Splinterlands DEC values of potions

So with some help from @aggroed and @cryptoeater tonight I refined my model for valuing the DEC values of using the Legendary and Gold potions on Splinterlands/Steem Monsters. There are three different places the potions take effect: on beta packs, on orbs, and on reward card issuance. It gets more fun because the value is calculated differently for each. Legendary potions cost 20,000 DEC and Gold potions cost 25,000 DEC so it's good to know how much they'll return. (I've used the 100% potions for this analysis but the ev of the others is the same, just reduced at par with their price.)

golds.png

We'll start with Rewards, because they're the easiest - every card's rarity is an independent chance based on the basic rarity table:

Potion StatusDEC Per CardPotion ReturnNet
None93.61n/an/a
Legendary117.1311761-8239
Gold139.1322756-2244
Both175.1140750-4250

As you can see, none of the potion combinations are profitable on a pure DEC basis for reward cards, although the gold potion by itself comes pretty close. That's not to say you definitely shouldn't use potions - just that the extra value from them has to come from cards which are worth more than the DEC floor market price. However, there aren't a whole lot of those in Rewards - and importantly almost no golds - so it's probably not a great idea to use potions on your Reward cards.

Betas and orbs distribute a little differently because of the requirement for one rare+ card per pack, and here I'm thankful to @cryptoeater's analysis of pack distribution. This makes a 3-5% difference in the card distribution and changes the numbers a bit for Betas:

Potion StatusDEC Per CardPotion ReturnNet
None97.90n/an/a
Legendary121.0611582-8418
Gold146.3524226-774
Both180.8041449-4551

Interestingly the change in the numbers makes the legendary potion a little bit worse, because while both normal pack value and those with the potion increased, the normal pack value increased more. While again none of these options are immediately profitable by DEC, you should almost certainly use potions when opening beta packs because Beta packs, unlike Rewards, are full of cards whose market value is higher than their DEC value. Almost all Beta commons carry a significant premium, as do all summoners, especially the Legendary summoners. This is difficult to model without using live market prices, but as long as commons are trading well above DEC value it's a no-brainer.

Orbs, on the other hand, are super-easy. They trade for DEC like Alphas, at a 2x premium, which makes the decison very simple:

Potion StatusDEC Per CardPotion ReturnNet
None195.79n/an/a
Legendary242.12231633163
Gold292.704845323453
Both361.598289937899

You should always use potions while opening orbs. Every potion option is immediately profitable by pure DEC value, and using both potions yields a remarkable 84% profit.

Additionally, the potion benefit from opening orbs is so high that you should take it even if you end up spending a significant fraction of the potion charges on Rewards. Even if 8/9 of the cards you open are Rewards, if the ninth one is from an orb you'll still come out ahead. So if you're someone who's mixing what cards you acquire, the potions still end up a pretty good deal as long as they're from orbs sometimes. It's still better to time your potions so that they're applied to orbs and betas, but if you're opening some orbs it's better to have them than not.

The basic upshot here: potions are essential when opening purchased cards, so we can expect demand for them to remain high. At 45k DEC per 100 packs, using them on all the remaining beta packs and orbs would cost nearly 250 million DEC. (Not to mention 466 million to buy the orbs.)

So, um, Buy DEC. That's a pretty amazing amount of demand.

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This post has received a 3.13 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @sbi-booster.

Thanks, really useful info!

Awesome info!!! I went on a big DEC shopping spree the first few days and am now starting to hold it a bit!
Flesh Golem (853px, 5fps).gif

I'm trying to just increase my DEC until I figure out what I'm doing. So far it's fun just watching it build. Thanks for tip on using potions when opening orbs. I didn't know that

One question the description of the legendary potions says that promo cards are excluded and every card i can get from the orbs are promos right ? So maybee you are only lucky as fuck ?

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No, it's badly worded. When it excludes "promos" it means the Sesameseed promotional cards; orbs, while part of the promo set, are eligible. The team has made this clear in Discord. (Also once you have the potions you can see that they're active when you open an orb.)

Ok good to know thank you thank you . I am not on the splinterlands Discord .

I'm not really sure what you mean by "on a pure DEC basis" but the bits you've bolded are really helpful.

I spent my first 5000 DEC on orbs and since then have saved the rest because like @qiuplet

I'm trying to just increase my DEC until I figure out what I'm doing

How long does it make sense to save up our DEC I wonder. 😁

I'm not really sure what you mean by "on a pure DEC basis"

It means that the analysis doesn't take into account the market prices of cards. This is how much the potions would get you if you opened packs and immediately converted all the cards you got to DEC. (Obviously in reality you won't be doing that.)

Ok. Thanks @tcpolymath. Let me see if I've got this right . . .

With the reward cards the only way using a potion would be profitable is if you happened to pull a card where you could turn it into more DEC than you could buy it for.

Reading through again I'm not sure about this bit either . . .

the potion benefit from opening orbs is so high that you should take it even if you end up spending a significant fraction of the potion charges on Rewards

Why would you use the potion on rewards if you can chose not to? Is he referring to a scenario where the orbs have run out?

thanks for your help! 😁

A potion could still be profitable if you turned it into a card you could sell for more than the DEC you could convert it to. (For instance, in Beta, think about pulling a legendary summoner.)

Why would you use the potion on rewards if you can chose not to?

Once you have a potion you can't turn it off. So suppose you had 50 orbs and wanted to open them and then do your daily quest and claim your season rewards, you would use 250 charges on the orbs and then have 250 left that went to rewards.

Once you have a potion you can't turn it off

Ah. Thanks. That's really useful to know. I thought you could choose to use it or not depending on what you were opening.

I currently saving my DEC in order to get some potions so I need to think about when I add them in order to make the most of it. 😊

Hey @cryptogamestrat
would be interesting to see another one of these for the recent updates?
I guess that these numbers now change with the DEC discount guild members are getting for buying orbs?
Is it still useful to use potions with orbs?

Potions are highly profitable used on both orbs and betas now, and the legendary potion on rewards, even without shop discount. Gold potion on rewards is pretty much even, but becomes profitable with the shop discount. At high discount levels while using both gold/legendary the potion that gives extra reward cards is also profitable.

#sbi-skip

Thank you for the quick answer, really helpful! :)