What card will be most expensive?

Will it be an Alpha Card like many predict? Or will the most expensive Steem Monster card come from the recently released Beta set or will it eventually come form another expansion set? Only time will tell but is my two cents on the subject.

From what I've seen in trading card games I've played in real life, cards gain value based on scarcity in collectability and usability/popularity in gameplay. This post will focus on the collectability aspect of this the card and only touch on the usability/popularity of the cards in gameplay. Planning on updating or making another post about the gameplay aspect as battling and tournaments come out for the game.

Edition

(Alpha and Beta GF Spirit of the Forest)

As of now the most expensive cards in the market are the Gold Foil (GF) Legendary cards . These cards are the hardest to come by as the chances of the card being legendary in the pack are low as well as the chances of it being gold foil. Right now there are a total of 19 different GF legendary cards in the market (9 from alpha and 10 from beta) with a Kickstarter only GF legendary coming in the near future to some backers that funded it enough. Of these 20 different GF legendary cards, 18 of them are duplicates (the 9 Alpha legendaries were reprinted in Beta). If collectors cannot obtain the Alpha legendaries, they could eventually pick ups Beta legendary which should be cheaper based on accessibility and being the second edition of the card. This brings us to the conclusion that, quite possibly, the 11 remaining GF legendaries will be the most expensive cards in the game - Alpha GF Elemental Phoenix, Alpha GF Frost Giant, Alpha GF Spirit of the Forest, Alpha GF Angel of Light, Alpha GF Lord of Darkness, Alpha GF Lightning Dragon, Alpha GF Selenia Sky, Alpha GF Chromatic Dragon, Alpha GF Gold Dragon, Beta GF Hydra, and Kickstarter exclusive GF Shin Lo Dragon.

Card availability

Right now all of the Alpha packs have been sold. The only new alpha cards that will be coming into the market are from the packs that people have yet to open and from the Kickstarter, reserved for backers who have helped fund it. Under the assumption that 80% of 300,000 Alpha packs have been opened (about 9-10 thousand packs from the Kickstarter tiers and possibly another 50,000 or so packs being HODL’ed), maybe an extra 20% of each card will be available to the market.

As it currently stands

33 Alpha GF Elemental Phoenix,
32 Alpha GF Frost Giant,
30 Alpha GF Spirit of the Forest,
27 Alpha GF Angel Of Light,
34 Alpha GF Lord of Darkness,
18 Alpha GF Lightning Dragon,
39 Alpha GF Selenia Sky,
34 Alpha GF Chromatic Dragon,
31 Alpha GF Gold Dragon

exist in the game.

(I know the math will be slightly off in the next part due to the fact that some gold foils were probably combined already, so if someone knows the numbers to those or a way to find them please let me know in a comment. As for the article I will assume no cards have been combined as of yet.)

If we add an extra 20% (rounding up) to these numbers we get
~ 40 Alpha GF Elemental Phoenix
~ 39 Alpha GF Frost Giants
~ 36 Alpha GF Spirit of the Forest
~ 33 Alpha GF Angel Of Light
~ 41 Alpha GF Lord of Darkness
~ 22 Alpha GF Lightning Dragon
~ 47 Alpha GF Selenia Sky
~ 41 Alpha GF Chromatic Dragon
~ 38 Alpha GF Gold Dragon

With these numbers of Alpha cards i estimate to be in existence, ill use this to estimate the total number of Beta GF legendaries. If there would be 337 Alpha legendaries, we would multiply this by 3 since there are 900,000 Beta boosters that will be sold compared to Alpha’s 300,000 making roughly 1,011 Beta Legendary Gold Foils to be created. If we assume that the distribution between all the legendaries are equal in Beta, we would have about 92 Beta GF Hydras to be created.

The Kickstarter only legendary would be obtained if you pledged more than $600 to the kickstarter. 55 have been allocated on the kickstarter for the tiered pledge rewards along with each additional $600 dollars someone pledges, they will received an extra copy of the GF Shin Lo Dragon. Assuming each of the tiered pledges becomes fulfilled and 15 more backers want an additional copy of the GF legendary, 70 copies of this card will come into existence.

