OK, now that I have your attention with a suitably clickbait title, let's discuss the serious topic of airdrops and conflict wagons. In my last article about the Conflicts, I didn't go in depth on the topic of wagons, focusing instead of the CP needed to earn airdrop cards in this conflict. We saw that the system was indeed skewed against the "little guy" and that the value of the airdrop was being distributed instead to the major holders of black foil cards, aka the whales of the game and a few lottery winners.
Now, that conclusion is being challenged because even those big "winners" of the airdrop will have to contend with wagon repair costs that put into question the true value of "winning" a card. Instead, you "win" a card that you have to pay money for, indirectly, by buying a wagon. And, given the fact that a single wagon cannot hold more than one card, you have to buy as many wagons as you are getting cards, and you have to do so within a short timeframe, or lose the extra cards you didn't have wagons for.
To put it simply, this sucks, and we will examine the reasons why this can also have a negative effect on the value of the cards themselves, compounding the damage to the so-called "winners" of the airdrop. Let us compare prices first. The value of the first airdrop card, Zyrx the Emberglace, is currently at 10.44$ while the wagons are for sale at 5.94$. Buy a wagon and sell a Zyrx, and you are left with 4.50$ minus the fees.
Now let us take the example of a whale with enough CP staked to win a hundred copies of the card. Now he needs a hundred wagon kits to pay for his big haul. That is roughly 600$ that he needs to come up with, and the logical solution is to sell a bunch of copies of Zyrx on the market, at roughly 10$ each. Out of his 100 cards earned, he has to sacrifice 60 to the market gods in order to replenish his wagons for the next conflict. All within a few days, or he will miss out on the next conflict start.
Besides being a bummer, this creates a lot of selling pressure on the market which will hurt the value of the airdropped cards themselves. How many sellers trying to extract 10$ for a copy of Zyrx before the price drops to 9$, then 8$, then 7$... Maybe not with Zyrx, but possibly with the next card which isn't as highly regarded. If this race to the bottom happens, then suddenly chasing the airdrop doesn't seem so appealing anymore. Maybe this is why some people are stepping away from this second card, instead choosing to save their wagons for the upcoming Archons. Smart move, but certainly not a very positive development for the game.
But who benefits from this new "paywall" disguised as a feature? In this case, the value goes to land owners. Having to craft wagons for the playerbase gives much needed utility to land resources, contributing to keep up the price, but at what cost? Is it fair that an airdrop supposed to go to the people who bought and hold Conclave Arcana cards and packs, instead sees its value redirected to land owners? What is the justification behind this? I don't see any, but as a land owner, I don't want to see this utility for resources go away now that it is here. Catch 22.
In conclusion, should we get rid of wagons entirely, or at least the necessity to repair them after each card won? Possibly. In any case we should ask ourselves the following questions. What is fair for everyone involved? What generates excitement and positivity towards the game? Maybe going back to the way things were handled in the Rebellion airdrop is the way to go. Maybe even a nerf of black foil CP could be in order. What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
And thank you for reading!