The Crab Report (Apr 30 - May 6)
Hello Crab Fam! It’s been an active week and there’s a lot to cover. This week’s Crab Report is a long one because there is so much new info going into the Battle Game/ Swimmer Network launch. Hopefully it’s not so long that we have to get someone to summarize the summary.
TUS Price Action
This week’s price action for TUS was a continuation of what we have seen the past few weeks: higher inflation, higher gas fees and increased sell pressure. We saw TUS get as low as ~$0.016 (a staggering 95% decline from its all-time high in February). As we discussed in past reports, the forced selling to pay for gas appears to be the main cause of the sell pressure. Below you can see gas as a % of emissions (orange line) vs. TUS price (white line).
Source: Crabada Tracker App
Battle Game
I’m sure many of you have been reviewing all the new Battle Game info and have been planning your strategies and figuring out the best crabs to breed. If the onslaught of info has been too much, there is a helpful online tool that breaks down all the skills and has rankings of pincers/eyes here.
The team has been releasing Road to Battle Game videos which highlight different aspects of gameplay. So far we have received 6 of 15 videos: Video #1, Video #2, Video #3, Video #4, Video #5 , Video #6
One of the things I like most about Crabada is the active and engaged community. We have many examples where members of the community are dedicating their own time to help grow the ecosystem. Examples include Crab Radio, Crabada Tracker App and yours truly with The Crab Report. In keeping with that spirit I wanted to get the big brains in the community to give me their thoughts on Battle Game.
First up is TheCryptoGemini, Crab Cartel member and Crabada meme lord, giving us his thesis on Battle Game:
With the information we have so far, what pincer/eye combos stand out the most to you and why?
While there are quite a lot of potentially interesting and stronger pincer abilities, I think the for the first weeks it will be important how many of those types of crabs are currently being bred and circulating in the game.
In terms of raw damage, primes (especially AVAX/BTC) appears to be king, and that also happens to be one of the combos that was already being bred quite frequently pre-Battle Game. With Primes now taking over the number 1 spot from bulks, I expect Prime + tanks to be the composition to beat.
And there is one combo that is somewhat frequently bred that I think will do a good job at that, which is Crele/Crele Sunken. The Sunken speed and raw damage from their ability makes them a scary foe for Primes. That said, two Crele/Crele + one Prime could also be very strong potentially.
Now for some dark horses: potentially strong combos that are not as frequent in population yet. Might not see much of them until breeding picks up.
Sunken with Crucket pincer/Creasure eyes and Crucket pincer/Crele eyes. I think if everyone has Prime DPSers (DPS = damager per second or a crab whose main job is to deliver damage) on the backline then a composition with 3 Crucket might be able to beat them by sniping the DPSers fast.
Ruineds with Cragon, Crombie or Crailer pincers. If Sunkens become a popular meta to combat Prime DPSers then Ruineds might be able to shine. Despite their pincer abilities packing slightly less punch than primes in terms of raw damage, Ruineds have many great eye effects.
Earl Cray pincer/Cramethyst eyes Gems. Combined with two high DPS crabs I think this has potential to be an amazing tank. If everyone is running prime DPSers, you're likely better off running Gem tanks over Bulk/Surge.
Crazor pincer Surges. This ability is nuts. It's a tank shredder, that does about as much damage on DPSers as other average Surge abilities too. There don't appear to be too many of these in circulation, but expect to see that pick up.
Cranana & Bulbie pincers. Both abilities look very strong due to the fact that they incapacitate the whole enemy team to some degree with a single ability. Both are also still very rare, so don't expect to see many of them at launch
How have you changed your strategy after reviewing all the new info about Battle Game?
The Battle Game has really renewed my love for Crabada much more than I could have even imagined. I love brainstorming about potentially strong combos and have shifted my breeding entirely to focus on strong pincer/claw combo crabs now.
You have only one team, any team, what would the composition be?
Earl Cray/Cramethyst, Cragon/Cragon, Crele/Crele
What are questions you still have about Battle Game?
There are still certain abilities or eye effects that could use a little bit more clarification in the whitepaper. Things like critical damage bonus, is it a flat increase of 30% or a relative increase of 30% (15% to 45% or 15% to 19.5%?).
Next up is MiniScor, Crab Cartel member and hard core gamer:
With the information we have so far, what pincer/eye combos stand out the most to you and why?
Tank combos: Crazor pincer with Crazor eyes: massive damage with pincer skill. With 30% Hp damage, it will deal around 1800 damage against tanks, on par with any damage class out there. Crazor eye can reflect back 30% damage to attacker when activated which does well against enemy damage dealers. Also, Crazor pincer with Spikey eyes: as Crazor pincer is already one of highest damage dealer skill. Spikey eyes will keep it alive longer thanks to its “glancing” effect to avoid 50% of normal attack.
