Showdown Community Update - 30 August

Chain migration to Solana

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Showdown is moving from MegaETH to Solana. The reasoning is largely business driven: Solana is a bigger ecosystem for reaching crypto-native users, and the Solana Foundation's deep involvement in poker (World Series of Poker sponsorship, a planned Bahamas WSOP edition in December, poker events at Solana conferences like Breakpoint) aligns closely with Showdown's identity as a poker-adjacent game. Every user will get a Solana wallet automatically, with no extra registration needed.

Migration and settlement

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Existing MegaETH funds remain withdrawable, no re-registration required. Settlement currency changes from USDM to USDC for easier onboarding. Any existing USD balances convert to USDC with a single authorisation click.

Roadmap

• 1 September: soft launch/testing month, real money enabled but treated as a "shakedown/break things" period, with tournaments to stress test the system
• October: full launch with guaranteed tournaments at May-level scale or bigger

Product and gameplay changes

• New client (still under construction, fuller preview in a couple of days), reworked navigation, new leaderboards and quests
• Card count increases from 16 to 20 per class, plus new mechanics (board-state-dependent cards, backfire-based cards, new animations, and a board log showing card history)
• Some cards nerfed among other rebalances
• Two-month seasons starting in October (September is a one-month soft season), with rank resets and end-of-season tournaments
• New ranking system: Bronze through Elite, similar in feel to Hearthstone/MTG Arena, no visible numeric rank until Elite, roughly 10 hours of strong play to reach Elite

Economy

• Rake introduced from October: 2% on 1v1 quick matches, 6% on tournaments, benchmarked against typical poker venue rakes
• Referral programme pays a cut of rake back to whoever refers a player, paid weekly
• Rake-back NFTs planned later in the beta
• Show Points carry over from the alpha with an eventual path to a Showdown token; first-edition NFTs will migrate 1:1 to Solana for existing holders

Mobile

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iOS returns live in September (no real-money play due to App Store policy). Android and a "Seeker" app (Solana's OS-level app store, which does allow money features) are targeted for November/December.

Structural change to matchmaking

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Free-to-play and real-money ladders will be separated: roughly 20 hours a day of free ladder play, with a short daily window (4 hours) for real-money quick matches. Tournaments remain the main real-money venue and will run more frequently, especially for higher-stakes players.

Team and personnel

• Aieto (community manager) returns in October
• A new hire will take over the Solana ecosystem/onboarding education role
• Barry is stepping back from his role to start a new job in the sector he previously worked in. He’ll remain in the community as a player rather than a team member, staying reachable on Discord, Telegram, etc.

Cadence going forward

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AMAs will now happen roughly every two weeks going forward.

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