The Ultimate Guide to the Sanctum Showdown Economy
Lauren guides you through the Sanctum Showdown economy. Is the Premium Pass worth it? How does it stack up to the last Showdown?
It's time for another Sanctum Showdown! This guide will help you decide if the Premium Pass is worth buying for you, and help you plan what prizes you want to chase. I'll break down the Free Pass, the Premium Pass, and the Shop. I'll also briefly compare this run of Sanctum Showdown to the previous one.
If you're interested in strategy and decks, don't forget to check out Scott's guide, linked below!
Scosco
Fourth Location subscribers had early access to the economy guide. It became free when the event was ~48 hours old.
Subscriptions make this sustainable. If you enjoy the work Scott and I are doing, and can afford it, I'd really appreciate if you signed up here! Full access to early and exclusive content starts at just $4 a month. Big thanks to our subscribers. 🩵
Event Format
This Sanctum Showdown follows the same format as the last few. There are dual prize tracks you climb with XP — the Free Pass and the Premium Pass. There's also a Shop where you choose how to spend the event currency (Charms) and Gold.
This time around, the main prize isn't a new card at all, but a Seasonal Series 4 Pack. If you already have every card in the Pack, the card will be replaced by 2,500 Tokens.
When giving the details for this run, Second Dinner claimed the XP requirements are down 15% and the Free Pass has more value as compared to November's iteration. Let's get into it!
Scrolls
Games cost a Scroll to play, and you get a Scroll back if you win. At the end of each game, you get 1 Charm and 1 XP for each point you earned. This means a higher win rate lets you convert each Scroll into more Charms, on average.
Starting Scrolls: 6
Regenerating Scrolls: 4 every 8 hours
Scrolls Soft Cap: 9 (you cannot regenerate above 9)
Scrolls Hard Cap: 99 (you cannot buy or collect Scrolls above 99)
Free Pass Scrolls: 12
Premium Pass Scrolls: 14
Total Free Scrolls: 102
Total Premium Scrolls: 116
During the first Sanctum Showdown, I collected game data from several players.
Games: 439
Avg. Win Charms: 18.3
Avg. Loss/Tie Charms: 9.2
Roughly, a 50% win rate means you'll play two games per Scroll (one win, one loss) and earn about 27.5 Charms. Of course, your mileage may vary depending on your play style.
The soft cap on Scrolls is pretty low. If you want to avoid burning Scrolls, you'll need to get your Scroll balance down to 5 before any refresh. I strongly advise that you never claim Scrolls from the Passes until you're ready to play and out of Scrolls.
Passes
First up, the Passes. The Premium Pass costs 800 Gold and you can buy it at any point during the event. On top of opening up the Premium half of the XP-based prizes, it instantly rewards you with 650 XP, two scrolls, and a Fire Purple Border.
Here's everything from the Passes (note the instant Premium rewards are included at 0 XP):
Careful if you're saving Scrolls! If you claim a prize from one Pass, it will automatically claim the prize at the same level of the other Pass. This also means that if you buy the Premium Pass after you have claimed a bunch of Free Pass prizes, the corresponding Premium prizes will all be automatically claimed.
Premium Value
This Premium Pass follows the pattern of other recent events. The objective, progress value is poor (how close it gets you to affording your next card). It lands around 59.5% value. I'd never recommend it if it were just a bundle of resources. Of course, it's more than that.
It's worth noting that Sasquatch is a Series 4 card. If you don't already have the card, the variant will also unlock the base card. This makes the Premium Pass a much better deal: roughly 528.3% value if you don't have Sasquatch.
The subjective, cosmetic value is great. 800 Gold for a Sasquatch variant + 1,800 more Charms to spend in the shop is a great deal if you want the cosmetics. You'll see in the next section that 1,800's more than enough extra Charms to buy an emote or a couple extra variants. Note that this Sasquatch variant appears to be event-exclusive for now (this is not always true of Premium Event Pass variants).
Time is Money
The time savings are great, too, if that's what you're most interested in. 800 Gold will get you that Seasonal Series 4 Pack without playing a single game! Here's a comparison of how many Scrolls/Games you can expect to reach your goal, whether you're on the Free or Premium Pass.
As you can see, the Premium saves you about 43 games if all you care about is the Seasonal S4 Pack. If you want to finish the Pass, the Premium saves you about 48 games.
Shop
Here's everything in the event Shop:
When you buy a Portal Pull, it will randomly give you one of the Portal Pull variants you don't already have. Pixie is in Series 4, so she's extra high-value for any player that doesn't already have her. According to Snap.Fan data mines, the Mantis is Rare, the Pixie is Super Rare, and the Hela is event-exclusive. In-game, it appears that all three variants are event-exclusive.
Second Dinner didn't include it in their details, but it's likely that you cannot buy the Snap Packs from the shop if you already have every card in that Pack.
The highest-value prizes are the Collector's Series 4 Pack, Pixie (if you don't have her), the Series 3 Pack, and Hela (if you don't have her).
The 7 Scrolls bundle you can buy for 100 Gold every 8 hours is the best use of your Gold if you have the time and desire to play all those games. With a 50% win rate, 7 Scrolls are worth ~192 Charms (giving it a Gold ratio of 0.52).
If you try to buy anything when you don't have enough Charms, you are given the option to supplement the cost with Gold. Obnoxiously, each item has its own Gold-to-Charms ratio. If you are going to spend a mix of Charms and Gold in the Shop, it is most efficient to use the Gold on items with lower Gold ratios.
The Gold ratios for the top section of the Shop come from data mining by Snap.Fan. The Gold ratios for the Daily Offers are copied from November Showdown and may be inaccurate.
Expected Charms
It's very doable to complete the Free Pass without spending any Gold. Below is a table showing how many Charms you can expect to acquire if you use all your Scrolls (102 Free/116 Premium). This can help you plan what to grab from the Shop.
Direct Comparison
How does this month's Showdown compare to November's? Let's start by testing SD's claims.
XP Requirements Are Down 15%
True! November's card required 720 Charms, and the Pass required 2,000 Charms to complete. This time, it's 585 and 1,700, respectively. That's down 18.75% for the card and 15.00% for the whole Pass.
The Free Pass Has More Value
True! Everything is equal or better this time around — and for less work because of the lower XP requirements. I'm sure many players will appreciate the addition of the Mystery Variant on the Free Pass!
Other Comparisons
Might as well compare the Premium Pass prizes, too! Everything's steady or improved except for XP. But XP's only down by 70 while the Pass ends 300 XP sooner — so the Premium actually gets you closer to finishing the Pass now than it did last time.
It's worth noting both Passes offer more Scrolls than before, too. Between that and the lowered XP requirements, this run is significantly less demanding on how many games you need to play (or win).
Conclusion
Overall, this event seems like a win! Replacing a new card with a Seasonal Snap Pack helps players catch up (without punishing collection-complete players). Having Series 4 cards on the Premium Pass and in the Portal Pulls gives some players even more opportunity to catch up. The XP requirements are down and the prizing is up. Plus the way that SD called that out makes me think it's a change in strategy, not just a one-off lighter event.
I'm glad to see the variants in the Premium Pass and Portal Pull be event-exclusive for now. That helps them feel more valuable!
Personally, I'll continue to skip the Premium Pass until there's an event with cosmetics I can't resist. I'm happy to grind for a new card or Snap Pack, especially in Sanctum Showdown (which I love)!