Damage combos: Highest damage - AVAX pincer and AVAX eye. AVAX pincer already has the highest damage skill in the game with 2045 damage. If it can activate the eye skill, which “weakens” the enemy, then it will benefit the whole team, not just the AVAX prime. To top this up, being Lux faction will help Prime shred through 2 main tanks in the game (Bulks & Surges). High damage with some CC (crowd control): AVAX pincer and Bitcoin eye. Same as above but Bitcoin eye will provide prime with 10% stun. As Battle Game is a turn-based combat, losing one turn is a big disadvantage no matter how you look at it. High damage with more CC: Cragon Ruined eye with Cragon/Crombie/Crailer pincer. It functions pretty much the same as AVAX pincer/ Bitcoin eye, but with 20% stun instead of 10% stun from Bitcoin eye.
Balanced combos: Crele pincer with Crele eyes. Even though Sunken is classified as a support class, it is a very balance class with high damage, high HP, and very good CC with highest speed to boost. It can serve well as bruiser/off-tank meta. Crele pincer offer highest damage among its class, and Crele eyes got 20% stun to top up its effective in Battle.
Currently you will have to pay a hefty premium for Crele/Crele, so another good alternative is Staro/Crele. As Staro pincer skill only has 100 less damage than Crele pincer, which makes it a good trade off. Otherwise, you will have to pay a 10k TUS premium to get those Crele pincers. If you make a team of 3 Crele Sunkens, it means 30k TUS more expensive. My vote is Staro/Crele any day of the week.
You have only one team, any team, what would the composition be?
I would choose a team with 1 tank and 2 damage dealers:
Tank: Crazor pincer with Spikey eye: a tank with tank-killer skill and eye skill to prolong its life in battle. The longer tank lives, the more damage that back liner can dish out.
Damage dealer: 2 AVAX pincer with AVAX eye. Highest damage dealer. The beauty of this team is that damage will never fail you. If eye skill is activated, it works well. If not, then you are still golden with high damage output. However this team will cost quite a bit to set up.
Another worthy mention for a budget set up would be: 1 tank with Spikey eye and any pincer skill, and 2 Sunken Staro pincer/Crele eye. This team setup is cheap and can do well with its high defense, good crowd control and decent damage. Even after enemies get through the tank, they still have to deal with 2 off-tank Sunken.
Bonus information: In 1v1 situation, without any critical hit and no eye skill activated, Staro Sunken will win against Prime Avax and all kind of tanks. The only exception is Crazor tank. And the only thing can win against Crazor tank is Prime AVAX. So we get a nice rock-paper-scissor situation here.
What are questions you still have about Battle Game?
Will a crab lose its level when transferring between main account and disciple account?
Finally, we end with Crab Radio co-host and EXPO Capital Crab Manager, Trading Aloha:
With the information we have so far, what pincer/eye combos stand out the most to you and why?
I like many of the Sunken combos as they have a pretty good damage percentage. The Sunkens also benefit from the highest speed bonus modifier as well. Being able to attack first is going to be a key decider in many of these battle and I want to ensure I target that where I can.
How have you changed your strategy after reviewing all the new info about Battle Game?
I have not, as I think there will be a continually evolving meta based on the comments from the dev team stating they will look to evaluate the game every few weeks to ensure there is a balance.
You have only one team, any team, what would the composition be?
2 Sunkens (Creasure and Crele) and an Organic (Freshie or Eva)
What are questions you still have about Battle Game?
Right now I think I have most of my questions answered. The only way I can see to clear up anything I am still unsure about is to try out the game and combos for myself to see what I might be missing.
Main Discord
We had some good info come out of the main discord this week. Devs have been actively answering questions about Battle Game and Swimmer Network launch. Highlights include the following:
Confirmation that they are in talks with various games to launch on Swimmer Network. However they are not ready to publicly announce anything yet.
“CRA is not forgotten. Utility is being worked on. I think something that is largely overlooked is that validators need to stake CRA. More validators will be onboarded as Swimmer expands. This is a major use case. Aside from that, CRA is staked for CRAM. CRAM will provide more in-game benefits and convenience as we expand on the game.”
Question: “Wanted to know if we can focus only on one team, rush max level and mine/loot only with that team while having tons of crabs slots to increase Energy Crust. Will this be a valid strategy?”
Answer: “Have yet to officially share this but have briefly mentioned a change in the energy system. Energy System will be called Energy Bubbles and will be attached to each crab instead of account and refilled at 00:00 server time each day. It’s to prevent exploitation of a player buying cheap crabs to boost energy while farming with only their maxed-out team.”
Migrating to Swimmer Network will require taking all your crabs out of your teams and bridging them to Swimmer.
Idle-Game mode will mostly remain the same for now. Updates will still be made to the Idle-Game to promote playability.
Initial version of the Battle Game will be largely off-chain and planned to move on-chain by parts as we progress. The only on-chain actions for now is the minting of TUS.
Question: “Returns of the Battle Game, will they be tradable for TUS? Also, if it is, is it going to be a community driven marketplace, or quick-sell at a fixed price?”
