I sat on this for a few days to do some more digging and to figure out what sort of info we can get on this one as it's started quite the backlash initially.

Lots of people were upset and reasonably so with either:

• A lack of info
• Potentially not understanding some aspects
• Correctly understanding the changes and still finding it not reasonable for them

Let's seek to understand some more of where some of the misunderstandings or potential key points are. This won't cover everything but will provide at least some insight on what we've found so far so we can at least make heads of tails of what this big change will bring.

Please note, none of these are final and are subject to change so this is all info we've gathered as of this writing.

Required SPS

To kick things off, apparently, the table label is wrong or rather misleading. There isn't a 'required' SPS that's staked to get earnings. There are percentages where you get more or less but you will still get earnings albeit at a potentially lower value. This new table here is a bit more comprehensive and goes more in depth so we have a better understanding on what base minimum SPS staked will get us. It might be quite small so you may need to open it in a new tab to zoom in a bit further.

If we go back to the original table up top, it says that if you want to play at Diamond 1, for example, you would need roughly 178k SPS staked. What this actually means is that 178k SPS is what we need to get 100% of the rewards at that league and not having that much SPS doesn't mean you won't be eligible for rewards at all. In this case, if you're able to have roughly 5k SPS, you're still eligible for 10% of the rewards. Might be a lot smaller than you expect but that's not the end of it and we'll get into it on the next section.

Dynamic Baseline

Since we now know that we'd still get rewards even if we don't hit the 'required' SPS for each tier, at least we understand that we'd still be able to earn. The other key point after understanding that is the dynamic baseline. Each league has its own set pools that constantly adjust over time which is why you normally get more SPS per battle at the start of season rather than towards the end. This is where things get interesting.

I'm assuming more than 90% of Diamond 1 players aren't able to come up with the needed 178k SPS to get 100% rewards.

This means that:

• The pool for the specific league isn't bleeding out as fast as expected
• This creates an opportunity in which you could potentially earn more than your usual expected SPS due to the pool not decreasing at the expected 100% rate for the bracket

This becomes the silver lining here because there's actually a chance you'd still earn the same or even more as you try to accumulate your SPS to get to the 100% bracket.

@hawks21 does a deepdive on the dynamic baseline here. I recommend everyone to take a look.

Chests

This is where I think we'll get a clear nerf. Since the staked SPS will put most of us below or even far below the 100% threshold, I went to SPL discord to verify and unfortunately, this also affects the Focus Points or FP we earn which means:

• Lesser FP per win if you are under the 100% threshold
• Lesser Chests
• Lesser Soulbound Cards/Merits/SPS

While that is a clear nerf, it does do 1 thing: It promotes us to stake more SPS. It's quite clear cut, really. Staking more rewards you more. It creates a clear use case for SPS that people have been asking for since day 1.

There's a whole lot of things more to cover but I think I'll leave that for next time. Main point here is that it's important to get more info for things rather than just having knee-jerk reactions. It's the main reason I didn't come out guns blazing right away. While the info is not comprehensive, there should be reasoning behind it and it's good to know that first before providing feedback.

I think this change overall is for identifying what the endgame looks like. Having 413k SPS for Champ 1 is and endgame goal. It's not supposed to be easily achievable and by no means easy. If you move your perspective with that point of view, I think things will make a bit more sense.

I personally don't agree with everything laid out and I feel like this should have been done at day 1. It would have helped people balance out between accumulating cards and SPS.

Having said that though, there are some positives to takeaway from them. It also seems like this update still has at least a couple of months prior to getting implemented so you'll have time to get more SPS.

What do you guys think?

Images provided by Splinterlands discord.

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