Splinterlands' Stifling Competition: To Buy Or Not To Buy ECR?
One of the times when you'd appreciate the former ECR system on splinterlands was during the beginning of the season. It was easier to grind out wins even if you weren't really intentional enough. I don't know if this is an illusion or an actuality, but I'd like to think it's an illusion, and here is why.
First of all, not being able to keep tabs on my ECR last season might have created an illusion that I can play and grind out wins anyhow I want. But because I can now monitor my ECR it makes me agitated about how much loss I can incur or take and seeing it (my ECR) constantly taking a beating and dipping every day makes me really scared.
This season, every opponent I've faced seems deadlier than last season
.......the losses I've incurred have been bigger than any season at all this year and it makes me wonder if I'll ever be able to find a good strategy to keep staying competitive.
I think one of the reasons why last season went well was because the changes happened in midseason and by then, everyone was already out of the default leagues and gunning for their maximum leagues, so it was easier to maintain that winning momentum.
In my first game playing in the wild format, I tried as much as possible to maintain a winning momentum, but I lost my 2nd, 3rd, and fourth games, which threw me into bronze one.
Strategies becomes Outdated With Change
My tactics in the past were to always play in the modern format because it was easier to compete there at the beginning of the season than it was in the wild format.
This strategy has worked for me for a long time now. Nevertheless, the whole thing has changed and it's also as difficult to compete in the wild format as it is in the modern format.
I was beginning to think, maybe I didn't take my tactics properly, but I think I did, and it all boiled down to facing stiffer opponents with a crazy amount of money to spend. Of course, there's something to play for. Almost everyone last season recorded a significant increase in the quality of the reward, and this alone created a massive need for more competition.
Throwing The Cash For DEC
In other words, most of the big boys on splinterlands will be eager to buy some DEC to boost their ECR and they'll also want to go shopping to better the quality of their cards to stay more competitive. It's a pure demand and supply behavior.
A lot of players are responding to the decent rewards they got last session as a reason to tighten or stiffen the competition and while I should have predicted this response and stayed away for the first three days, I dived right in so quickly and I got the biggest pummeling ever.
Now I wouldn't really blame myself that much. As humans, we respond positively to positive stimuli, so while I was eager to start the season from the first blast, tens of thousands of people were also doing the same, which means that people with more means are more likely to scale.
Through my splinterlands journey, I've developed a strategy: stay off stiff competition.
I guess last season's decent win shifted this a bit and I feel like I'm in the gutter already. Another theory is that I feel the first two to three days of the season, the diamond and champion leaguers are still in the silver leagues trying to battle their way up, and because of this, the regular silver leaguers might continue taking some massive beating until the 5 or 6th day of the season when these guys would no longer play in the silver leagues.
I qualify to play in the gold leagues, but one of the reasons why I don't is that some of these guys out there have better decks.
incurring too many losses.
Gold Chests; Silver League
However, what I do is stay in the silver leagues while earning gold chests, so far, this has worked for me until now. I checked the price of getting some ECR to keep competing, and I was literally blown away. 20 ECR for 1k DEC (gold chest) While this isn't a disaster.
I checked my SPS earning for each battle I won last season and it wasn't really bad, so I'll have to start making decisions about how to stay afloat while keeping ECR at least within the 30/50 range. Sadly this hasn't happened.
Buying DEC Would Be Inevitable
Moreover, I was hoping I wouldn't have to buy some ECR this early and hoping I'd have to do so when an emergency pops up. The beginning of the season is always an emergency, but I didn't think I'd have to worry about ECR since I started the season with 50/50 ECR and now I can barely maintain 20/50 ECR, that's more than a 60% loss.
However, I'm still trying to work out a strategy. One of the things people without a lot of money can do is to keep finding better strategies to stay afloat while simultaneously being competitive. In reality, crazy competition can be frustrating, it's why people give up when they're pushed to the wall, it's human nature and it's even rampant on hive.
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Thank you
You are right if we compare the old ERC to the current one, I normally wouldn't worry about the losses but the current system the no room for error makes me worry about my Energy, the moment I see am getting a beating of my life I stop, there no point fighting when I know the big boys are on a mission to fix me.
I think you're right, losing with this system scares the hell out of you hahaha. Unlike in the last where you can just experiment and things might just go well for you. I've learnt to stop when I'm on a losing streak. My ECR has taken a massive beaten, I can't even leave bronze in wild format.
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It depends but there is a diminishing return and I think it depends more on your win-rate plus what league. From what I have seen, the lower the league the more rewarding/cost it is. A chest is only worth so much and it depends on what you want to do.
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I earn gold chests, but no matter the demand I think I'll try as much as possible to maintain my ECR rather than buying some, cuz I really don't think it might be worth it.