Splinterlands: Which League Has the Highest Upgrade Costs?

This is a continuation of the discussion resulting from the recent SPS Governance Proposal:

https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@sps.dao/sps-governance-proposal-split-ranked-battle-reward-pools-by-league

I already wrote an article analyzing the pros and cons of maxing your card levels:

https://peakd.com/steemmonsters/@byzantinist/splinterlands-to-max-or-not-to-max

One of my upcoming posts will take a deeper look at what Splinterlands should do with Diamond League. Now one common argument that is often raised is that there is such a massive gulf between Gold league cards and Max level cards but is that actually true? In this post we are going to explore whether the costs of going from Gold to Max is really that much larger than the costs upgrading from Novice to Bronze, Bronze to Silver, or Silver to Gold.

I will be using Untamed/Chaos Legion BCX levels as the base for analysis. While Chaos Legion cards are worth half the collection power of Untamed cards, both editions do require the same amount of BCX for each level. The focus will be on Regular card versions (not Gold Foil).

For the Gold Foil (GF) version of this article, please see:

https://peakd.com/steemmonsters/@byzantinist/splinterlands-which-league-has-the-highest-gf-upgrade-costs

Also, I will be looking at both the absolute number of BCX required and the % increase in investment compared to the initial level. Those are different ways of looking at investment cost and different people will argue whether one or the other should be used.

A Novice player trying to upgrade to Bronze would need to increase their investment by 13x, though you could argue that their initial investment (1 BCX) is a lower base.

It becomes clear that if we look at % of investment, then lower leagues are asked to provide a larger % of additional funds in order to upgrade. Upgrading to Bronze requires an additional 13x, upgrading to Silver or Gold requires around an additional x3 investment, but upgrading to max is just an additional 82%.

If you want to look at absolute BCX needed then yes, going from Gold to Max does require the most BCX (180), but that is only slightly larger than what is necessary to go from Silver to Gold (160).

You might be wondering "are those numbers right? From Level 1 to Level 2 it is only 4 BCX, from Level 2 to Level 4 it is 20 BCX, from Level 4 to Level 6 it is 35 BCX, and from Level 6 to Level 8 it is 55 BCX."

The key thing to remember is that Epic summoners allow higher level Rare monsters to be used in Bronze league and Gold league. So in order to have a fully competitive deck, a Bronze level deck really does need Level 3 monsters (not Level 2) and a Gold level deck really does need Level 7 monsters (not Level 6). This is even true in Modern edition due to Epic summoner Kretch Tallevor and the upcoming Epic summoners in Riftwatchers. Your Rare summoners don't need the extra level but there are typically far more monster cards than summoner cards. In theory, we could weight the data based on the % of summoners and the % of monsters to get a more accurate picture but that might be overly complex for the average reader.

So as a result of the "Epic summoner uses higher level Rare monsters" feature (it's not a "bug"), when it comes to Rare monsters there is a very significant increase upgrading to Bronze league and Gold league, while the costs to upgrading to Silver or Max are far smaller. In fact, when looking at Rare monsters, in absolute BCX terms, it costs twice as much to upgrade from Silver to Gold, as it does from Gold to Max.

You can see here that there is a significant increase from Silver to Gold. In fact, in both absolute BCX and %, it is more expensive to upgrade to Gold league than it is to Max level.

This situation partly came about when Splinterlands adjusted the BCX requirements in Untamed. The BCX required for max levels was largely unaffected (except for Commons where it was lowered) but the BCX required for Bronze, Silver, and Gold league were all increased. In Beta edition, Level 3 epics required 6 BCX, Level 5 epics required 23 BCX, and Max level required 46 BCX:

From Beta to Untamed, Silver league required 4 more BCX (from 6 to 10), Gold league required 22 more BCX (from 23 to 32), while Max league required 0 more BCX (remained the same at 46). So this is why it is more expensive to upgrade Epic cards from Silver to Gold league, than it is to upgrade from Gold to Max.

Higher leagues require more absolute BCX, but in terms of % of investment, upgrading to Silver or Gold league requires a higher percentage of additional investment.

Novice to Bronze is a special exception since both leagues only allow Level 1 legendaries. Thus if you already have a complete Novice level account (with all legendaries at Level 1), then you don't need to upgrade any legendaries when going up to Bronze league.

If we look at absolute BCX required, upgrading to Max level requires slightly more Commons and Legendaries than upgrading to Gold league but fewer Rares and Epics.

Also keep in mind that due to Legendary Potions, if you are opening boosters, it is much easier to get all the Legendary cards you need compared to Epics. Those who opened boosters during the Untamed and Chaos Legion eras may remember that most people leveled up their Legendary cards much more quickly than they were able to level up their Epic cards.

If we look at additional % investment we are asking players to make, then upgrading to Max league requires the least amount of additional %.

For Commons, Rares, and Epics, we are asking smaller players (coming up from Novice into Bronze) to increase their multiplier the most.

But it's notable that even in terms of % increase, there is a pretty significant jump from Silver league to Gold league.

Based on this data, I would disagree with the argument that there is such a big investment gap going from Gold league to Max level. The investment costs going from Silver league to Gold league are at least on par with those going from Gold league to Max level, and you could make a pretty persuasive argument that even in absolute BCX or absolute $$$ terms, the cost of upgrading to Gold league is actually slightly MORE than the cost of upgrading to Max level.

As a result, I don't find "investment cost" to be a persuasive argument to justify the existence of Diamond league and why there should be two leagues for Max level cards while there is only one league for each of Bronze, Silver, and Gold.