Splinterlands: Unpacking Land. A deep dive...conclusion.

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Yesterday I wrote 2000 words here about what the future Land implementation will hold in Splinterlands. It wasn't enough. This is the rest...

What good are Resources without Items & Spells?

One of the concerns that yabapmatt wanted to address is the fact that the Items & Spells part of the game is still a long way from being added. In fact, it's probably at least a year out yet if not two. So what will be the point of farming these resources in the game if you can't use them?

Titles

The answer was two-fold. First, there will be titles. Just as there are titles currently in the game for people who bought a certain number of packs or participated to certain levels in pre-sales, the plan is to add prefixes to your name as well. For example, right now you could be "dagger212 The Praetorian" (I'm not, but it's an example) or "The Legionnaire" or "The Watcher". In the future you will be able to compete to gain a title such as "Lord" or "Baron" or "Sir" or even possibly "King" or "Emperor". These will add, at this point, unknown benefits to your Land holdings. Maybe it's an increase in production or a shortening of the time it takes to do something. That part hasn't been figured out yet. But the titles will add value.

Upgrades

The thought is that since players won't be able to use their farmed resources to create Items or develop Spells, they will instead be able to use them to compete for titles. They will also be able to use them to upgrade certain buildings, like Arenas. So those resources won't simply sit in your account doing nothing. There will be uses for them between the time they are implemented and the time they can be used for crafting.

The Secret of Praetoria

Another area they may be able to be used is for the "Secret of Praetoria". What is that? The Secret of Praetoria is going to be a massive game within the game where entire territories of landholders (there are seven) compete against the other territories to try and uncover it first. The details are very broad at this point, but it sounds like landholders from each territory will need to work together to build something gigantic to uncover this "secret" which will benefit every landholder in the territory. The degree to which you benefit will be determined by the degree in which you participate in its uncovering. Whether it's sending resources, or DEC, or SPS, or whatever, landholders will work together to uncover the secret and the benefits it bestows.

From what they're hinting at, the benefits will not be exclusive to the first team to uncover it. All territories will eventually get it. But the benefits will include both the resource management aspect and the gameplay aspect of the game, so having it first could give you a decent advantage over other teams/players while you hold it alone. Also, this will NOT be a quick process. The idea is to have it being completed sometime around when Items & Spells are ready to be implemented as it will impact that as well. In other words, this should take months, if not years, to complete.

What does it all mean?

So, what does this all mean to me as a cardholder/landowner/player? Well, I think there a couple of things we can take out of this that should be primary areas of focus going forward.

First, lets do some math on cards. As much as people have complained about the card market having too many cards and prices dropping, the need and demand for cards once land is implemented is going to be massive. Consider there are 150,000 plots of land. If each of them needs five cards to maximize efficiency then that means there will need to be 750,000 maxed out cards in land.

According to Splintercards, there are roughly 120M BCX of common cards total in the game, Alpha thru Riftwatchers. That means if every card got combined to max level there would be roughly 300k max level commons. The number would actually be substantially less due to Alpha/Beta needing 505 to max and the fact that some got combined over max, etc. But let's just go with it. There are only 300k max level commons theoretically available to cover 750k max level slots in land. There could be another 320k maxed out rares. 150k epics. 170k legendary. These numbers are simply taking the total BCX printed and dividing it by the number needed to max out the card. In total, there is the potential to have 940k maxed out cards in the game.

So, a potential 940k maxed cards to fill 750k slots. That doesn't take into account cards that were burned, cards being played, cards in dead accounts, etc. This is just combining every card available. There is no way we get anywhere close to filling these slots with fully maxed cards with the current amount of cards in circulation. People are going to need to buy a LOT of cards if they want to maximize efficiency on land while at the same time still playing the game. How many thousands of cards are being controlled by bots right now? They probably won't be combining many of the cards they "own". The price of cards almost has to go up. The rental market should tighten up as well.

We're about to experience a supply chain shock. Just like prices skyrocketed in the real-world when they shut everything down for Covid, there aren't going to be enough cards for the demand, so prices will have to get to a point where things become too expensive for people to keep buying. Who knows where that will be? It will obviously be different for each card, but in my mind it will be substantially higher than where they are now. Throw a bull market into the mix and things could get crazy.

Stack Cards

In other words, it's probably not a bad idea to be stacking up on cheap cards right now. It doesn't sound like it will matter much which cheap cards you have, they just need to be maxed to get max potential. Whether its the Venari Heatsmith or the Failed Summoner, price won't matter, just rarity and level.

Fill Bags

The other thing to be doing is probably filling bags with DEC and SPS while it's cheap. yabatmatt said there will need to be "10s of billions" of DEC in the game in order to do everything that people are going to want to do. Right now there's what, 6 billion? There will be DEC sinks everywhere while also having many things which will require DEC to be staked. Even if that DEC doesn't get burned, it will still leave circulation while it's being used. There could very easily be a supply crunch here as well, just like cards.

One of the ways this can be alleviated is for people to burn SPS to convert it to DEC. This will obviously start cutting into the SPS out there, and while it may not make a huge difference early on in the game, eventually it will start putting upward pressure on the price of SPS.

Long Story Short

To wrap it up, cards are going to become more and more scarce as we get towards land being implemented. Combining them will become a priority which means the rental market should probably pick up as well. Second, massive amounts of DEC are going to be needed inside the land expansion. Third, SPS is going to be needed to provide enough DEC to work the land. In other words, demand should be going up on all of them.

This is in no way financial advice. Just my thoughts on some of the dynamics going into this game. Do your own research.

I'm sure I missed some things so feel free to add them to the comments below. Thanks for reading!

Hive is the Way.

