Hallo, we are back again!
The Community Engagement Challenge was announced a bit later this week but on a topic I really wanted to dig into: my thoughts and how I approach the new rewards system.
A lot of changes are coming to Splinterlands, and I’m here for it.
Not all of it is perfect, we will need to spend more, and there’s too much in the pipeline to spend DEC / SPS / GLINT on just. So where do I start?
For now, let’s focus on the new reward set and how we can actually earn them.
What’s changing: Unbound Conclave rewards & higher costs
The biggest change: some of the Conclave reward cards are directly unbound now. That means in rarity draws or chests, you can get a gold card that is already tradable / sellable. For many that sounds amazing. but there is a flip side.
Because now the rarity draws and chest cards have had their costs increased significantly:
| Tier | Old Cost | New Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Common | 150 | 300 |
| Rare | 750 | 1,500 |
| Epic | 7,500 | 15,000 |
| Legendary | 35,000 | 70,000 |
| ------ | ---------- | ---------- |
| Minor Chest | 200 | 500 |
| Major Chest | 1,000 | 2,500 |
| Ultimate Chest | 4,500 | 10,000 |
That is steep inflation. But it makes sense: the underlying value grows the price must move up.
I’m going to try to adapt and hit my goal: finish the set just by earning. Just as with rebellion soulbound.
One possible effect: maybe regular foils become cheaper in the market (since unbound golds will compete). So those gold ones I land might I might sell to buy some regular foils. Time will tell.
For me, I don’t mind bound cards either, the fun is in the hunt, the puzzle of completing the set.
And it gives some flex if you have an bounded rewards set is mean you have spend some time on it collecting it.
Rebellion rewards & my progress
Side note: with the Rebellion rewards set, I’m ~98 % done (hoping to finish just before the Conclave reward set fully drops). For me that’s part of the system, slowly building toward each set.
Unbinding Scrolls (and the economy of trade)
Let’s talk about Unbinding Scrolls, a potentially massive shift. Right now, when you open rewards you often end up with too many duplicates. You could trade them or try to swap, but unbinding scrolls formalize that.
As you can see in the image below i have some extra copies so what todo with them burn them for extra glint... i might do that.
What are you all doing with your extra copies.
If you can unbind cards and then trade them, that adds a new layer of liquidity. And what’s extra cool is that they can be craftable with land resources. That gives land more use, something we really need more of in the ecosystem.
Costs will be in Aura, so I might fire up another Aura factory if I can. The craft-economy with land + scrolls is something I’m watching closely.
| Rarity | Aura Cost |
|---|---|
| Common | 100 Aura |
| Rare | 400 Aura |
| Epic | 2,000 Aura |
| Legend | 10,000 Aura |
Ultimate chases: Black Foils & Fortune Draws
The most exciting (and rare) rewards are the Black Foils in the Fortune Draws.
These (fortune draws) were a hit in Frontier and now are being introduced in ranked play.
Landing one of those is a dream, they’re ultra-rare, ultra valuable. Max card you of the gate.
How you enter for those
They tie entry tickets to your staked SPS. Here’s a table (from the detailed announcement post showing how many entries you can get per 5 wins depending on SPS stake and league:
| SPS Stake | Entry Cap | League | Entries / 5 Wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000,000 | 30 | Champion | 30 |
| 2,500,000 | 25 | Diamond | 20 |
| 1,000,000 | 20 | Gold | 12 |
| 500,000 | 16 | Silver | 6 |
| 250,000 | 12 | Bronze | 3 |
| 100,000 | 8 | — | — |
| 50,000 | 6 | — | — |
| 25,000 | 4 | — | — |
| 10,000 | 2 | — | — |
| 2,500 | 1 | — | — |
| < 2,500 | 0 | — | — |
In my case, I’ve got around 500,000 SPS staked (just topped off this morning).
That means:
- For my Diamond bot, the cap from staking is 16, but Diamond league allows up to 20 — so I’m limited by my stake, earning 16 entries per 5 wins.
- For my manual Gold matches, Gold league caps at 12, which is below my stake limit — so I earn 12 entries per 5 wins.
Now the tricky game is deciding: let the bot play (higher consistency, more wins, more entries) or play myself (for fun). The bot still beats me at times, the reality of automation vs human play.
I might also drop some leagues intentionally (say, Silver) and then rank back up to Gold to squeeze extra entries in.
Concerns & balance
One worry: high-level whales can earn so much glint (or rewards) that they absorb a lot of the economic flow. They might afford to buy energy with GLINT, relentlessly farm entries (3x entries in wild 3x entries in modern), etc. Meanwhile, a regular player with ~50 % win rate might struggle to keep pace. That said it might be fair because they have invest to play at that level.... not sure yet time will tell.
The team seems fully aware that balancing is going to require constant adjustments. That’s a huge shoutout to them. Especially to @davemccoy, your engagement with the community, listening and responding, matters. We see you and appreciate it.
Also: the team is walking a fine line and working hard.
All well balanced we might hit it right spot between gamers and degens, nice article to read about that:
Are We Gamers or Just Degens? The Identity Crisis of Web3 Communities
Important dates & events
Here you can see my staking habits of the past years
In this chart you can see some clear events where i felt the need to increase my staked SPS.
July 2023: ranked rewards start scaling by staked SPS. this is when Splinterlands removed collection power requirements and introduced the SPS staking multiplier for ranked battle rewards. many of us staked more to hit better multipliers.
April 2024: the GLINT + Reward Shop overhaul goes live. modern and wild ranked each pay GLINT and SPS from their own calculations.
June 2025: Yaba’s Pickle release, 400k for the snapshot.
October 2025 Conclave Arcana reward set begins rolling into ranked with the Fortune Draw. i topped up to 500k SPS here to chase entries and adapt to the new reward structure. this matches the launch press and docs emphasis this week.
Final thoughts
So here’s a wrap:
- Yes, things are going up in cost.
- Yes, the new unbinding and scroll mechanics might shake markets.
- Yes, the ultra-rare rewards create hype, but must balance with fairness.
- The team is trying, this won’t be perfect day one.
For me that’s what keeps splinterlands alive. the economy changes, metas shift, new sets roll in, and we all adapt. that’s the beauty of a living game.
It’s okay. We play the long game. We adapt.
Do you also want to be part of this amazing play to earn game consider using my refferal link.
Burning what we have extra from the old reward cards is tempting, but I think I will use at least a part of them in Survival when it returns.
I think there is too much distance between the sps staked tiers, the gap between 100k and 250k is over $1000, imo there should've been more tiers in between
When you're letting the bot play you could also make a modern alt account, the only thing you need is extra SPS you could rent, or are you manually also playing in wild and don't have a modern deck?
Exciting times are coming for sure! 😍
I was going to say it's going to be a big choice between burning for glint or holding for survival, I think burn for glint with the exception of the key reward cards - also depends on what calibre the new rewards are I suppose
yeah not easy.... it depend imho if you have enough archons to play the survival game, i think those will determine how long you can enjoy that mode.
True, being able to choose a level will also make a difference. luckily, depending on how you view it, I won’t have many max reward cards so don’t have to worry 😁
A post really worth reading it. Thanks
Thanks @kisifer, new player in splinterlands or already been around for while?
I have not seen many reaction from you IIRC.
In Splinterlands since 2021 :) I have been through many changes :) I can't wait for more.
Very nice balanced article Beaker! Thanks for weighing in and giving people many things to think about! You're a major asset to the community!!!
Thanks @davemccoy 😎
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Thanks for sharing! - @mango-juice