Answer: “Materials can be combined to create TUS. For initial release of the Battle Game, it’s quick-sell at fixed price aka combining”
Still working on Battle Game rewards. Reviewing based on feedback from community AMA.
Question: “Is Battle Game going to require significantly more time to play each day?”
Answer: “It is still mostly idle but duration between playing is shorter so I would say yes it would take up more time. How much more significantly I cannot say.”
“Info about Disciples (Scholars) will be coming in the next few days. Just want to share how easy it will be for Disciples to come onboard (besides having to fight for the limited slots). After getting discipleship with a Mentor, mentor will make subaccount through marketplace with login credentials. Disciple: 1) Download game on preferred platform 2) Login with given credentials 3) Play game and earn rewards”
Currently planned for Mentors to have an ad channel.
“Mentors have full control over fund transfers in the sub-account that is created. Total rewards 100%. Let’s say you choose to give them 50%. YOU, as the mentor, can choose to distribute maybe 10% as TUS to your Disciples. YOU can also choose to set aside another 40% to go into buying a Crab for them.”
Crabada Tracker App
If you have not checked out Crabada Tracker App yet, I would highly recommend it. It’s a very useful tool that helps you track earnings, mine/loot win rate, crab stats, population stats and much more. They recently came out with a tokenomics section that has some insightful new tools that track breeding, inflation and gas as % of emissions, and you can also overlay TUS price in all these graphs. This is really good stuff! The free version includes most of the data and there’s also a premium version with additional data for 35 CRA a month (~$14). I use this everyday and for me the premium version is worth every CRA.
Daily Active Users
Weekly Daily Active Users (DAU) grew 3.34% to 7,814 users. While it’s great to see continued growth (especially in the face of terrible market sentiment last week) the growth was at a lower rate than recent weeks (3.3% vs 6-9% growth). I’ll be watching closely to see how Swimmer Network/Battle Game affects DAU.
Tweet of the Week
Miko was back this week with his weekly inflation and ROI update. It confirmed what we have been talking about over the past few weeks: inflation is ticking up, crab population is growing faster than DAU and a sagging TUS price and high gas fees have reduced ROI scenarios. Miko has taken the plunge into full-time Web 3 with his startup P2EAnalytics which has great tracking tools for the play-to-earn space. Currently they only focus on Crabada, however other games will be coming soon. Definitely watch this space.
Crab Radio
Special guests on this week’s Crab Radio were 0xBond and Web3, or bust (Jay) covering what’s happening with Swimmer Network. A little bit of background on each:
Jay’s role at Swimmer Network is ecosystem lead where he is working hard to turn vision into reality. Jay has a background in computer and political science and his role takes place at the intersection of engineering, business development and infrastructure. His job is to help make that interdisciplinary puzzle work together so Swimmer Network can truly be an ecosystem.
0xBond started as a mod in the Crabada Discord and worked his way up to a core team member. He is now the lead for technical operations and business operations.
Listening to both these guys talk about their background and why they are working in Web3 and specifically Crabada/Swimmer Network is pretty inspiring. These guys have a big vision and are passionate about Crabada and Swimmer Network.
Swimmer Network highlights:
The first goal of Swimmer Network is to launch Crabada and help it grow and thrive but then to also share the lessons learned with other teams to help build other games/experience on the network with the goal of creating a sustainable chain.
They are not trying to build the first subnet, they’re trying to build the BEST subnet.
Subnets allow teams to choose what token they want to use as gas. Using TUS as gas allows Crabada to help bootstrap other games by allocating TUS to help prepay gas or do various other things (similar to how Ava Labs used Avalanche Rush incentives).
Subnets can be multi-chain which means you don’t need bridges to move assets between chains. This helps avoid a big security risk and creates many different opportunities for composability and interaction (think using your crabs in other games).
The team has had many discussions with the full spectrum of teams looking to join Swimmer Network: this includes early stage games, games with code audited and in the IDO process and games currently operating on the C-Chain.
They are actively speaking with their first cohort of games and looking to go live not too long after Crabada goes live.
Initially Swimmer Network will be permissioned (required by Ava Labs) with the goal to become more decentralized in the future.
Swimmer is trying to be the Netflix for games.
Looking to continually calibrate gas based on data. It’s going to be an iterative process.
The gas calibration git book will be updated and posted closer to launch. When transactions take place, some TUS is burned, some goes to validators and some is set aside for the ecosystem.
May 15th Unlock
On May 15th, 37 million CRA will be unlocked and free to sell on the open market. This is a ~35% increase in circulating supply. At the time of writing, the CRA token is hovering around all time lows at $0.30.
Important Dates
Swimmer Network Launch - May 9th
Swimmer Network Migration - May 13th
Battle Game - May 15th
3x CRA Rewards - (TBD)
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading. Remember this is not financial advice (I write about digital crabs ffs). 7 DAYS until we migrate to Swimmer Network and Crabada enters the next phase of its evolution!
#snibsnib