The Hype is over. A new dawn?

Land cards are all crafted. Wood is back under GF 1, meaning again it is more efficient to farm Grain and sell it, instead of producing wood. But that's okay, we had a great run.

Quo vadis, terra? Unde venis?

I originally wanted to make this post about the perks of land cards and what it means for the game - but I slipped into a chronology of events for land in 2025. I think it's a good idea to go back in time, and see what was accomplished over the year. If the team had planned for that anyway - I apologize. If you're interested, here's the complete log of updates.

Potentials

The land card frenzy was more of a proof of concept. The more utility land has, the more we get for our resources. And compared to how we started 2025, there is a lot more utility to land. Do you remember Land pre-march 2025? Research, SPS, Grain, nothing else?

I just read a great post by @bozz about things going wrong in Splinterlands, and the delay in land is mentioned, too - rightfully so. There hadn't been much development for a long time, but to be fair 2025 was what influencer call "a banger year". Will it bring back the players lost? Probably not. Will it attract new players? Hopefully so!

MARCH 2025 - Land 1.75

The "big bang" happened in March 2025. Wood, Stone, Iron came into the game. Suddenly, not every plot was able to produce grain. Many SPS mines and research labs disappeared, making space for the new resources. Plot prices spiked - especially grain plots. I wish there was a record for that. If I remember correctly, they went up to 20$/plot again.

It came with trade hubs and everything. They got tweaked over time, made better, and are constantly burning both DEC as well as resources - 5% of each swap is burned. If you want to know how much that is - click here to get to the respective site of the BLT.

17.5 M DEC burned by Land so far. Not counting the cards (mostly Chaos Legion) during the land card/Cinder rush, visible in December 2025. And that's only 5% of the trading volume. Some more data to show the importance (or un-importance) of land:

Total Supply:	6,200 M DEC
Currently Circulating:	2,865 M DEC
Staked on land:	1,560 M DEC
% staked of Total	25%
Burned through land	17,5 M DEC
% burned of total	0.28%

That's a deflation of 0.28% - not much, yet. But with 25% of DEC being staked, that is already a sink. And it's just he beginning. Maybe next year we'll already reach 0.5% YEARLY deflation through burning?

April 29th - First craftable sellable.

Just one month later, the very first item crafteable only on land was introduced - the midnight potion. And with it, another resource, Aura. As a soulbound resource, it's not easy to create, needing research points for the license and then a plot that consumes all other resources. But it is possible, as everything.

With that, for the first time, landladies and lords were able to craft an item and sell it - besides SPS. That was right before Conclave Arcana and the use case for the potions, Black Foil, were released - guess what it did to resource prices?

All except grain went up. At least for a little, until the hype was over. Back then, I bought the potions for 60 DEC/each from the notoriously generous @thejedo - the real price was a lot higher. Now, they're at 35 DEC/potion, give or take.

June 24th - Leave a land mark.

The next use cases for Aura, and with that land. Auction marks and Fortune Draw entries. The integration of land into features of the game went on. Until now, it has all been bonus-oriented, no real game-play yet (and it isn't until today). Yet, every little extra item helps out the long term perspective of land.

July 8th - How To Train Your Wagon

That word game is just my league of lowest drawer. Loved it, still love it when I read through the notes. Wagons have to be crafted from now on. Wood, Stone, Iron and Aura go into it, and with that a lot of Grain that feeds it all.

While there was a jump in resource prices the day after the implementation, grain did not react, really. It took a little longer.

And it could not stop the downfall of Stone prices for long. And that, too, is a good thing - the "free market" in Splinterlands is a lot more intact than in real life it seems.

July 15th - Make it pretty.

No, this one was not a major land update. On the contrary, it was small for land. Conflicts started, that took the attention, but even in the shadow of that, there were improvements of how land looked, trying to make it easier to use, more comprehensible.

It doesn't always take big updates. This little one proves that there is constant work on land. Even one week after a big one, there is already progress on the next little features. And if you go through all the updates, you will find that there is almost always one or two little fixes or improvements on land.

December 2nd - Never the same again.

Land Cards are a thing now - and not only that. They're not only providing utility to land, causing a huge spike in resource costs, but also a new resource is implemented - Cinder, needed to craft, and only obtainable by burning cards. Of course, Chaos Legion was the favorite, but others were burned, too.

Almost 100 M collection power were burned for the land cards. No, that is not an enormous amount, around 1,000$ in CL cards. But as mentioned before - it was a proof of concept.

Conclusion

Yes, we can use land to the benefit of the whole eco-system of Splinterlands. Right now, it's tinkering around, see what works and what doesn't. As I explained in a different post, we have around 18 months until the land card sink turns inflationary.

And it's only 9 months since Land 1.75. If @cryptomancer keeps up the pace, we'll be at 0.84% DEC yearly deflation through land by then. Active plots are already on the rise now, not much to be honest, but notable - 500 plots more are active now than in April 2025.

Plus constantly increasing Cinder use-cases starting a whole new fly wheel - burning cards for land profit. Oh, the possibilities for calculations! The amount of Excel files, columns, plots and fields!

But be aware - we're at only 32% active plots. There won't be any heavy acceleration in land value until we reach something around 90%. Before that, each rise in resource prices will attract more players buying plots and producing more, having the prices drop again.

This is not for short term gains. This is for the long haul. Land is for the patient. Real Life farmer's can attest to that. They'd be happy to have the progress that The Secret of Praetoria made in 9 months.

Terra vadit ad felicitatem - Spes est.

5% of the rewards will go to @beaker007 for creating the tool, and 2% to @saydie for free Dividers - Click here. Always grateful for all of that! Remember to support those who give you cool stuff for free 😉

Former Calculation Posts

Calculations around Land

Deep Dive into Land Cards

Basic Land Card Calculations

Stone is a losing game

Land - Setting it up.

Calculating Land part 1 - How to get your ROI
Calculating Land part 2 - Are pools worth it?
Calculating Land part 3 - Organic Growth
Land Plot Efficiency for non-whales
Card-Production-Coefficient - Combining LPE and ROI
Renting for Land - at what cost?
What do refined resources cost?
Calculating Totem and Title boosts
Calculating Plot Rarity Boost
Setting up a Rare Stone Plot

My perfect plot - Conclusion of my calculations

Land Plot Calculator

Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it at least as much as I enjoyed writing :-D If you have any comments or feedback - please let me know! And don't forget to leave your own posts for me to curate. Thank you very much!

If you don't play the game yet, you can use my referral: Click here for referral :-)