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Usually I try to write guides about Splinterlands. They have a broad theme, but I like it to 'educate' the person who reads my articles. In the sense of bringing some added value. A few days ago, when I was reading the article about the updates concerning the ranked system, I had the idea to write about my impressions. So I really don't know if I'll bring some added value while discussing them, but I'll try anyway. So please feel free to give feedback in the comments: do you like it? What's your opinion about the last updates? Do you (dis)agree with my vision? ...

The first updates I'll discuss are mentioned in this article from 2days ago. The main theme is concerning the ranked matches.

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Mana cap changes

The minimum mana cap will still be 12, and each value from 12 to the league maximum will have an equal probability of occurring:
Novice/Bronze - 40
Silver - 50
Gold/Diamond/Champ - 60

While this is increasing the maximum for novice/bronze league (30->40), it's decreasing for silver league (60->50). The probability for 99cap is also decreased a bit, from 4% -> 2%.

=> Personally I think this is a great update (atleast for newer players in the novice/bronze league). As playing with lower mana is a challenge on its own. I think it gives more variety if also higher mana matches are happening more often. When I began playing @splinterlands, I often had the feeling to be a bot. Just playing over and over with the same team against the same teams. Since than a lot has changed and those updates are in my eyes, really adding value to the game! How this update affects the higher leagues? I would think it's rather a negative impact to decrease the maximum mana cap. Although, it could be to 'help' the low silver league players aswell. By decreasing the silver maximum cap, they don't have to battle against the stronger players with more maximized decks.

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League Rating & Rating Reset Changes

We will also be making changes to the rating resets so that players don't drop down as far in rating at the end of each season (particularly in the higher leagues) and we will be changing the min and max rating thresholds for Champion league so that each tier is 300 rating points above the previous tier rather than 500 as it is currently.

Additionally, players who have not played any ranked battles in a particular format in the current season will not drop down in rating at all at the end of the season. This is so that players who take a break from the game will remain at the same rating and league in which they left off rather than falling all the way back down to Bronze and having to slog their way back up when they come back.

In short the drawbacks at the end of the season will be smaller. Besides that if you're not playing for a whole season, your rating won't keep dropping. So especially for the higher leagues this last update is a nice addition as well. If you're diamond and don't play for whatever reason for a few weeks, you won't go down to 0 rating.

=> I think this is also a good update. I'm a fan of setting people back. Because this challenges them each season to play (better) than last season. If you don't put in place such a mechanism, I'm quite sure some people will play very passively and farm the rewards without putting the effort. Although on the other hand, I think the system was quite severe. If you finally made it to silver III, which is quite an achievement for newer people, than the drawback was directly to 500. If you than weren't able to play a lot and/or had a loosing streak, than you could drop down again to for example 100 rating. Whan you want to start playing again, you have again climb your way up to silver league while rising over 900 rating, which is quite a lot.

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Novice League / New Player Changes

The rating reset for Bronze III league will be changed to 100 from 0 meaning that players in Bronze league will no longer drop back down to Novice league at the end of the season

Splinterlands will start to treat Novice league as a 'tutorial area'. In the past, it could be that, even in novice leage, you were facing Llama Kron, as it was a player who quit for a period of time and who was now grinding his way back to diamond.

=> I think Splinterlands is making some other good steps towards the adoption and merely, the holding of newer players with this update. Because, if you're a new player and you're facing some OP enemies, than the chance is bigger that you're losing faith and quit the game even when you didn't discover it at full.

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Announcing Season Rentals

When listing a card for rent, players will now have the option to choose if they want to list it for "daily" or "season" rental, and the card rental market pages will have filters for players to view daily or season rentals that are available.

This seems like an easy update: You can now rent cards for a full season. But I think this will have some important implications on the (competitive) play!

=> As said, it seems as an update: why should we even call it an update... BUT, I think this is really important for newer players to have some stickyness. I don't know how you feel about rentals, but when I rent something, being Splinterlands cards or a scooter, I want to get the full potential out of the rent, otherwise I'm wasting money. So if people rent for a whole season, I would do it just for convenience reason, than they will probably stich around for the full season. This is a nice update for the whales aswell, they can start renting out cards for a full season and don't have to adjust their prices day by day / use a bot for doing so.

Conclusion

I think that these were some really great updates. With a big focus on the new players, which is in my opinion very important, as they are the future!. BUT also for the more experienced players / the whales those updates will make their lifes easier. So I hope to see more updates like these, which are kind of 'small' updates with great positive consequences for new and experienced players!

Don't know Splinterlands yet? Check it out here: https://splinterlands.com?ref=stekene

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