Splinterlands Revamps Ranked Battles – Play to Earn

In an effort to re-invigorate their playerbase and attract new players, Splinterlands is woking on improvements to their base game, starting with a revamp of ranked battles. This includes everything from matchmaking, to summoner requirements, to league rewards!

Some major changes have arrived to the mechanics of ranked gameplay in Splinterlands! Designed to improve the player experience, these changes bring a fresh feeling to this auto-battler/trading card game, removing incentives for camping the lower levels of the ranked leagues.

What are these Ranked Battle changes?

To start with, there are now no Summoner limits by League. Any player can play any level Summoner at any rank (and Summoner level determines the max level of other cards used during a match). This ties in with the new ranking system where players can no longer lock themselves to a specific league. League advancement is now automatic. Ranking goes up by 20 for a win (or 40 with a win streak – ie, 3 or more wins in a row), and down 20 with a loss.

Matchmaking now pairs players based on rating, regardless of league. Also, all ranked rewards have been removed from every league except Champion. Players still earn Daily Chest rewards and Seasonal Chest rewards (with better drop chances for higher ranked leagues). Aditionally, the SPS reward pools are no longer split by leagues. Both Modern and Wid formats will still maintain separate token pools for rewards.

There will be some initial turmoil as accounts that were previously league limited now must find their proper spot in the rankings. But overall, this should be good for the Splinterlands community. New players should run into fewer matches where they are completely outmatched. And the system now encourages players to merge/buy cards to improve their collection so they can gain rank and receive better rewards.

You can read the official blog post with more detail about these Ranked Battle changes.

Splinterlands has been slowly but steadily losing active players for some time now. They definitely need a boost to try and regain some of their lost momentum, and this first step seems like a strong move in the right direction. They’ve already shown an uptick in active players after implementing this change on February 29th.

And supposedly, the Splinterlands team has other plans to improve the game, especially the New Player Experience, or NPE. This includes one-click set rentals, a new rewards system, and a better onboarding experience for new players. I look forward to hearing more about those other plans in the near future!

What is Splinterlands?

Splinterlands is a browser-based, play-to-earn, trading card game running on the Hive blockchain. Splinterlands features two tokens. Dark Energy Crystals (DEC), the primary game currency, and Splintershards (SPS), a governance token.

Splinterlands is a cross between a deck-building game and an auto-battler. Players use their cards to build a combat lineup based on the rules of the match. Then, once both sides submit their teams, the cards run in auto-battle mode until only one team remains. Players earn rewards for winning matches, and can also earn additional rewards through Daily Quests, Seasonal rewards, and a recurring, two-week leaderboard contest.

To learn more about Splinterlands, read our game guide. You can also visit their website, follow them on Twitter, and join their Discord server.