Update/Edit: Cryptoslam.io now uses Rarity Ranking (formerly known has Difficulty Rating).
The story of the first MLB NFT cannot be told without Cryptoslam.io. When the MLB Champions project was live and running, people like me would go to Discord and wait for an update from game developer Lucid Sight. When nothing was announced, we would complain, do nothing, and come back the next day hoping for news.
The MLB Champions community really believed in the MLB brand. There was no way Major League Baseball could align their name/product with a group that was unaware of the term “shortstop”. There was also no way a game developer with two Discord channels could be bold enough to post every day in their Crypto Space Commander channel and go months without communicating to their MLB Champion customers. We can see you Fazri.
Alas, it is true. The MLB doesn’t do its homework on its licensing, game developers can be cowardly, and one community member can change the game. I will never forget the day that Cryptoslam.io first entered the scene as an MLB Champions explorer.
Cryptoslam instantly injected life and a treasure trove of data to our NFTs. It was dumbfounding to see one MLBC community member outperform and bring more value to our tokens than the actual game developer and Major League Baseball. Overnight, an unorganized mess was overshadowed by the modern day Beckett – every MLB NFT mint tracked, sorted, and displayed with a “Difficulty Rating” algorithm specifically tailored to MLBC NFT attributes.
The Cryptoslam Difficulty Rating still reigns supreme today as the most tried and true way to rank the various MLB NFT mints. MLB Champions is not like NBA Topshot and other newer NFT projects. Mint number is a big deal in NBA Topshot. Everyone is after a mint #1. In MLB Champions, mint number is important but it is only one factor driving price. Most MLB NFT mint #1s are not the most valuable. The most valued MLB NFTs are the ones with a Difficulty rating of 100.
Difficulty Rank is a Cryptoslam algorithm that rates an MLB NFT by its various attributes such as “Base”, “Glove”, “Bat”, “Stance” , mint number and even uniform. Each NFT is rated on a one to 100 scale. The most “difficult”/rarest mint will have a 100 Difficulty Rank. The most common mints have a low Difficulty Rating. An example that highlights Difficulty Rating differences can be seen with the 2018 Brett Gardner NFT mints.
The picture above is a snapshot of the 2018 Master checklist for Brett Gardner NFT mints sorted by Difficulty Rating (second column). The only legendary base Brett Gardner mint is ranked #1 (100 Difficulty Rating). One of the five gold base “Gardners” is ranked second followed by two B.G NFTs with a common base. The mint #1 is ranked 14th in Difficulty. There is a lot going on here.
The Legendary Brett Gardner is self-explanatory. Out of the 404 total 2018 Brett Gardner NFT mints, there is only one with a Legendary base. This legend is ranked with a 100 DR. The Cryptoslam algorithm does not value the “Base” attribute more than any of the other attribute categories. When there is only one NFT with a given attribute in a population, that NFT will have a high Difficulty Rating.
If an NFT is ranked number one in the “Master” population, it will be number one in every other category (Base, Glove, Stance) because it is the best mint of that player through all rarities (common, bronze, silver, gold, legend)
The number two most difficult mint in the Gardner population is SN#83457. The gold base, solid mint number, “wood bat with black finish”, “batter-runner” stance, “socks”, and “long sleeves” uniform combine to make this version the second highest rated (99.73) B.G NFT in the master population.
When compared to only its fellow 2018 gold base mints, SN#83457 is considered the most difficult mint (rating 100). The Cryptoslam algorithm tags different ratings when an NFT is broken down into its various subpopulations.
When populated by gold base, there are three Gardner NFTs in a fielding stance with different gloves. They are all equipped with “Pants” and two share the “Groundball” stance and “Short Sleeves” uniform. The Mint #1 and Classic glove attributes likely make SN#14346 the best of the three glove equipped Gardner NFTs.
The second most difficult gold Gardner in the subpopulation (SN#53616) is mint #2 and is equipped with a “wood bat”, “follow through” stance, “Socks” and “Long Sleeves” uniform. This combination is more difficult than the three fielding stances but not as difficult as SN#83457’s attributes.
The Cryptoslam Difficulty algorithm weighs attributes equally and considers the other mints in the population of a given player. If there were four gold base Brett Gardner NFTs equipped with the same bat/stance/uniform and only one gold base equipped with a glove and different stance/uniform, the glove version would have a higher Difficulty Rating than the NFTs equipped with the bats.
Things get interesting when looking at the third ranked Gardner in the master population. Why is a common rated higher in Difficulty Ranking than four golds and all of the silver and bronze base B.G NFTs?
This NFT is a rare error crypto. SN#11635 was minted in a “Stride” stance. The “Stride” stance should have only been generated for pitchers – not outfielders like Brett Gardner. SN#11635 has a very high Difficulty Rating of 99.47 and is ranked third overall in the master population. This error NFT would have been the number one ranked Standard glove had the legendary Gardner not been equipped with a Standard glove.
Even though the error makes this NFT extremely unique, the combined attributes of the “Stride Gardner” were not able to produce a higher Difficulty Rating than the Brett Gardner legendary and batter-runner gold base NFTs.
This error NFT, however, is the “best” common base mint. It has a 100 Difficulty Rating when populated against common bases only. To some, the Stride Gardner may be more valuable than the two NFTs ranked ahead of it in the master population – a perfect example of the subjectivity and shades of grey that exist in MLB NFT collecting.
Cryptoslam.io data for MLBC NFTs is extensive and voluminous. A player’s Master population checklist can be broken down into subpopulations (gold base, iridescent bats, USA gloves) and even subpopulations of a subpopulation (gold base with iridescent bat, silver base with USA gloves, etc.). Collectors are able to look for and find value in certain niches and subniches of an MLB player’s NFT.
Cryptoslam.io recently released MLB Champion Top 40 ownership rankings and CSV (CryptoSlam Value). These features will be discussed in detail as we continue to write about the intricacies of the first ever MLB NFTs.
Data like the Gardner data is available for every MLB Champions mint. Being able to navigate Cryptoslam.io data is essential for every MLBC and general NFT collector. When I navigate the data, I use Difficulty Rating as my guiding light although there are many ways to value an MLB NFT.
Twitter: @firstMLBNFT
