Want to get started with “Splinterlands” but not sure which deck to choose? (Part 2)

Best regards Splinterlovers 💚

In the previous post, we looked at an introduction to the decks you should choose to get started in the game; however, this depends on many factors, since the investment or available budget may vary from person to person, and this is a key factor when choosing a deck that suits your needs. Today’s post will be more specific, as I want you to have the actual costs of current decks at your fingertips—or at least those from the older sets up to “Rebellion”—since I’ll have to calculate the costs for “Arcane Conclave” manually, as the tools haven’t yet updated the code to include this set.

In any case, today I’ll break down the costs of the decks, and it’s up to each of you to decide which one suits your needs and available budget. I’ll also explain why these costs vary—based on my experience and knowledge of card prices from those sets—and why some decks might be more expensive than others. I’ll organize this by budget so you have a clearer guide to the decks. Also, if for some reason you didn’t see my previous post, by clicking HERE you can read it and catch up on Part 1.

So, if you want to find out which deck is best for you as a beginner, keep reading this post—it’ll be really helpful, especially if you’re new to the game:

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Analyzing "Prices" and "Decks"

Okay, to start, we need to identify and/or analyze the card decks—specifically, the most cost-effective option among all the decks, which determines both their price and their competitiveness. This is important to know, since there are hundreds of cards, and if we don’t keep all these aspects in mind, we could get off to a bad start in the game. In addition to knowing the format we want to play—which I explained in the previous post—knowing what types of cards are in the “META” and all these details I just mentioned will give you a 99% advantage over new players just starting their journey in the “Splinterlands” ecosystem.

Now that we’ve clarified that, let’s take a closer look at the prices and some key details to help you make the best decision based on what players are looking for:

• The most economical option: This is the typical question every player asks themselves when trying to understand the META; however, overall, the cheapest set—including all its sub-sets—is undoubtedly “Chaos Legion.” This is because every card in this set has a “huge” supply, with common cards available for as little as $0.01 and legendary cards for under $1, allowing many players to build a very complete deck on a budget. Although I want to clarify something: just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s bad.

• The most competitive decks: This answer is pretty obvious, but newcomers might be wondering about it quite a bit. However, there’s no debate here, since the current META is “Rebellion and Conclave Arcana.” This means that if you want to compete at the highest level with the current mechanics, you need to have these two decks.

• Why do prices VARY?: Even though these are NFT cards, the reality is that, like all financial assets, they have a limited supply. Therefore, they adhere to the principle that every asset must have to be valuable—namely, scarcity and, of course, utility. In our case, the utility of the cards is evident on the battlefield, so this is why we can determine their price, in addition to other details, such as the type of “Lamina,” but I suppose you already knew that.

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"Deck" Recommendations by Budget

This is what everyone has been waiting for: finding out how much you need to spend to build a deck that suits you—though, of course, it also depends on the format. But since I already covered all that information in Part 1, you can find the link at the beginning of this post. Now, let’s get into the deck budgets:

Types of decks by "Budget"

• High budgets: For me, high-end decks are those that are scarce and, of course, have a higher collectible value than the rest. Generally speaking, the first editions of these sets are the ones that meet those criteria, which means that the high-end editions are “Alpha and Beta.” Although they aren’t the only ones, since “Conclave Arcana” with its “Black Foil” card versions is very expensive, for the simple reason that they are very hard to find, making them extremely scarce.

• Medium Budget: For me, the set that qualifies as mid-range is “Rebellion,” since its cards and mechanics make it a very powerful set. However, since “Arcane Conclave” is the newer set, many of its cards are cheaper than those in Conclave, and furthermore, both sets have a very controlled supply, so their value is quite stable. I could also include “Untamed” here, but that would be for the “Wild” format.

• Low Budget: There’s definitely only one winner here, and that’s “Chaos Legion.” As I mentioned before, its cards aren’t very expensive—in fact, they’re the cheapest in the entire game—so it’s undoubtedly the best recommendation I can give to someone just starting out. However, since there’s such a large supply of them, their value won’t increase, so, if you choose this deck, your goal should be to play to earn SPS and GLINT and forget about the deck’s value.

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Aquí les dejo algunas imágenes de los costos de varios mazos de cartas completos, debajo de la imagen sabrán a que edición/set pertenecen:

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Conclusion

There’s certainly plenty to choose from when building a good card deck in Splinterlands. Of course, as I mentioned at the beginning, it depends on many factors, so it’s entirely up to you to decide where to play. The first step would be to choose a format, and then the deck or decks.

If you have any questions about this, please feel free to reply to this post—I’d be happy to help.