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What is the deciding factor behind the market value of Splinterlands Monsters?

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@belemo
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The economical model employed on Splinterlands is pretty straight forward when considered in isolation. In reality, that isolation doesn't exist and we have to consider it with respect to the game and how people respond.

Take the last two legendary summoners that were released; I'm talking about Mimosa and Chanseus. Both cards are legendary, cost Mana in battle and give decent buffs in battle. However, Chanseus seemed to have more appeal and demand than the other.

I know this because I got both cards from the airdrop and put them in the market. Mimosa has been on the shelf for a long time with no takers, while Chanseus got bought almost immediately.

The thing about buyer preference in the game is a topic that probably needs to be discussed. Like, are buyers swayed by recency, or by the qualities of the card?

Recency comes into play when there's something new on ground and you just want to get your hands on it. However, with the Dynamics of the game, I doubt a card simply being new will be enough to sway buyers.

I lean towards qualities more because I believe that affects the actual gameplay more. So we can technically say that from an economical standpoint if users buy one card more than they buy others, it is safe to say that users believe one card is better than the other.

The qualities analogy isn't absolute of course. In gameplay, different factors yet again come into play to determine which card Trump's the other, so, yet again, we're back to where we started about the determining factors.

Other than the obvious differences between cards if different rarity, I've generally been fascinated by the metrics used in evaluating which card is more expensive than others.

In some cases, there's an overwhelming winner in hypothetical isolated situations, like say a one vs one between Level 1 Lord Arianthus going up against a Level 1 Lord of the Sea.

Yet Lord A is a neutral monster that costs $5.1 for a single unit , while Lord of the Sea with magic attack and blast ability costs significantly less at $3.91.

Now move these same cards up a level and Lord A is suddenly overwhelmingly strong because his magic reflector combined with his magic resistance means he's going to kill Lord of the sea easily. Even if you max both cards out, you're still not going to have any joy with Lord of the sea, yet this same maxed out Lord A at around $46.8 would not stand a chance against a level 1 Cornealus that costs significantly less at $4.4 amount.

Since Cornealus is a ranged monster, in normal situation it would not be able to attack from the frontline, so if they were the last two cards in a hypothetical battle, it would naturally be a stalemate.

So all I'm saying is that the major determinant of price still lies in the way people perceive a card and nothing particularly profound like gameplay, special abilities and all that. What do you think though, why do you think some cards are more expensive than others?

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