Splinterlands Asset Hoarding - What Cards To Sit On?

The cryptomarket is down, we're between sets... What better time to stock up on cheap cards!

I believe this is the perfect time to be picking up your deck and investment opportunities. The hype from Chaos Legion has quieted down a bit and with Bitcoin down, the whole card market has taken a bit of a downturn. But that's good news for a lot of us! With cheaper cards around at the moment, I'm taking the opportunity to stack up my collection power and strength of my deck. I've previously made posts on my top cards to own for deck strength, but today I want to take a look at cards I believe are incredibly underpriced right now, and will appreciate when they go out of print in the future. I want to preface this by saying this is not financial advice and I am no expert, but in my opinion these cards cannot help but go up!

Section 1: Chaos Legion Rewards

Every single one of these common cards is insane value in my eyes! At 3 cents a copy, they are the cheapest cards in the game, and getting a max copy of these 6 cards would set you back $68.8 for 12000 Collection Power! This is by far the cheapest way to build up the power to get to Silver or Gold - and a few of these cards are especially good! While I don't think going out to buy a max copy of these cards is the best way personally, I do think you should buy up these cards to the highest level you play at or aspire to play at in the Splinters you like to play. I'm going to highlight a couple of these cards now that I personally plan to accumulate as many copies as possible.

1.1 Pelacor Bandit

This card is my pick of the bunch for these reward commons. With Kelya's release and Alrics departure from the starter decks (And soon the modern league!), the Water Splinter has shifted over to a fast, hard-hitting Melee team. Enter the Pelacor Bandit. Cheap in both Dollar Cost and in Mana cost, this guy hits the backline of your opponent fast and hard! Gaining an extra damage at each league breakpoint, this card scales extremely well as you climb, and alongside the Inspire monsters in the Water Splinter like River Hellondale and Demented Shark, he's going to hit even harder! Paired with another Reward card I'm going to mention a little later on, he forms a low-mana Sneak duo that is extremely powerful. This is the card I am going to go biggest on - I'm aiming to get to at least 1000 copies before he goes out of print. 400 for my own use as I climb, slowly getting this guy to max level, and the rest to sit on as an investment, as the only way for this cards price to move is up in my opinion.

1.2 Pelacor Conjurer

Another just absolute steal of a card, incredibly powerful from Silver and up, is the Pelacor Conjurer. This card, in my opinion, is one of the best low-mana cards in the game, and its under 3 cents per copy! It has absolutely everything you would want in an Anti-Magic tank: Phase with High Speed, High HP, Magic Reflect, Divine shield... And it only takes 2 mana! It can
even be used as an off-tank to soak up Snipe shots! With it's built in synergies with cards like Dax Paragon in the Life team, this is an absolute must-own card. Another card I'm looking to pick up and hoard - it can't get cheaper and it's incredibly powerful!

Section 2: Powerful Neutrals

Neutral cards offer a unique proposition - no matter what Splinter you play, you can use these cards. That gives them a lot of value for cards that can overlap into many Archetypes, or are just individually powerful. We all know the big neutrals of the past - Creeping Ooze, Gelatinous Cube, Sand Worm - But what are the current must-buy neutrals? Here's a few of my picks:

2.1 Uraeus

The aforementioned partner in crime to the Pelacor Bandit, Uraeus is another great, cheap Sneak monster. With efficient damage to mana, its easy to slot in to a lot of teams, and the 1 Armor makes it a nice slot at the back to soak a couple of Sneak strikes itself! In Gold and higher, this snake picks up the Poison ability, which is a very high-value ability, particularly strong against the big Taunts we have seen introduced in Chaos Legion. At around 60 cents per copy, this card seems extremely under-priced to me, and is a great addition to your deck in the meantime. While it is a lot harder to pick up a lot of copies of ths card due to it costing 20x more, I think everyone should at the very least aim to own a Level 4 before this card goes out of print.

2.2 Supply Runner

I should only need to say one word for this card: Swiftness. Once the Modern format begins, Supply Runner will be the ONLY source of Swiftness in the Silver League. With such an incredibly powerful ability, I cannot see how Supply Runner can stay this low priced! $9 for a source of Swiftness is incredibly underpriced in my opinion, and I cannot see a world where we don't all need this card. A special mention to this card in the General Sloan deck, where his damage becomes very respectable for his cost too!

2.3 Venari Spellsmith

Dispel and Amplify both for 4 Mana? Count me in! I see Dispel as an ability that will only get more and more powerful in future, as new abilities are released it is almost inevitable we see more team and self buffs, which Dispel will be able to purge away! Amplify is also a very powerful ability, partnering with Thorns or Magic Reflect to make Tanks that extra bit more annoying! A level 4 or higher Spellsmith will be very powerful in every deck, which makes me very much expect an increase in price in future!

Section 3: Miscellaneous

For these final cards, I couldn't find a category to group them, but I believe all of these cards are currently undervalued and are extremely powerful, and wanted to draw attention to them!

3.1 Djinn Chwala

One of my absolute favourite tanks in the game, and one of the cheapest CP/$! Djinn Chwala is a carry in the low ranks, and no slouch in the higher up too! Past around Gold he falls off a fair amount, but a lot of the cards that see huge price growth are the ones strongest in lower leagues! I personally plan to pick up a Level 4 copy for my own use in Gold league, and then a few Level 1 and 2s for Renting and price appreciation.

3.2 Djinn Oshannus

We have seen this card at upwards of $50 before, and I don't believe Alric leaving the starter deck justifies a 90% loss in value! While he's no longer the terror of Bronze and Silver, he's a great counter pick alongside Bortus for Magic teams, which always run rampant in lower leagues! Once this guy is out of print, we may not see returns to his All Time High, a card this powerful cannot remain below $5 in my opinion!

3.3 Lava Launcher

Hard-hitting, Tanky and with a Stun, Lava Launcher is massively underrated I feel. While the 9 Mana cost is high, in higher leagues it matters a lot less, and that's where this card shines in my opinion! For just over $10 you'll get this card at Level 4, and if you play fire in Gold or above, I think you'll want this card. I feel certain it will not remain this cheap forever! At such a good CP/$ ratio, this card is bound to grow in price! If you aim to ever play in Gold, this is a card worth picking up!

Conclusions

Notice a theme to a lot of these cards? They're mostly current rewards! While we have a lot left to print (we're at 25-30% printed for most of the current rewards), these cards will eventually stop being minted. And at that point, their price will almost certainly increase. They will turn from inflationary assets as more are printed, to deflationary as they are levelled up and burned! This already leads to a price increase, but as the game gets bigger and gains players (Which I think we all hope and expect it to!)m there will be less and less of these to go around. I will be accumulating these slowly, DCAing into these cards, and holding for the future. For now, they will be good CP and competitive cards. In future, who knows where their price will go!

If you enjoyed this post, please let me know in the comments below! Upvotes are very much appreciated to help me in my first goal to 1000 Pelacor Bandits (Inspired by @luke-wtp's mission to 1000 Gargoya Lions!)!

If you'd like me to cover a specific topic, do let me know too! I want to bring content that you guys will enjoy and appreciate!

Until next time - good luck in your climb!