"What's the Point in Gold Foils?"
A lot of you who are new to the game may have asked this to yourself when looking at the market. "It's just the same card but more expensive!". And in one way, you'd be right. Gold Foil cards do not have any gameplay bonuses in terms of their direct stats - they cost the same mana, do the same damage, and have the same HP. However, Gold cards do have a few advantages:
1) They Take Fewer BCX to Level Up
Gold Foils start at a higher level! For Commons, a 1BCX copy is Level 3, while for every other rarity they begin at Level 2. They also take less to get up those Levels! Where a MAX Level Common from the Chaos Legion set takes 400 copies, it only takes 38 Gold Foils! That's a much less scary sounding number isn't it!
2) They Give More Collection Power
Looking at Max Level cards again, a CL level 10 Common gives you 2100 Collection Power, while the Gold Equivalent gives you 4987! That's over twice as much for the same card - meaning you would need to have to focus on less cards to climb up those Ranked Tiers!
3) They Give Extra DEC in Battle!
That's right, Gold Foils make your wins worth more! For every Gold card you use in a combat where you win, your DEC rewards are increased by 10% (Up to a maximum of 50% for using 5 Gold Foils). This means if you're using them often enough, you can get a big boost in your ranked earnings, increasing your account growth!
Seems like Gold Cards are pretty worth it so far - why don't we all play them all the time? As it turns out, it's not as simple as they are always better to have...
Called Gold for a Reason...
The main downside of Gold Cards - The Price!
If we take a look at their prices on Peakmonsters, we can see Gold Cards are at a minimum 6.5x more expensive. Granted, they count as higher BCX, but if we look at one of my favourite cards from the new set, Chaos Agent, we see this:
A 1BCX Gold Chaos Agent is equivalent to 14 BCX of the Regular Foil. For simplicity as the ratio changes as the cards level, we're going to equate 1 BCX of Gold to 15 of Regular Foil for this post. This means looking at Chaos Agent, we're paying a premium of about $0.9 per Gold BCX we buy, compared to the normal. This isn't cheap! If we want to Max Level a Chaos Agent, a Regular Foil would cost $40, while the Gold is over $90! In a lot of cases, that $50 extra could be better used expanding your collection - it's equivalent to another max level common or two at current prices!
So when would we ever want to own a Golden Foil over a Regular?
Is There Any Value in Golds Then?
So is Gold a Whale trap? Is it always worth getting the regular? To an extent, it depends on your budget. As a Silver player myself, on a low budget, I find myself mostly avoiding Gold cards, as I would like to build up my collection to be more powerful and versatile instead of using more resources for the same card. However, I do have a few exceptions. First of all, low mana cost cards, specifically the new splinter specific 1 costs, and the aforementioned Chaos Agent. I find myself constantly having 1 or 2 mana left in a lot of combats and slipping in a couple of 1 mana meat shields is normally my approach. Because I use these cards so often, the +10% DEC rewards, while small, certainly add up over time!
Here's the maths on Chaos Agent:
At the time of writing, 1 BCX of Chaos Agent costs approximately 30 DEC, making a Level 3 Chaos Agent cost 420 DEC. The cheapest 1 BCX Gold Chaos Agent on the market is 720 DEC, which is 300 more.
Throughout a season the rewards differ, but at Silver 3 I average between 1.5-3 DEC a win throughout the season. Lets put it at 2.25 for average. A 10% boost therefore is worth approximately 0.25 DEC. With 300 DEC difference, that's 1200 wins until the break even point! Feels like a lot huh? But with the amount I play Chaos Agent in my builds, I can easily foresee a scenario where I play him and win that many times over the course of 6 months - 1 year!
Secondly, Gold Foil cards allow me to enter more tournaments or frays for my guild. With the rise in popularity of tournament play that the development team want to encourage, I think picking up even just a Bronze Level Gold deck could be a great investment with tournament prizes and frequency presumably increasing. Due to their versatility, I am picking up a lot of Gold Neutral cards to make my choices stronger in these tournaments no matter what Splinters are available! Key ones include Supply Runner and Disintegrator.
Finally, Gold Foil cards appreciate very well in value over time. This is a much more long term investment for sure, but I believe in the longevity of this game. If we even just look at Untamed Golds, the cheapest are above $5 a BCX! While their supply is of course lower than the current Reward cards or Chaos Legion cards will be, under $1 a BCX for Pelacor Bandits or Conjurers, useful and very playable cards, is an absolute steal in my opinion. These cards are incredibly strong and once they go out of print I expect a large increase in their prices, even more so in Gold Foils!
Summary
Gold Foil cards are definitely a long term investment in this game. If you're trying to reach the higher ranks for the cheapest way they are not the way to go. But if you want to maximise your long term gains, I think it's certainly worth at least considering blinging out your most used cards.
What do you think? Are you picking up Golds for the future, or are you putting your money into a stronger more versatile deck? Let me know below!
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Until next time, good luck in your chests!
Great writeup on Gold vs standard cards. I believe it covered all the points I would have covered. Thanks for writting it.
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Excellent post. I've got mixed thoughts when thinking about the price vs. value, but like you mentioned... long-term probably good. Will feature/share this on my daily Splinterlands Digest post and on Twitter.