I recently started playing Splinterlands regularly after a break of few months. Before I took this sabbatical I used to play in the Gold league but as I was inactive for a couple of consecutive seasons I was pushed back to start from scratch. Climbing up from Bronze I league proved harder than I imagined as there were many players in Bronze I who had legendary summoners and would easily beat any team I formed. I was wondering why are they staying and not going ahead to Silver if they have so many amazing cards. After a bit of struggle I finally managed to break into Silver League in the last season and could really feel the improvement in the rewards that came out of the chests. I plan to move into the gold league in the next season but looking at the current competition level I am sure it is not going to be a cake walk.
Silver League Vs Bronze League
I think if you have the cards in your pack then you should definitely advance to Silver as the quality if rewards is much higher in Silver league as compared to bronze. However you must be prepared to face tough resistance while clearing the last part of Bronze I as you will be against opponents who are at top of Bronze and know how to play low level cards and your levelled up cards will be of no use if you don’t have a clever strategy to back it up.
Summary of my rewards in the last season is as below which is a good mix of regular cards, rare, epic and legendary monsters, summoners, gold foil.
If I compare it to my rewards in the last season when I played in Bronze league then the difference is quite stark as the number and quality of cards I got was much lower.
This motivates me to push harder this season and try to break into gold as early as possible. Let’s see if I get lucky to be back in gold after a long time.
Why am I still Bullish on Splinterlands?
I noticed on their discord that many old time players have stopped playing or sold their collections due to several reasons. Many are frustrated with reduced earning and inability to sell the soul bound NFTs.
I still am bullish on the long term prospects of the game as it keeps developing on the roadmap and has recently announced launch of the latest Rebellion pack and you can already buy it though these packs can’t be opened. I expect Chaos cards will start picking up value soon.
I have seen the Splinterlands ecosystem expand over the years from a basic card pack battle game to a complex environment with different card types, the Runi NFTs, Land which will soon come into the picture, Node, SPS token. I think at some point they should take a pause and try to consolidate everything. I am sure it will start getting overwhelming for a new player who starts playing now and wonders what all these different components of the game are.
The good thing is that the active player community is really big and there are innumerable guides in form of blogs and videos created by the players which can be useful for new entrants.
My View on Soulbound Tokens
I know many old time players don’t like the concept of soul bound NFTs as they can’t be traded but I think it was necessary to avoid dilution of the card value as more players enter the scene and reward chests numbers go up.
As you continue to earn SPS tokens with each win the $ value of Play2 Earn is still there. I know with current value of SPS it is not much but if you have the patience to wait I am sure it will worth something in the future.
Cheers,
Sam