Hello Splinterlands players!
Well, you guys asked for it, and Team Splinterlands has delivered it once again. Yes, I am talking about the long-awaited Survival Mode, which was finally introduced in Splinterlands just yesterday. So players, are you ready for your hardcore endurance test in Splinterlands? Because in this much-anticipated Survival Mode, this new ranked play format gameplay introduces a unique and thrilling challenge where defeated cards in your played matches go into a cooldown period, making them temporarily unusable not just on Survival Mode, but across all other game modes. So beware of this big Rule before entering the hater of Survival mode and if you really think you have what it takes to survive on this new extreme level gameplay, then come on and put your collection to the flame test.
What’s New in Survival Mode?
Yesterday, on Thursday, February 27th, the next ranked play season has already featured two major updates after the maintenance window.
A brand-new Survival Mode for ranked play
Upgraded leaderboard rewards across leagues
Now, focusing on the new Survival Mode, it will exist and can be playable alongside Modern and Wild formats in the Splinterlands Arena Games. Just like the Wild mode in the game, the Survival Mode allows the use of any card from any set. Not only that, but it also allows the use of battle helpers and bots in your matches, just like in the wild. But however, before you start panicking and run to rent, come cool costly cards. Here’s the catch you should look at first.
- No energy is required to battle in Survival Mode. You can play as much as you want and not worry about any energy bar.
- However, your defeated cards in the matches will enter a cooldown period and cannot be used anywhere (including all types of games in Splinterlands) until the cooldown time expires.
This is the main rule.. the main Feature, the main Disadvantage of this new mode, so, what do you think after reading that piece of Rule? As per the rule, once a card is defeated in Survival Mode, it won’t be available for use in brawls, tournaments, land play, Ranked play or any other battles until the cooldown time for that particular card recovers.
Now, no doubt this new and unique gameplay mechanism changes the game entirely. From now on, we can’t just simply choose the best team for each battle anymore, instead, we have to play Survival Mode with a balance to strategically manage our entire card collection and play the maximum matches possible while using at least decent level card lineups in each match.
Survival Mode Rewards
Now, let’s talk about the money... heh, I mean the rewards for this mode on Splinterlands. Now, the first reason to be happy already is because Survival Mode will feature the amount of SPS rewards to Modern and Wild formats. Players will earn SPS for each victory on Survival Mode and the amount will be based on their reward shares over the last 15 days. This means that players will earn SPS from the reward pool for each win based on the average reward shares they earned in the last 15 days in Survival Mode. Now, apart from match rewards, Leaderboard rewards will also be available for Survival Mode at the end of each season, with Glint tokens planned as prizes for the top 100 positions of each league. So, there’s plenty of Glints and SPS to be looted, so don't waste time!
Splinterlands Funding Survival Rewards
Anyway, moving on let us now take a look at another hidden but pretty big announcement from Splinterlands, as stated in the Survival Mode Official post, it clearly declares that in order to ensure balanced payouts among Survival Mode players, the Splinterlands team will initially pay for the whole SPS reward amount from their pockets. Now, if the community loves and embraces this new mode, a governance vote may be announced in the near future to shift the rewards cost to be funded by the DAO or remaining SPS inflation.
The Cooldown System
By now, you have already know that the biggest twist in Survival Mode is the card cooldown system. As I stated above, when a card is defeated in the battle, it enters a cooldown period based on its rarity, level and foil type. Below, I have shared how cooldowns are calculated
- Regular Foil Cards in Survival mode have a longer cooldown than Gold Foil Cards, which recover in half the time.
- Higher-level or Higher BCX cards have shorter cooldowns than their lower-level or BCX counterparts.
The Summoner cards will also enter into a cooldown if their team loses the match.
However, to ease things out, in case of a draw, neither Summoner will be penalised for that match.
- Players can still sell, rent, transfer or use cooled-down cards on land, but they will be unavailable to be used in battles until their cooldown expires.
For example, A 300 BCX Regular Foil Common card will have a total 7.5-day cooldown. A 5 BCX Gold Foil Epic card will have a 3.25-day cooldown.
Introducing Revival Potions
To help players manage their collections more effectively in the Survival mode, Revival Potions will be introduced in the game. These newly launched potions allow players to instantly remove a card’s cooldown, thus making it immediately available for battle again.
Potions can be purchased with DEC, Credits or Glint. So there you go, another great use-case for glint token players!
Players will have a switch option in-game to manually apply potions or opt for an automatic revival system, so you don't end up spoiling those precious options.
Future Updates & Community Feedback
With the survival mode, a new way of playing Splinterlands has just been discovered. With the old gameplay mechanics, we used to play ranked, Tournament and Brawls and imagine how many more ways of playing will be introduced with this new survival gameplay style. The Splinterlands team hopefully treats this new Mode as just the beginning. As hinted, the future updates could include A Modern version of Survival Mode (only allowing the latest sets). A no-bot Survival Mode for curated talent performance. Limited-time special event formats with exclusive rewards. Craftable Revival Potions using land plots and resources.
The whole Splinterlands team is open to any type of feedback with this new mode and will restructure and upgrade the Survival Mode based on player experiences if and where needed. According to the team, certain in-game factors like cooldown durations, reward structures and potion costs are subject to change as data and player & community feedback comes in from the first few seasons.
Survival Mode Market
In Survival mode, there will be no Battle energy, but it will be your cards that will act as a resource that depletes every time you get defeated on the battlefield. So, in order to keep using their favorite cards, players will need multiple copies of their best cards in order to remain competitive. It is good for Pelacor Bandit or Heatsmith, but what about core, promo cards? I think if Survival becomes a hit, this mode alone could increase market demand for affordable, powerful cards, especially the rental market and newly launched set rentals, boosting both sales and rental activity numbers, which benefits the game stats and economy.
Last but not least, as said of the game mode, Survival Mode is not for the faint of heart. It is a true test for us Splinterlands players of strategy, endurance and collection management. I guess that in this mode, if you have the right cards in your hand and the right strategy for a long run on this mode, the rewards will be yours. But in order to win, one must practice. So, start battling in Survival mode!
Please note: I am not a Financial Advisor and this post is not financial advice. Please do your own research before investing in crypto.
I hope you enjoyed reading my post about the details of Survival Mode. Please let me know your thoughts about these new gameplay in the comment section below and I will look forward to seeing you all in my next post.
Thanks for visiting my post, hope we meet again!
Stay well and keep playing Splinterlands!
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