My expected final tally numbers

~ 40 Alpha GF Elemental Phoenix,
~ 39 Alpha GF Frost Giants,
~ 36 Alpha GF Spirit of the Forest,
~ 33 Alpha GF Angel Of Light,
~ 41 Alpha GF Lord of Darkness,
~ 22 Alpha GF Lightning Dragon,
~ 47 Alpha GF Selenia Sky,
~ 41 Alpha GF Chromatic Dragon,
~ 38 Alpha GF Gold Dragon
~ 92 Beta GF Hydras
~ 70 Kickstarter GF Shin Lo Dragon

Combining and leveling up

Chart credit going to Toocurious on the Steem Monsters Discord

There are two ways in the game for your cards to gain experience, by battling (which hasn’t come out yet) and by combining cards. A person might want to combine cards to get to the unlock their monsters ability to get an upper hand in battles and tournaments when they come out. To get to the max level of the Alpha gold foils you need an additional 3 of the same card and for Betas you would need 4 additional copies of the same card. I’m also assuming Shin Lo Dragon would also need 4 additional copies of the card to be max level. If all the GF Legendaries would be maxed out, the new quantity list would be

~ 10 Elemental Phoenix exist
~ 9 Frost Giants
~ 9 Spirit of the Forest
~ 8 Angel Of Light
~ 10 Lord of Darkness
~ 5 Lightning Dragon
~ 11 Selenia Sky
~ 10 Chromatic Dragon
~ 9 Gold Dragon
~ 18 GF Hydra
~ 14 GF Shin Lo Dragon

Battle Team Diversity

The game play is will be based on the 6 Splinters. Each Splinter has an element corresponding to it either fire, water, earth, life, death, or dragon. Each battle team can be only of one splinter with the exception of the dragon splinter which can use both dragons and another splinter of the users choice. Each element has their own legendary creature with the dragon splinter having their choice of 4. If one wants to use the GF dragons, they would have to be using the Selenia Sky summoner and would probably want to slot the rest of their team with dragon legendaries if not another splinter of monsters that can back up the legendary dragon. If using one of the other splinters though, the legendary creature of the splinter might not be exactly the strategy they are looking to play. The neutral legendary monster Hydra might be something they are looking for. Hydra is the perfect mercenary for each splinter, ready to work for any side when called upon. If someone wants to change splinters they won’t have to get a whole new legendary creature, they would just slot Hydra into the spot and boom they have a new battle team without needing to shell out money for a new legendary monster.

Playability

Without any gameplay as of yet, its hard to determine what splinter or cards are the best to use or play. This would definitely have an impact on the price of the cards as winning cards and battle teams would lead to winning tournaments and that would lead to winning prize money. Anything that can help someone earn more money seems like it would be more valuable in the end.

Thoughts

From the pure numbers aspect of collecting, having a maxed level Alpha GF Lightning Dragon at only about 5 copies obtainable (before battling) seems like a very elusive card to obtain and might quite possibly be the most expensive. This card checked all the boxes in limited quantities and in being a dragon already its pretty sweet. The next card I can see being expensive would be a Alpha GF Selenia Sky as the card is needed for the Dragon Splinter to use their cards but if the kickstarter Summoner is more useful this card might not be worth too too much. Shin Lo Dragon might be expensive depending on its abilities and cost, but with it being an exclusive kickstarter legendary, it would be asking too much for it to be an amazing card. The actual card I see as being the most expensive card is the neutral Beta GF Hydra. The card has great abilities and stats ( not sure how monster costs work yet but 7 doesn’t seem too bad). It can be slotted into any splinter, and it doesn’t have any competition in having a 2 different versions of it on the market. It’s high number of copies available will hinder its price point but if the card is used in multiple splinter plans then this card can be the most expensive card on the market baring reprints and better cards coming into existence. Current prices on the market of these cards are as follows

Alpha GF Lightning Dragon $3250.00
Alpha GF Selenia Sky $1177.00
Shin Lo Dragon Unpriced (unreleased yet)
Beta GF Hydra $2999.00 market low

I guess only time will tell with more and more Beta booster packs opened and more of these GF legendaries come out. More combining, leveling up and battling can cause a drastic change in these prices. Leave a comment if this analysis helped you in any way or if you think I'm completely wrong in my thinking. Until then good luck in any of your Steem Monster ventures.

PS: If you do want to try out the game and this article helped influence that decision on joining up the Steem Monsters community, please create your account here with this link https://steemmonsters.com/?ref=pladozero.

Disclaimer

I am not a financial advisor nor am I suggesting to go buy any of the Steem Monsters cards I have talked about in the article for a profit. I do not own any of the GF legendary cards I talked about in my thoughts section nor do I know any person that does. I am not trying increase the market value on the said cards but only expressing my opinion on what will happen with the cards. It is your choice with what you do with your money and crypto.

Disclaimer Edit *9-26-18
Bit the bullet and bought a GF Hydra. Thinking I will be useful for my team moving forward in the game. Still think it has massive upsides in the game but again only time will tell. Maybe my purchase won't be a good one in the future. Until then..