I have been fortunate enough to have a well-developed collection of Splinterlands cards by the time collection power was introduced to the game, so I didn't have to worry about that while growing my account in the early stages of Splinterlands.
Recently, I came across an information I wasn't aware of that might entice more players/investors to max their cards or rent maxed cards from the market if they have collection power issues.
To be honest, when one thinks about optimizing their decks while keeping an eye on the prices paid to upgrade at the high levels, not many consider it's necessary to max their cards, apart of a select few they love.
I used to think like that, and it's ok, up to a point. If you don't aim for the rarified air of the Champions League, you'll be fine with such a strategy. But if you aim high, you will keep meeting skilled players with very well developed decks.
My strategy changed before Chaos Legion was released, after seeing on a couple of occasions I lost matches against opponents with similar lineups, and where the difference was made by the extra bonus of one of the monsters, compared to mine, because it was leveled up more.
But still, the price to pay to upgrade from level 3 to level 4 a legendary card seems to high, compared to the benefits, and many won't do it.
This information I came upon may have been known, maybe you have seen it before, but I believe I'm well-informed regarding Splinterlands, and if I dind't know it, there's a good chance many didn't either.
What I found out is there is a small incentive offered to those who max their cards, compared to everyone else.
In which form does this incentive come? It comes as a 5% collection power bonus that maxed cards have.
Let's have a look.
I have a maxed Doctor Blight. Each Dr. Blight BCX comes with a 500 CP, since it's a legendary card from the CL set.
But when we look at the total power for Doctor Blight, it says 5775, which is 5500 + 275. And 5% of 5500 is 275.
That is the same for other types of cards too.
That's Pelacor Bandit, a common reward card, also from the reward cards that came with Chaos Legion.
50 CP per BCX x 400 = 2000. 5% of 2000 = 100. Thus 2100 collection power.
And it goes beyond Chaos Legion. Here's Lord of Darkness from the Beta set:
That's 17325 CP. As we know, older sets have a higher CP, because there were way less packs in early sets compared to CL.
Each BCX of Lord of Darkness is worth 1500 CP. That should be 16500 CP for 11 BCX. Instead, it has 17325 CP, which is 16500 + 5% * 16500.
Is this 5% collection power boost enough to convince more people to max more of their cards? Who knows? In the end it's a matter of having the resources to do it, besides deeming it worthy. If you don't, you don't, and take the best approach for you.
If the rental market moves more into renting maxed cards instead of lower level cards because of the CP boost, that would certainly stir things up.
The problem is there can only be a limited number of max level cards, and even with the high numbers in CL, they aren't for too many players.
That's why I still don't think we will see a lot more maxed cards floating around.