A lot has happened in Splinterlands these past months with the SPS airdrop and an explosion of new users combined with pretty much everything being sold out. Right now, everyone is pretty much waiting for new card packs that will come with the Chaos Legion Expansion.
These new card packs bring somewhat of a trilemma that is quite difficult to solve and I guess the reason why there are no details yet is because no optimal solution has been found yet. The 3 main requirements this next expansion needs to have are:
1. ScarcityEach new set of card packs (each pack includes 5 cards) so far has seen an increase in the number of total packs indirectly based on the number of players that are in the game. The Alpha Set had 300k Packs / Beta 900k Packs / Untamed 1.5M Packs. For each of these cards sets, the number of cards that needed to be combined to reach higher levels also increased.
Basically, they can't print too many new cards packs since the scarcity factor of cards in the game needs to be maintained in order to keep up the value. The gap between level 1 cards and level 2 cards also already is massive needing to combine 5 cards to get it to level 2 giving it better stats.
2. Affordable EntryThe idea behind packs is that they provide an affordable entry for new players who want to buy some cards to start building their collection. The advantage of packs in the past always has been that you had a gambler's chance to hit something really good while the overall expectation of value from packs based on prices on the market was negative (otherwise you could just buy packs and instantly sell for a profit).
Right now for new players to build their own collection, it quickly becomes very expensive since demand is high while supply is low because existing players aren't selling since they are getting the generous SPS airdrop and they need their cards who all have their use in the game.
3. SPS Use-Case One of the main differences between Chaos Legion and the previous Card sets is that there now is the SPS Token that needs to be given a proper use-case. I personally see SPS as a brilliant way to get eyes on Splinterlands in the general crypto Space in the short run which worked better than expected. In essence (as long as there is no direct profit share paid to SPS holders), everything works and could be done without the SPS Token though making it so that they need to force a proper use-case onto it so players want to actually buy and hold it keeping up the price.
From what it looks like right now, x amount of SPS stakes will allow players to get in on the pre-sale of Chaos Legion. Chaos Legion worked in a way where once x amount of packs were sold, an airdrop was done as a lottery with everyone that bought packs being in it giving those that were in from the start more of these airdrops to possibly get cards from.
The Chaos Legion TrilemmaSo all 3 requirements of Scarcity, being an affordable entry, & SPS getting a proper use-case need to be fulfilled which is rather hard as each one comes at the cost of the other.
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Print too many cards creating an affordable entry and you screw up the scarcity possibly making the prices cards go for collapse completely while reducing the use-case of SPS.
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Make card Packs more scarce and they most likely will all be bought up quickly all at once by some whales after the pre-sale is over which only temporarily gave SPS a bigger use-case.
Possible SolutionSo in the best-case scenario, packs and cards remain relatively scarce but still affordable and they also give SPS a use-case.
I don't think the old model of doing a pre-sale giving buyers the advantage of getting all the airdrop cards moving forward will work as it would create a pump&dump for SPS before and after the sale is over with an option for whales to buy all packs at once and less scarcity because many airdrop cards will get printed.
Instead what could be done to meet all 3 Factors:
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Drop the entire airdrop model, the reason it was put in place was to give players an incentive to buy packs in a time ware Supply > Demand which now has flipped. These airdrops also created some of the most overpowered cards (Yodin Zaku (600$+)/ Scarred Llama Mage (700$+) that are just not fun to play against.)
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Spread the supply of packs equally over 12 months so they are sure to enter in circulation gradually while whales aren't able to buy all of them at once. Possibly even burn the packs that aren't bought each month which makes the supply flexible based on supply and demand.
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Only allow players that have SPS staked to buy packs depending on how much SPS they have staked. Something like the Quest potion which instead of loot chests releases one or multiple card packs each day/week in a way that is affordable for new players also requiring them to have some SPS Staked.
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Create an in-game secondary market for packs where they can be sold to new players who don't have SPS staked likely at a small premium allowing those with SPS to flip with a small profit.
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Add time bonus benefits like a small discount for SPS that remains staked so there is an incentive for players to keep it staked for many years. Right now it feels like a setup where you can load up on SPS, get some advantages, and dump it all again.
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Keep Chaos Legion Packs on the side to be given out with a similar ~1% chance to get them from Loot Chests.
This is only a rough idea based on a quick brainstorm but it would give SPS a great use-case holding the price up, keep the cards scarce enough based on supply and demand while allowing all new players to get an affordable entry in the next 12 months. I would allow holders of SPS to pretty much mint the Chaos Legion Packs in a similar way how Land Owners will be able to mint Potions and Spells next year on the Land Expansion.
Regardless of what happens, I'm quite confident that the devs will figure out a good solution which they have nearly always done so far bringing the game to where it is today. I am looking forward to getting to know all the exact details and I will likely break them down sharing my view and the numbers once they are released...
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