Making a case for the new reward cards (Power Charts)

It is the two week anniversary of the 21 New Splinterlands Rewards Card and it has been a very eventful two weeks. The cards themselves are quite powerful, but they are reported to be printed 20 times more then previous reward card AND the collection power has been cut in half (gold foils collection power has been cut even more drastically - see chart below) and now the prices have been falling through the floor. Meanwhile, I am here to make a case for buying, using and holding these cards. Of course, I do not give financial advice and all of my ideas should be taken as entertainment value only.

My argument is that: card power, collection power and history suggest that I should be picking up bundles of these cards.

I can already predict that some of you reading this will counter this argument of value by focusing on the over printing of cards and the over saturation of the market due primarily to bots and flippers (those who play only to resell and not to build collections). However, I ask you to consider the three points below and let me know your thoughts.

Card Power

I considered writing a review of the power and the projected effectiveness of the 21 new reward cards, but some of my favorite Splinterlands content creators have already created excellent videos explaining the potential potency: Dwayne Cunningham's Reward Card Video and Crypto Llama's Reward Card review, which I have also included both videos at the bottom of this post.

Essentially, I agree with Dwayne Cunningham and Crypto Llama that many of these cards are very powerful and have immediate utility in the current landscape of available cards. In addition, when the Choas Legion set gets released within the next two months the reward cards may turn out to be even more powerful than now. Without knowing what Choas Legion cards look like It is a bit tricky to pinpoint which cards will be the front runners in the future, but it is pretty safe to say that the cards look well positioned to be important, if not crucial additions to your collection going forward.

Point one: the new reward cards are powerful, useful and may become more powerful in the future.

Collection Power and Price

Secondly, let's look at the importance of Collection Power (CP):

"-Collection Power or CP is the sum of the Burn Rate of all the cards that are PLAYABLE in your account.
-Cards listed on the market and cards delegated out to other players do not contribute to your CP.
-Collection Power only limits a player's league, not their rating.

For example, a player might have a rating of 1400 - which would normally place them in the Silver II League - but if they only have a collection score high enough for Silver III then that is the league they will be in. And also, win streak bonus stops after reaching your highest eligible league." ~Splinterlands Wiki Collection Power

As all current Splinterland players know, the rental market has been bonkers lately. Basically at the end of each season people spend tons of DEC to increase their power in order to advance to the highest level possible and reap the biggest end of season rewards chests possible. Players also need to rent during the full season to advance, or do guild battles or tournaments or even daily quests. It is pretty clear that having a large collection power is really valuable both because you can advance to higher levels without incurring extra cost, but also because you can rent those cards for a big returns on investments. We do know the Chaos Reward cards have had their collection power severely reduced, here is the chart:

To me, with the growth of Splinterlands it made a lot of sense that new reward cards would have reduced CP value and also be printed in abundance so that players have a more affordable option to buy collection power. And affordable is the key! While the Reward Chests values have dropped, there is a major opportunity to invest in collection power by buying up inexpensive and over saturated reward cards. The trick is finding and evaluating CP ratio by cost and luckily we have a tool for this!

I use Peak Monsters all the time, and I love to search the market by sorting by Best CP/ Cost Ratio which essentially tells me what cards will boost my collection power for the least amount of investment. Sometimes it is gold foils or older cards that will be on the top of this list (i currently have gold foils turned off here). As the new reward cards have been dropping in price, even though they have half the CP value, the reward cards are all making the top of this search. This means that players who are always hunting for CP at the end of the season can spend DEC buying up CP in bulk instead of overpaying for rented cards day by day. Remember also that increasing your collection power slowly over time will be reward you with easier paths to ranking up, the ability to make gains by renting out/delegating cards, and eventually gain you more rewards chests.

Here is the current (9/23/2021) Best CP/Cost Ratio Card in Splinterlands:

Point two: New Reward Card are currently the very best value if you want to increase your Collection Power

History

The final point I want to make is simply echoeing the Splinterlands Discord chat and the pattern Splinterlands has repeated multiple times:

Every Rewards season the cards are inexpensive to buy until they go out of print. Then they go up in value.

When I first join Splinterlands most of the powerful cards that I wanted to own were previous rewards cards and most of them were quite expensive (especially my favorite Furious Chicken), and I felt like I had missed the opportunity to get them for free. I have watched hundreds of new players show up on Discord and say similar things about the reward cards that I started with, and it seems probable that the next waves of new players will look back on this batch of 21 Reward Cards and see the value and utility and wish they were here now getting them for free in rewards chests.

Point Three: Reward Cards are historically undervalued until they go out of print.

Keep in mind even in pattern recognition you cannot always predict the future, so tread lightly. Also, patience can be hard to wait for. But to quote Dwayne Cunningham, "this game rewards you for your time and attention," and if you look at the past history of reward cards (even factoring in the large print runs) and overlaying the history with the power level of the cards and the cost ratio for collection power they cards seem to be worth our attention right now.

---

My favorite videos for determining the play value of the new reward cards:

Dwayne Cunningham's @dwaynecunningham Reward Video

Crypto Llama's @cryptollamatv Reward Video