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The land is reasonable priced. When I started playing splinterlands, lands were already sold out. So now I could sell some cards and get 1 piece of land, but then you need lots of cards for land expansion. I think I better just wait and see if land prices can come down a bit !

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Yeah, I don't know what to tell you there. My feeling is that the prices will steadily climb the closer we get to actual implementation but I really have no idea. They've been selling for as much as $400-$500 per plot in the past. The bear market has brought everything down. If the bull comes, look out. I don't think it will take long for them to climb again. That said, I think the most recent Townhall both stoked the flames but also threw cold water on some people with land. While owning some is going to be super fun and probably very profitable, owning a LOT is also going to be very expensive to get rolling. There's going to be a lot of work involved in developing them, not to mention the millions and millions of DEC yabapmatt talked about. There may be some big landholders willing to sell a bunch on the way up to fund their other plots. Time will tell as always.

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(Edited)

That's right they were that price before. Now it's really quite cheap, and I think can be so profitable. I seriously should consider and try even just get 1. It be fun and good to do some expansion on it. Thanks for your great analysis !

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That would be great if the scarcity happens. Its nice to hear a positive spin on the future of the game! I would love to see Dec and Sps gain momentom, and like you said about a bull run on top of it would amplify it all too!

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Yes, I think the future looks bright. There are obviously still growing pains but the overall arc of the game seems solid. People get all bent out of shape with how expensive it's getting, and it is, but the game has evolved. It's a much better game than it was a couple years ago. I kind of look at it like a musical act. When they start out you can go to your local bar and watch them for free. Then you start paying a small cover to watch them in better venues. Then it's a larger cover to get a "ticket". Ultimately, you're frozen out of Ticketmaster by the bots and can't even get in the building. lol

Splinterlands has gone regional and once land hits, it could really hit the big time. There will literally be full time players that make their living "playing" Splinterlands. I expect there will literally be millions of dollars flowing around and through this economy once it's all fully implemented. There's still a long ways to go and while I don't think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, there's definitely a hint of it coming on the road ahead.

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Well, that would make so many people very well off, I would be in a great spot too, and would be wondering how to splain it to uncle sam!

I guess thats a good problem to have!

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I see you are in Minnesota, you nut job! That shit is cold, I was there in December and they said - 10 was nothing. lol

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10 below is 10 below. It's not "nothing". lol But it definitely does get worse. I've been through a few 30 below days with windchills close to 70 below. That's when you go outside and throw a pot of boiling water in the air and it evaporates in a puff of steam before it hits the ground. Crazy shit. The price we pay to have all four seasons...

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Lands are truly going to change the direction of Splinter lands, they are not only going to increase the demand for the cards, but also bring players something more interesting and important to stick to this game and enjoy it more. Same is the case with Axie infinity, they just released the Land Alpha, and now they are going to release the burning mechanism which will use Slp as a burning tokens, Splinterlands should take Dec/sps as a burning token if needed in the Lands.

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I'm pretty sure that's the ultimate goal. The DEC will be burned on a regular basis and can only be recreated using SPS (or burning cards--which I don't think will happen much anymore). So, once the SPS is fully distributed, the token will become deflationary and will slowly draw down from the 5 billion in existence. In the meantime, I think the scarcity of the cards will enhance the prices and the rental markets. There will also be an entirely separate "game" on the Land side. People are going to have lots of options on how they want to "play" Splinterlands. Battling will just be one part.

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Thanks for your analysis!
I have one quick question - you say that a huge number of "maxed out cards" will be needed for Lands. is that a requirement? That is, can only maxed out cards be used on Land, or can i use my cards (which are definitely NOT maxed out) on my Land even if they provide reduced benefit?
!LUV

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Absolutely. In fact, there's a possibility maxed cards won't even matter until you "max" out the upgrades on the buildings. It's not set in stone how those will work yet but I know you will need to work to upgrade your buildings. I'm not sure if that will effect your card level or not. Kind of like higher level Summoners allow you to use higher level cards. The same may end up being true with buildings. I'm sure we'll know more in the next 60 days when they publish the full whitepaper.

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that's super interesting. I hope you're right, otherwise, Land is a mega-whale playground and shrimps like me will be forced to sell off our hard-earned plots. Who knows what they will come up with for their next announcement, maybe MLS football stars will play tower defense on the lands?

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lol. You know, that is not as far-fetched as it may sound. I think there is every possibility that someday down the road games could do some cooperative joint ventures. Like maybe the MLS stars don't play tower defense, but what if they played one of their games in a Splinterlands arena? There's a lot of cool shit that could happen 10 years down the road. It's all digital and it's all play2earn so...there could be some wild collaborations. Fun to think about...

I think you're going to be just fine with your plot(s). I would not even think about giving it up unless you have more than one and want to use the proceeds to fund the development on the other one. Or, if you just see an offer you can't refuse, like 1 Bitcoin or something. lol

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Nice,

Lord Dagger

:)

and stack those cards! (as well as Leo, HIVE, and HBD)

time to buy SPS too??

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Stack 'em all. A rising tide floats all boats. If Bitcoin runs, they all should benefit.

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I will say here that this team should have done what they promised to release Land on time. The biggest advantage of bear market is that we get everything at a very low rate, like the plots of this game now, if we had bought it some time ago, we would have got it at a much lower price. In those days, if we wanted, we could play on it, if not, we could sell it in the market at high prices. People like his Land game so we will see more users in coming days. I don't understand people wait a whole year and a half for a bear market and don't sell things, but when things start to go up they sale very quickly. Over the next few days we will see the price of its cards and SPS coins go up.

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Haven't you figured it out yet? 90% of people buy high and sell low. It's how Wall Street makes their billions. :-)

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