Some Proposed Solutions for Soulbound (SB) Reward Cards in Splinterlands

Hello SPL community members.

I've been playing Splinterlands for almost exactly two years now, and I enjoy the game enough to play every day. I am also significantly invested in SPS, Cards, Runi and Lands by now, though I am, by no means, much more than a minnow.

I've been following the seemingly intractable SB reward cards debate on SPL discord for several weeks or months. Whereas I don't assume to have definitive answers or solutions to all the complicated issues and concerns related to this subject, I thought I'd make this PeakD post to offer some suggestions that may (or may not?) help, in some small way, in finding a resolution that most stakeholders will find acceptable.

I don't engage in discord chats much and I just follow what is being said there to keep myself updated on the game. If nobody finds any of these suggestions useful or practical, that is perfectly fine and I don't intend to push the matter further. If, however, any stakeholders in the game find any of these recommendations useful, please feel free to discuss and take them further, as needed.

Sorry in advance if somebody doesn't like what I have proposed. The purpose was not to antagonise, but to try to help - for whatever that is worth. I have grown to love this game and, like all of us, only want it to become better and bigger over time.

Peace and best wishes to all of you!

My suggestions are as follows:

1. Swapping extra bcx of any card for other cards that a player is missing
Provided that a player has a fully maxed card of any type in their account, they should be able to swap any extra bcx of that card with similar number of bcx of any other card, of the same rarity and foil. Such swapping will allow all players who have earned enough cards through ranked play to complete their collections.

2. New Player Experience
To allow new players to have a fair chance of competing against other older players when they are new to the game, all new players can be given a bronze-level RF starter set of all SB reward cards for 1 whole year from the date on which they acquire their spellbooks. This will allow them to settle into the game while being able to compete on a relatively level playing field in the lower leagues with other players who already have the SB cards in their collections. This will also give them enough time to earn their own collections of current editions of SB reward cards that will be on offer at that time; before they lose the SB starter set at the end of their first year of gameplay.

3. Utility for extra SB cards that a player may have in their collection
Any extra BCX of a particular SB card that a player may have earned (after having maxed that card) will be useless unless given utility. Such extra bcx (either single or combined) can be made unlockable for use ON LAND ONLY by that player only. The unlocking price in DEC in such a scenario should, in all fairness, not be more than the burn value of that card, since the card does belong to the player and they will be using it on their own land only.

4. Giving real-world value to SB cards
Whereas SB cards will be unlockable, untradeable and unrentable by their nature, many players will want these hard-earned assets to ultimately have tangible value in the spirit of Web-3 and P2E gaming. Making SB cards tradeable or burnable at any point would, however, flood the market with either too many cards or too much DEC. A possible compromise could be to allow players to only burn their SB cards if and when they decide to leave the game. In such a scenario, Splinterlands may consider introducing an option to permanently block an account from playing any more. If a player selects that option (after SEVERAL checks, prompts and warnings to ensure that nobody can conceivably select this irreversible choice by mistake), the account will be frozen out of the game irretrievably. After that point, the player will only be able to access their assets in the account for the purpose of liquidating and transferring them out of the game. In this and only this scenario, that player may be allowed to burn their SB cards at burn value for DEC, and to then transfer out that DEC as per their choice.

This option will minimise DEC inflation from burning SB rewards, as only genuinely departing players (or bot farms that are permanently shutting down) will use this, and players or bot farms will, therefore, not be able to milk such rewards indefinitely while continuing to play the game.