Hello everyone! This is my second entry for this week's Splinterlands Social Media Challenge. Today, I'll talk about Midnight Potions and the theory behind their value.
Some of you might be asking: What are Midnight Potions? They double the chances of getting a Black Foil card. And some might also be asking: Black Foil? What is that? Conclave Arcana, the new Splinterlands core set that is going into pre-sale on the 22nd of April, includes some new types of foils, in addition to the well-known Gold Foils. There are Black Foils, Arcane Gold Foils, and Arcane Black Foils. All 3 types come as fully leveled cards. The Arcane versions have a special animation and are pre-minted, and each one has a fixed number. These two are not affected by Midnight Potions. The "regular" Black Foils, on top of being already at max level, are like the gold versions on steroids. They have a mint number, give +20% bonus on ranked rewards, and have half the cooldown of GF cards in Survival mode (so a quarter cooldown of the regular ones). They also have 5x the DEC burn value, Collection Power, and contribution to Conflicts of the Gold Foils. Regarding land, they have a 5x Production Points multiplier.
Black Foil
Black Foils can't appear in starter packs. That's right, this set also has new types of packs. Standard packs are the same as the regular ones. Starter packs cost $1 or 1000 DEC. They contain 1 rare card, and the other 4 can be common or rare (20% chance of being a rare). They can never have epics and legendaries and can only have regular foils. Alchemy packs cost $12 or 12000 DEC. They have one guaranteed GF, and the rest of the cards have regular odds of being GF. If it contains a Black Foil, it overrides the guaranteed GF. Legendary packs cost $24 or 24000 DEC. They have one guaranteed Legendary, and the rest of the cards have regular odds. The odds of getting a Black Foil for the other packs are: 1 in 800 Standard packs, 1 in 80 Alchemy packs, and 1 in 160 Legendary packs.
This was shared in the land channel on Discord. It might not be final.
Back to Midnight Potions. Unlike the potions we are used to, the plan is for them not to appear in reward chests but instead to be produced on land. We still don't have the details for that and I don't have any knowledge about how land works, so I'm the the dark there. However, I can take a look at what might be the biggest factors regarding the price limits.
Expected value added from using Midnight Potions
It's not easy to get the expected value that the Midnight Potions add. In theory, players won't pay more than that for them. It will be difficult to know how much that is, though. We can take a look at the prices of GFs at max level, especially from Rebellion. A BF should always be worth more than the same maxed GF because it has better bonuses and it's scarcer. But it's very difficult to say by how much. It will depend on the interest they gather. Also, the expected value added is very different between pack types. It should be higher for Alchemy and Legendary packs, and lower for Standard ones. I expect Alchemy packs to be the best usage for Midnight Potions, but it might be possible that the math works out better for Legendary packs because of the chances for a BF Legendary! It shouldn't be too difficult to find out the odds of getting a BF Legendary in both types of packs with Midnight Potions, but it's not something I'll be doing today. In fact, it should be easy to use AI to find the answer. However, finding out which pack gets better value from these potions is more complex and will require more data. This will be the ceiling price, although it's a very subjective one.
Cost of Opportunity for producing Midnight Potions
On the other end of the equation, we have the producer of the potions. For someone to be producing these potions, not only are they investing resources into them, but they're also not producing something else with their land. So, the minimum price will be whatever else they could be doing with those resources or the value of what they could be producing instead. Like I said, I'm in the dark about land, but I believe this one should be easier to figure out, once the details are out and players know what they need to give up in order to make these. This would be the floor price, and it should likely hold better than the ceiling.
How many Midnight Potions can be produced
The quantity of potions that can be produced and are being produced at any given time will also matter. If players can easily produce enough of these potions so that there are more than enough for the more expensive packs, I can see the price being lower, and they might even be worth using on Standard packs. On the other hand, if the production is slow and it takes a long time to make enough for all purchased Alchemy packs, the price will be much closer to the ceiling, and it will be a waste to use them on Standard packs.
The gap between the floor and the ceiling
This will also play a role. I've already talked about how the ceiling is very subjective. BFs will be very scarce, which will make it difficult to have a market price. The best data we currently have is historical max GF prices, and we'll obviously eventually have market data for the GF cards in Conclave Arcana. But we don't know how much more these BFs will be worth. It will depend on the wealthiest player's appetite for them. The first one might sell for $1000, but there might be no buyers for the second of the same card, even at $500. Someone might pull the Arcane BF in the meantime, which would make the BF less interesting. Regardless, if the floor is high, there is less wiggle room and margin for the producers. If it is lower, it might be very profitable, but also attract more players into producing the potions, reducing the selling price and margins.
Conclusion
I believe that regardless of production costs, Midnight Potions will be scarce enough that it won't be possible to open every pack with them. That makes the most sense and it gives players a real decision. It will be extremely interesting to see how players work out production, sales, and usage of Midnight Potions, as well as how Black Foils and both Arcane Foils will behave in the market. One thing's for sure: opening one of those will create a lot of hype and excitement, especially if it's live on stream. I'm looking forward to all of this.
What do you all think about Black Foils and Midnight Potions? Do you have a plan for the new set? Let me know in the comments! Thank you for reading!
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