I got mixed vibes when Splinterlands first announced the the Conclave Arcana news. It's mainly because we only have 1 month to enjoy the Chaos Legion. It kinda sucks that Chaos Legion’s getting pushed out of Modern Ranked Format by May 13th and I can already see rental prices spiking hard as you can only rent Rebellion and Conclave Arcana moving forward.

Honestly, I'm starting to think transferring to Wild Ranked Format so I could rent cheaper cards but the Wild Pass and reduced rewards per win is making it hard to convert.

The timing of this change feels both painful and fresh. While losing Obsidian is a heavy hit for magic mains like me, I think this change is healthy long term and we can already feel it by the increased price in SPS. The bloodlines system alone can make unique lineups in the future in a fun way so I’m choosing to stay curious and excited than mad.

🧠 What are you most excited about with the release of Conclave Arcana?

Let's start this one with the most exciting part. I am still hyped about the Bloodlines and found more reason why you should be too.

As I was hanging out in the Splinterlands Discord Tavern, some discussions came up and I had questions about Painforge which turned into interesting findings.

Yes, as they said, old cards can also gain Painforge which means old cards has Bloodlines. Take Captain Fellblade for example. If you play in Wild Ranked Format (Since Chaos Legion is not playable in Modern next ser), and you used a unit with Human Bloodline with Painforge, then this Chaos Legion unit will also increase its melee and magic attacks if that Painforge unit dies. This was confirmed by someone whom I assume was on the play test team, the ones who do the testing selected by Splinterlands for new cards.

As @Devonsmith mentioned, the only issue is that the older cards before Arcana doesn't have a Bloodline indicator but it does gain benefit from Bloodline effects like Painforge. Now, since I am not from the test team and Conclave Arcana hasn't released yet, I cannot confirm this for now but it has a high chance of being applied when it goes out as it works on the test server.

There are some issues though. One would be that it's a trial and error to find all card's Bloodlines. You can assume most of them by reading the card lore but some units may prove difficult like Heloise the Hollow which was Human and turned into some sort of monster which can fall under Monstrosities. The second issue is that we don't know what Bloodlines are hidden behind the scenes. While we know on the Splinterlands pre-sale post that there would be Dwarves, Orcs, Elves, Ulund and Gnomes for the Conclave Arcana, not all units fall into this category. We may see more in the future but does that mean only these 5 Bloodlines can gain the Bloodline benefits? Who knows?

You can find more possible Bloodlines in this Splinterlands Support Page>

🧠 Any card art, lore teasers, or abilities you're hoping to see?

After doing a deeper dive on the lores, I do want them to do the Celestials next. These are fairly easy to recognize because most of them are angelic in nature, some have halo and wings.

Another thing is that these aren't abilities but I want them to do multi-Bloodlines. We have dual elements so why not dual bloodlines, right? I think those would be interesting and also abilities that tie more to Bloodlines than in general.

🧠 How do you think this set will impact your personal strategy?

My strats are going to get wrecked since I rely a lot on Chaos Legion stuff in Modern so I need to do more testing when Conclave Arcana drops. I think more people will rely on the Bloodlines because it's more consistent as you can use same Bloodlines even if they are different elements so that would be interesting and I think that's how my future games will go as well.

This expansion might be the start of a deeper meta shift where players build based on identity instead of elements alone. If we thought Rebellion will be starting the changes because of the Summoner Tactics Mechanics, oh, boy. We were so wrong about that because of this.

Conclave Arcana is the real change in the game. I do like that Splinterlands is becoming more and more similar to other card games and that's for a good reason. There's a reason why some games have similar mechanics like types or elements and this is so other players who are playing the same genre can hop in between games without starting from ground 0. It's like when you are a DOTA 2 player and wanted to try out League of Legends. They are very different mechanically but the concept of the item combinations, laning, some unit interactions make it easier for you to understand it instead of going from DOTA 2 to Fortnite.

I think Splinterlands is on the right path as with this change, we can get the Magic The Gathering and Yugioh players more interested in the game as this now have more similarities from the game they play with. The game should go in that direction and try to encourage one set of target audience instead of trying to make Splinterlands appealing for everyone as not all games are made for everyone. Appealing to TCG players, for me, is the right move.

Disclaimer

Other photos and images that I used in this post can be found in these websites below:

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About the Author

<sup>Hey! I’m Mavis the Muggle, your friendly Splinterlands addict with a slight obsession for all things Harry Potter. 🧙‍
When I’m not immersed in gaming or wizardry, I’m busy learning new things. Recently, I’ve been having putting a lot of effort and having a blast creating content on Hive so relax!

You can support me by upvoting this post, reblogging, leaving a comment below or by using my Splinterlands referral link.</sup>

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Life is like a camera. Focus on what's important. Capture the good times. And if things don't work out, just take another shot.
- Ziad K. Abdelnour