This is the week in Splinterlands of the new Conclave Arcana set pre-sale and the Community Engagement Challenge topic is also about it so I'm taking an initial look at some of the cards that have been revealed already...
New Cards & Power Creep
In theory, Splinterlands doesn't really need power creep where new cards become more and more powerful compared to the old ones since the reward pool of modern is separate. However, it is something that boosts sales so it's quite inevitable for older cards to get weakened each time a new set is released. I will try to compare some of the new cards to similar type older ones also.
The design of the new cards is different as the speed is now located under the health which kind of feels weird but I guess it's only a matter of time before I'm used to it. It's also not that I will participate in the pre-sale. I will have a loot at them only at Max level as that has gotten to be the norm in Wild & Survival these days.
Neutral Card
These cards tend to a slightly less powerfull compared to class specific cards but the fact that they can be used in nearly all matches very well makes up for that.
The Bren Palesworn is a 6 Mana Double attack monster with Weapons Training, True Strike, Sneak & one of the new abilities which I believe is shapeshift. The weakness of this card argualbl is tke lower health and medium speed but as the Weapons training stays in place it feels like an insane powerhouse even if it didn't have the extra abilities. The Sneak allows it to use the melee attack in any position and the True Strike counters all the high speed and abilities for cards to miss which are right now powerful.
When comparing this card to some of the older Beta & Untamed 6-Mana Neutral cards it's clear that power creep really is kicking in here and I'm quite sure that this likely will become one of the more expensive cards as for just 6 mana you get a total of 9 Melee attack and 6 ranged attack when played in the right way which just feels stupid.
Fire Card
The Blazebeard Merc is another card that looks like it has some insane power creep. For 3 mana you get 5 Melee attack that can attack from everywhere with piercing while the card has a toital of 15 health. On top it also has the bloodlust ability so it can grow stronger. The main downside is the Incendiary negative ability which will reduce the health by 2 at the start of each round with a 33% Chance to spread during the rounds. What can be seen now with the new negative ability cards that have been introduced with the Rebellion reward card set is that some are just used all the time like the Halfling refuge.
Again when comparing it to older beta and untamed 3 mana monsters from the Fire Splinter, it's just day and night when it comes down to power. in a way it's like old max level cards are actually silver league levels compared to the new card.
Water Card
The Water Diviner is one of the cards that doesn't feel like having insane power creep. At 7 health with Taunt and just 3 speed is is just very likely to get killed fairly early on in the game often before it even gets to attack. All also will depend on the actual abilitied of the new summoners but this one surely feels more balanced.
Earth Card
The Mahkah Hemlig is a 9 cost card with 6 Healthn 4 speed and 4 Magic attack. It does have the opportunity ability which makes it directly attack the lowest health monster along with the deflect ability so it's not affected by reflection. The Scavenger ability will increase it's health and the Triage will heal another backline monster. Overall for 9 mana this monster feels rather weak I would say. It's also a card with only older abilities which tended to be way less complicated compared to the new ones which I'm not yet caught up with oftentimes. I would not be surprised if this turned out as one of the lower priced Legendary cards.
Life Card
The Moribund Arrowbait is a 4-mana legendary Life card that could be quite hard to kill as it has self-ressurect as one of the 3 abilities while it has got 2 health and 3 Armor. It also has double attack and as it's a life monster there will be plenty of ways to ressurect it or give it divine shield. It also has some of the new abilities with Bloodline Tribite which will boost other cards on the lineup when it gets killed. So this one might become a really annoying and difficult card to kill for just 4 mana while it is able to do some ok damage. One of the more powerful abilities that came with the previous set was Martyr which boosted stats of other cards and this one takes it even a step further as it's effectively double martyr with the rebirth ability.
Death Card
The
Thragha is a 4 Mana Rare Death card which can act as a tank allowing a 2nd tank to be played behind it. It has 9 health and Void but only 2 speed. It has the new painforge ability which will increase its attack as it gets hit while the Life Leach ability can help it get a bit more Health. At first sight this is one of those cards that will be picked all the time in little league. At the same time at only 2 speed and no armor it is quite vulnerable. If anything this feels like a card with acceptable and better balanced power creep.
Conclusion!
Looking at some of these new cards am starting to get a bit worried that they are taking the power creep a bit too far with an eye to get short term success (as the sales are higher if players want the cards) but longer term pain as all old cards just get weaker and weaker and less valuable in the game. Having taken a look at these first couple cards, I did get the feeling of actually wanting to play some splinterlands so I will get in some more Survival Mode Battles before going to bed.
This is a make or break set for Splinterlands so they are trying... These would not compete against old cards in Wild or if they do those with these cards will be to far up to meet you on the battle field in Wild very often, so impact on old cards should be minimal.
I really don't like the card frames and colouring since rebellion. The colours were crisp and clear in Riftwatchers and you could tell which splinter the card belongs to easily. I was hoping they might fix that with the new set.
I think the rebellion set was very weak, so maybe they now going in opposite direction.
The problem with power creep is that it devalues older cards and some players sell older cards to participate in new card sales. This is what happened when the CHAOS set first came out. People were able to sell the high value of their older cards to buy the new cards. Now though, they will probably have to bring in fresh money from somewhere if they want to partipate in sales as the prices of old cards have fallen by so much.
Power creep also hurts the card rental market for old cards which means old players can't use revenue from that to participate in new card sales as much as before.