SHOULD CORE SETS BE BROKEN UP INTO SMALLER RELEASES? (SPLINTERLANDS)

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]What is going on everybody? Welcome back to the channel, Aftersound here, bringing you Splinterlands content every single day. We also stream right here on this channel as well as on Twitch, so make sure you come by and say hello.

[00:00:09]This video is also brought to you by my music, which is available anywhere you stream music under the name Aftersound, and I do have a new song out recently called Wildfire. Almost forgot. Uh so, check it out. Let me know what you think, and I appreciate the support. All right, guys. I I want to talk about something that we kind of touched upon in one of the recent answering comments videos. And that was the idea of breaking the next core set out, or just core sets in general, into multiple like mini sets. Now, I've talked about this in the past. I proposed this idea I don't know, maybe a year or two years ago. But, for the first time, I I think we can actually do it. And the reason I'm revisiting it now is because, obviously, with with us transitioning to the Dow funding the team, there's a couple of things here that I think are really important. The first, and probably the most important, is the fact that the team is now not hurting to get cash right away. Like, we don't need this cash infusion. They don't need a DEC stem, you know, stimulus. They can They can create something completely different. And this is why I'm saying this is one of the areas in which we can experiment, especially over the next 6 to 12 months before we have to decide, you know, what the second half of this arrangement is going to look like, right? Like, year number two.

[00:01:18]Um so, in that way, I really like the idea of parsing things out into maybe three, or you can even say four mini sets, right? So, instead of one core set and a mini set, you do these four mini sets that are all parts of, you know, what's being uh billed as the Battle of Pretoria. And it would be awesome if they did it where it's just like, you know, you can even do this from a lore perspective, where it's like four different battles, and then four different sets of like troops or units that are used, uh or even Arcons, or how however it is, right? Um and yes, will it be more work for the team to go through these? It will, but I think the team has shown a lot of resilience and capability to put out a bunch of different releases. And if this is going to be the focus, if this is going to be the focus and they don't need to focus on, you know, other things and getting revenue and all that, like then I I think that this would potentially, and I'm saying using the word potentially on purpose, be a good use of time. Uh time, energy, and resources.

[00:02:14]Now, the reason I have uh Escalation pulled up here is because Escalation is kind of in that mix of things, right?

[00:02:21]Where there's only 500,000 packs, there's not too many cards in there, and when you, you know, if you were to do the the same kind of calculation, right?

[00:02:31]Roughly 3,300, 3,400 packs to get a max copy, it's like 150 max copies of cards.

[00:02:38]Um and in that way, right? People are fighting for it and they want what they want, and despite that, right? And obviously the market is down right now. Despite that, the cards are relatively cheap. Like I was I'm pleasantly surprised to see the affordability of max level Escalation cards, right? We've sold maybe like um I don't know, maybe over 60% of packs, but maybe closing in on like 80% of packs. And sure, are there some awesome cards? Are there some awesome like Look at this epic card selling at max level for for 115. And some of the legendaries going for, you know, 66, 60 bucks.

[00:03:10]Again, that's like $6 per legendary, at which I I don't think is outrageous, right? And then when you get down to some of the common cards, and again, I I don't know the viability or how how crucial they are for the meta, but I mean, remember when common cards like for for these sets were like super super expensive. Like I don't even know what Let's I'm curious. Let's actually check and see what Rebellion is now cuz I I I'm not Maybe I'm not comparing things appropriately, but if you look at like the common cards for Rebellion, um well, these have come down, too, which isn't bad. But you look at something like Escalation, which does have Oh, whoops, let me get rid of this and or put that back in, and then let's get rid of Rebellion.

[00:03:50]I mean, some of these cards selling for, what, seven, eight bucks, right? Oh, and I guess there was a rare card in there at the bottom, too.

[00:03:59]Um Yeah, the rare card selling for 690.

[00:04:02]I I I'm looking at this and it's like, okay, there's a certain level of scarcity that's driving this, which is fantastic, right? These cards are new, they're highly desired, there's going to be conflicts that are happening for these starting very soon. And not that I'm saying Escalation is the perfect kind of analogy. I'm I'm just using it as a quick reference here since I didn't have any other visual, and this is the closest thing that I can think of to what would be ideal.

[00:04:26]Maybe you don't even do 500,000 packs.

[00:04:28]Like, make these like super exclusive, right? And or or do it in a way where they had like you got starter packs, so the common and rare cards you can kind of have infinite amounts of, right? Um but the epic and legendary cards, those are the ones those are the real chasers for the lower level of people, right?

[00:04:46]Then you still have uh your regular chase cards in all the different foils, gold, black, and the arcanes. So, again, I'm just throwing some of these ideas out here because one, I think the team has the capability to do it now, not just from a resources perspective, but from a financial perspective. Two, I think it keeps things fresh throughout and it keeps things you know, it's more for us to look forward to. There's a set kind of period of like, okay, we know that the Battle of Pretoria is going to take up the next 18 months, for example. And over that time frame, every three or four months we are expecting the next kind of you know, uh the the wave of cards to hit the ecosystem. It becomes something that we look forward to. We we we don't get this like, "When's it going to happen?"

[00:05:28]Right? Like, which is kind of where we're at right now. We don't even know when the Battle of Pretoria is happening. Remember, there used to be a period of time around, you know, post um what's that called? Post Untamed and Into Chaos Legion, where the thought process was we should only have like three to four months, maybe five months of no packs on sale, right? In in the shop. And you could argue that well, escalation is still on sale, but the core set was done in March. So, we are here sitting now in month two. And if we do get it by the end of the year, that's well above the three to five month range. If it waits until next year, um that's, you know, that's that's more.

[00:06:08]Um so, or this is even longer. So, this would just create a nice framework, I think. Uh and it would give the team some structure of what what they're going to do from like a meta standpoint and how they're going to introduce stuff. And then they can design everything else around that, right?

[00:06:22]Rather than uh kind of like this I I Sorry, I'm not saying this is this is a bad thing. It's actually been kind of fun where we just get these cool little whatever, you know, one-offs every once in a while. The team has actually been dropping a lot of really awesome things.

[00:06:34]But, for the at least the the card set release, having that done multiple times per year in a in a, you know, structured, organized fashion gives us something to look forward to, and then everything else is just gravy on top of that. So, let me know your thoughts on this. Very curious to hear what people have to say. Um like I said, I'm revisiting this. This is not uh this is not my idea, although it's something that I did talk about a couple years ago. It's not an original idea. It's it's something that I think people should consider now that we have, in my opinion, the flexibility to do it. So, let me know your thoughts in the comments below. I'll catch you all in the next one, and see you around the game. Take care.