Monster Workers in the Land Expansion: Will The Demand For Splinterlands Cards Grow?
In the upcoming land expansion of Splinterlands, players will be able to create Spells and Items, that can be used in the game, for example in tournaments and ranked matches. However, the outcome of crafting them will be random and based on various factors, one of them being your monster or summoner cards working in the building on your land plot.
Unlike some crafting mechanics in existing games, in Splinterlands it will not be possible to choose exactly which Item or Spell you wish to mint. Instead, the resulting Item or Spell will be randomly determined based on a number of factors, including, but not limited to, the level of the building, the Monster & Summoner cards working in the building, the types of Essences used, and bonuses from special Totem artifacts placed in the building (more about the Totems below).
Obviously, we want to create the best chance for crafting the most valuable spells and items possible. One factor will be the monster workers we place on the lands building. To determine which monsters will probably do best at that, let us first look at what we know already about the game mechanics of the land expansion.
Terrain Types and Resources
Each plot of land will have a terrain type, a category, and a rarity.
Terrain Types:
The terrain type indicates what sort of land it is, what types of resources it can have, and what types of Splinter magic are best suited to that land. There are planned to be fourteen different terrain types in total: Plains, Hills, Tundra, Swamp, Bog, Mountain, Canyon, Caldera, River, Lake, Forest, Jungle, Desert, and Badlands.
With seven splinters (including Neutral) and the mission to give all cards an additional purpose and hence value, we can probably assume that the 14 regions favor monster workers from all of the seven splinters (maybe two terrain types per splinter).
Resources:
There are eleven different resources known so far, assuming that Occupied land plots will feature only one single monster essence. If there are essences for each of the six independent splinters, as it is the case with Magical land plots, we would have sixteen different resources. And each could come in the four rarities common, rare, epic and legendary.
| Category | Ressource | Rarity |
|---|---|---|
| Natural | Grain | Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary |
| Natural | Wood | Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary |
| Natural | Stone | Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary |
| Natural | Ore | Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary |
| Magical | Virtulium (Life) | Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary |
| Magical | Reclaimed Souls (Death) | Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary |
| Magical | Ulana Seeds (Earth) | Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary |
| Magical | Sparkstone (Fire) | Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary |
| Magical | Bottled Storms (Water) | Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary |
| Magical | Heliostones (Dragon) | Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary |
| Occupied | Monster Essences | Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary |
Monster Workers
Most buildings will also require some existing Monster and Summoner cards to "work" in them in order to function, so you may want to hold off on burning your hordes of Rusty Androids! Additionally, Monsters and Summoners from certain Splinters will be better suited to working on specific types of buildings and land plots. For example, Fire Splinter Monsters and Summoners will perform better on a Mountainous land plot than on a Lake.
So we know that most buildings, that can be build on a land plot, will require a worker from your monster cards and that its edition, level, foil and rarity will probably play a role for its bonus to the land plot. Maybe this will be calculated via the cards collection power, that includes edition, BXC and foil (which all defines a cards burn value for DEC). If so, Promo cards would have the same status as Alpha cards and Beta Reward cards would have the same status as Beta cards.
This means there will likely be a much higher demand for cards in general, favorably high level gold foils from older editions.
This is all pure speculation based on probable game mechanics that would make sense with the currently known information.
Open Questions
Several questions come to mind, that will influence what workers will be the best-in-slot:
- Will there be generic bonuses for workers (edition, BCX/level, foil, rarity) and/or unique bonuses for a specific monster/summoner card?
- Will the rarity of the monster worker have an effect on the bonus it gives to the land (i.e. max common vs max legendary)?
- Will the edition of the monster worker have an effect on the bonus?
- Will the foil of the monster worker have an effect on the bonus?
- Will the level and/or BCX of the monster worker have an effect on the bonus?
- Will there be land plots that favor Neutral workers?
- Can monsters be used to play in ranked matches as well as be assigned as workers on a land plot at the same time?
- Will Occupied land plots have different monster essences for each splinter or just one?
Conclusion
We still don't know enough yet, to decide definitely what cards will be the best to serve as workers on our land plots. However, from what has been said on the Splinterlands AMA's before, we can assume that Alpha cards but also Beta and probably Promo cards as well, will give better bonuses than Untamed, Dice and current Reward cards. A max level card will probably get a better bonus than a low level card and a gold foil will give a better bonus than its regular counterpart on the same level. Plus, we will need workers from each splinter (probably even Neutral) to get the best bonus for each terrain type land plot. And then we will need multiple of each kind for each of the various buildings we can build on top of the land plots.
If this is all true, than that would create a lot of demand for monsters cards. Apparently, the market is already reacting, when we look at Rusty Android.
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Very interesting analysis. I just saw what my gold foil rusty Android was worth and was surprised. People were burning them like a robot factory on fire 12 months ago!
I am partly responsible for the price surge. I have bought 33 goldfoil Rustys about a week ago, to push mine to max level. Others have quickly followed suit and bought up the few cheap remaining ones from the market.
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I'm hoping to see the same approach to Land and buildings like they did with the cards, editions and rarity. That means in theory a GFL Alpha Card would give the highest benefit and a common untamed card the lowest. That said I'm hoping to see a DEC related score for each building. That means e.g. 1x GFL Alpha Gold is 150 000DEC that is the maximum how you could impact your building. I would like to see the option how we get to this goal...ether with a combination of varieties of cards plus also direct DEC contribution to the Building. This would be a more userfriendly approach and would help the overall card market and not just specific types.
Exciting times ahead!
I think this will be the case and has been further confirmed in the AMA today, although the MAX card will be superior to the unleveled GFL Alpha legendary.
I doubt we will be able to combine multiple cards to work in a single building on a single land plot. But regarding pumping the building with DEC, this will certainly be the case and one of the major DEC sinks of the land expansion. Both the monster worker and the building level will add to the bonuses of the land plot production.
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This is great stuff.
I'm kind of expecting there to be some very specific types of monster relevant to some of those regions....
Swamp just screams swamp thing for example! Canyon maybe flying monsters.... ? I think you get where I'm going with this speculation!
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This has already been specifically asked in the last AMA and Matt said that this would be too much design effort and is not what they have currently planned. There is a generic system in plan, that will affect ALL cards and not just a specific one. Anything additional might come if there is still enough room to design it. But I HIGHLY doubt that this will come with the v1.0 of the land expansion.
Oh OK - so it's going to be as 'crude' as you say - so basically buy Alphas and Promos and golds if you can afford it?!?
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I think it is rather ingenious because it creates a demand for all the most underappreciated cards on the market because of their much lower price compared to the top sellers. And whether I put an epic Alpha Magi of the Forest or a Swamp Thing into my swamp land plot doesn't make much of a difference to me. Both are Earth splinter cards with the same edition and rarity. A better comparison might be the common Flesh Golem vs Rexxie. The low price of Rexxie will make him a better Earth common worker, while the Flesh Golem will stay an awesome card to play in the normal game.
Yes it's interesting to think about.... I might bash out a few posts on some of the best value cards to buy, but in a couple of weeks, give us a chance to stock up first!
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