I've been with Splinterlands since the earliest battles where the rule sets didn't change for 2 days and there were only 5 types of daily quests and a lot less monsters, abilities and AND I USED TO GET BOOSTER PACKS FROM QUESTS & SEASON REWARDS!!!! Time flies and I should have invested more into Splinterlands. Things have changed a lot and it's gotten a lot harder to level up your monsters and summoners (especially since the massive roaster of Untamed Edition for both packs and reward cards) But this isn't a story about those.

This is About Sticking Around

Those artworks are from people who have been sticking around and the same goes for all you composers of music and writers of lore. This community has been growing and deflation in the card economy has been real. I mean it's very real. I still remember when it was a breeze to upgrade a common monster to level 3. I remember how easy it was to get those sweet NFT cards.

Today Was A Very Good Day - 105 Packs

After a long time of small scale buying and some early days of not even using potions, I decided to buy 100 Untamed Booster Packs as well as buy 500 of Alchemy & Legendary Potions. It was nice to have those 10% extra stuff. I wish if I had more STEEM/HIVE to power down. But I have to keep my portfolio diverse and this is what I could do. Here's my experience:

Today was one of the best days for me in playing Splinterlands. I opened 3 more booster packs and 2 more essence orbs right after. The Orbs did well for me. It's all on the blockchain for anyone to verify.

So What's The Point - The Peculiar World of Probability

The old Kickstarter campaign says the following about the chances of getting each rarity;

• A card has a 26% chance of being RARE.
• A card has a 5-6% chance of being EPIC.
• A card has a 1% chance of being LEGENDARY.

With the power of potions I should be getting 2% chance of Legendary and 4% chance of Gold Foils. I had myself 525 cards. So how do you think things went?

• 26 Gold Foil Cards
  • 21 Common Cards
  • 5 Rare Cards
• 24 Epic Cards
• 3 Legendary Cards (Including 1 Legendary Summoner)

What I Should Have Gotten

• 21 Gold Foil Cards
• 26 to 31 Epic Cards
• 10 Legendary Cards (With 2 Summoners)

At least that's what the numbers would make you think. But that's not how probabilities work. Your numbers could be incredibly lucky or incredibly unlucky.

I Was Grateful

This was my 1st huge pack opening and I saw many gameplay opportunities rise up because of these.I was so very happy. I though it was great. The summoner I got was this guy:

The gold foils save me much time with upgrades and the abilities that get unlocked open up new strategies. Only now as I'm writing this post I realize how uneventful it all was. I only got $95 worth cards from $210 worth Untamed Packs + Everything I spent on 1050 bottles of potion.

The Great Realization - Investor v Player

Authoring this post has given me some stuff to think of. I started out on writing my journey and exploring how probabilities work in Splinterlands. Now I've arrived at a new way to look at the math.

• Value of assets can be quantified
• Value of strategy cannot be
• You'll be needing both for success

We players of Splinterlands can't escape the reality of being an investor. What we can escape is being a trader. I'm not bashing you traders. I'm trader as well. But the numbers you see on screen aren't the only values here. The fun you have and the strategies you create along with crazy scenarios have a value as well. It's a qualitative value.

Hard To Put $$$ On

• I get extra DEC for gold cards
• New cards to handle certain rule sets
• Card to get you out of a pinch
• Combos you can pull off with abilities
• Being eligible for future airdrops

You've seen how unpredictable the world of probability can be. What if I get a Gold Legendary as an airdrop because of the packs I bought for the opening...........

These are my thoughts. This is how I'm sticking for the long run. If I had left Splinterlands on a bad day, these good days wouldn't have come. Not everything don here in the game can be put a $ sign on. Like the probabilities show us the likelihood that tend to play out on the long term, we should take our time and stick with the things that'd probably ikely build a better and more awesome future!