Season ender special: Is renting for power worth it?

In this post, we will be using simple math and data to decide if it is worth it to rent for power during the end of season, given the steep rental prices. Now that we are only a day away from the season-end, I hope that this post helps players who are still undecided on this area.

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Recap of previous end of season rental prices

Season-end rentals countdown

Screenshot of actual rental prices, 4 hours before season-end

In the previous season, rental prices during the last day went through the roof with most of the cards available for renting priced at more than 1,000 DEC/day. As you can see in the above image, you would have to pay a minimum of 3,900 DEC/day just to rent a Gold Foil Legendary. While there are cards that are occasionally listed at way cheaper prices, you would have to be fast enough to "snipe" these deals. Personally, I did not have any luck in sniping for good deals last season.

While season-end rental prices are usually higher than any day in the season, last season's rates were much steeper than the prior ones. To see the last day rental prices from a month ago, check out this post.

In my opinion, there are three main reasons behind the significant uptick in season-end rental prices:

• Season chest rewards are now based on your league by end of season, NOT ON THE HIGHEST ACHIEVED league during the season. This increase the demand for collection power at season-end.

• There is a significant increase in player base. Daily average players have increased by ~140K. More demand for card rentals, but cards supply is more or less the same or just increased by a bit (except for the new reward cards, no new cards were released in that one-month period)

Daily active players (Source: PeakMonsters)

• Last season was the first season-end when the Chaos Legion reward cards are available. This makes players more excited to open more chests during the season-end.

Is renting for power at end of season worth it?

Now, for the more important part: Is spending four-digits of DEC worth all of it? Does the additional chests warrant the stress while renting and spending four-digits worth of DEC?

Sure, the idea of being lucky, and the adrenaline in opening chests play a large role on it. But in this post, we would like to focus more on making decisions based on logic and data.

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End season loot chests value for each league

First, let us take a look at the value of loot chests for each league. All credits goes to @tehox for making this amazing tool in Splintercards.

Data is from Splintercards, last updated: Sept. 28, 2021 - 16:30

As you can see, the value for each league increases dramatically, but very few of these have a more than 1,000 DEC increase for end season loot chests value. It is also important to note that with the almost 4,000 DEC/day rental price from previous season, only the Champions League has a value more than the rental price. This supports the point that it does not make sense to rent cards at extremely high prices, especially just for the sake of increasing power for season-end rewards.

To better appreciate the increase for each league, let us look at the graphical representation below.

*LCV = loot chest value; graph made in Python/Seaborn

Note: If you want to calculate the exact figures, you can simply subtract the loot chests value for the higher league vs. the prior league. Example: 3,149(Diamond I) - 2,624 (Diamond II) = 525.

As you can see in the figure, the highest chest value difference when you move up a league is from Diamond I to Champions III, which is 4,199 - 3,149 = 1,050 DEC. Still lower than the >3,000 DEC/day rentals for gold foil legendary cards in the previous season.

To further drive the point, we should also highlight that we are comparing the loot chests value on a price for renting a SINGLE GOLD FOIL LEGENDARY card. For Untamed and Dice, this only adds 50,000 to the Collection Power. You will still fall short in the Gold league if your CP is solely reliant on this single card.

Gold league requirements

What are the better alternatives?

There are two better alternatives that we can do instead of renting cards at illogical prices. These are buying a Quest potion and buying the cards that we want from the Market.

Buying a Quest potion

Actual price is 750 DEC, the screenshot has a guild discount

While I am not a fan of buying Quest potion at current DEC prices, this is still a much better alternative than renting gold foil legendary cards at more than 1,000 DEC/day each.

Let me put it in a better context for you.

Until Gold I, all of the jump in each succeeding league awards less than 5 additional loot chests. On the other hand, a Quest potion awards you 5 additional Loot chests at the cost of 750 DEC. This means that if you go to the four-digit DEC rental route, you will be basically getting less, while paying more in your rentals.

I am partial to this alternative because the DEC value of 5 loot chests at the moment is 52 * 5 = 260 DEC. Not pushing my luck if the math says I'll lose money. It is a good option for those who wants the thrill of opening chests, and who are quite confident that they are lucky.

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Buy the cards that you want (highly recommended)

Since you will be paying A LOT of DEC in rentals, why not just buy the cards that you want directly from the Market? At current market price, you can already get THREE DJINN BILJKA or one Djinn Oshannus at less than 4,000 DEC. If you don't like the Legendary cards, you can also go shopping for the old edition cards or level up a lot of new reward cards. Heck, you will get a tone of those reward cards with four-digits worth of DEC!

Current market price of Legendary reward cards

The main advantage of this method is you get to build your teams deliberately and build up your collection power along the way. You can easily improve your teams, because you are the one who is choosing which cards you will get. Compared to a Loot Chest, where everything is happening by chance.

The verdict: rent only for power at logical prices

In case you haven't figured it out yet, my advice is DO NOT RENT CARDS AT ILLOGICAL PRICES.

How can you know if it is illogical?

That will always depend on a case-to-case scenario basis. I highly suggest that you use the computation shown above, and the Splintercards loot chests tool to guide you in your decision-making.

Here is an example scenario:

Scenario
You are not sure if you should be paying 50 DEC to increase your collection power, which will consequently give you three additional loot chests.

Making decision based on math
According to the Splintercards tool, a single Chest has an approximate value of 52 DEC. You will be getting three additional chests, which equates to 52 * 3 = 156. This means that pushing through with this rent will yield you an expected profit of 156 - 52 = 104 DEC.

There you have it! I hope this posts help you decide better as we are nearing another exciting end of season in Splinterlands.

CREDITS

• All images related to Splinterlands and from PeakMonsters
• flauwy for the awesome looking dividers
• tehox for making an amazing free to use tool called Splintercards
• Cover photo made in Canva