/labor intensive, repetitive, ‘click oriented’ and as of now, not fun to me. So assuming (or forcing) legacy editions to land is not a reasonable model that supports growth in my mind.

What IS an acceptable solution is giving legacy editions more use in gameplay. Gameplay is the very HEART AND SOUL of Splinterlands. If things evolve with PVE as Nate has hinted at, excellent. In the meantime, tournaments are the way this can work. Expanding the gameplay is vital for SPL to move forward. The more variety we can add with legacy editions the better for the long term health of the game. Rotating double editions got a lot more support than I expected, and I’m super stoked about that! But single edition events add even MORE fun and variety. I love brawls because of this variety and the fun and challenges coming from limitations with different editions being allowed. This also gives value and use to cards that might NEVER get played in full wild.

ALL editions need to be given utility moving forward, or there is no incentive to buy the current set knowing it will just be nuked by the community in a short time. I’m very curious to see what people think about adding RB only events in wild when it comes time for RB to rotate out of modern. My suspicion is that single edition events would then have a lot more support. Right now, even Untamed is a very limited set that a lot of players do not have, so single edition events in wild do not affect them at all since the sets they do have are currently getting heavy support in modern. I urge all modern players to really think about this, as the time is quickly approaching when YOUR cards are rotating out, and there will soon (hopefully) be a huge wave of new players who do not have CL and RB and these sets will be, in the large scale of things, then viewed as Untamed, B and A is now.

Regarding CL, I’m one that’s in the camp of having been burned hard thus far, and would love to see CL get some love. I personally don’t understand why modern players are pushing SO damn hard for RB only events but not for CL only events. This blows my mind! Why not give CL some value with 10% or even 5% of the modern pool going to CL only, as opposed to ignoring CL and pushing even more value into the already cost prohibitive RB set?

@vugtis it is important to note that yes, I agree the tournament structure needs to be reworked and scalable as you say. Right now we do not have the player base to have multiple versions of the same event, but when we do, that would be an excellent way to evolve. In the meantime, it is VITAL to point out that this step of tournament evolution is necessary. Going to a 50/50 modern/wild split is a HUGE step forward. Right now this is not the case (as I was surprised to learn) and we should see a significant increase in modern event prizes as a result.
I also need to point out that option E achieves two things you write above as important. Giving value and utility to ALL editions; current, legacy, and future. It also gives more love to CL by giving it its own single slot in the wild prize pool. I’d personally also want to see it receive its own slot in the modern pool, but that seems to have opposition for some reason.

I’ll also point out, once again, adding utility to cards via gameplay is VITAL and drives value to the entire SPL ecosystem. In the case of option E, we make sure legacy editions maintain use cases, hence value. This includes CL, which is in need of this specifically imo. This ensures the cards that are currently in modern maintain value as they rotate out, an attractive feature for both existing and future players and investors alike.
It also drives more value to LAND if high PP legacy cards are NOT staked on land but used in gameplay. Less resources are harvested, making all resources more scarce… more value to gameplay, more value to cards of all editions, and more value to land.

Take all this as you will…