Ex Populus Trading Cards

A new trading card system built for the future of Web3

On Monday the 14th, Ex Populus will drop the first set of cards for its new trading card system. The card set is titled Decentralized Autonomous GigaUnits, which received a full write-up here. We decided to launch on Solana because of the affordances the tech provides. Blazing fast transactions and low fees eliminate network related barriers to entry. A few weeks ago we attended the Solana Hacker House and our belief in the Solana communities passion has never been higher. Our goal is to be one of the projects that shift the perception of Solana NFTs in the greater ecosystem.

In this post we want to jump into some details about the cards and the potential for the card system. First, lets have a look at one of the trading cards:

Card Metadata

Each piece of information on the card is critical to understand. In the first part of this write-up, we will itemize and define each integer, symbol and label you see on the card above. Let’s go from left-to-right and top-to-bottom:

Circular “sun” icon: Each XP trading card belongs to one of 4 houses. You can think of these almost like suits in a deck of cards. The houses are: Man, Machines, Beasts and Gods. The sun icon represents Gods. Each house has a strength and a weakness to the other houses.

Circular “1" icon: Each card comes equipped with 1,2 or 3 of over 30 special abilities. In the meta-data, the names of these abilities will be listed. The abilities can be used in games to attack enemies or defend allies.

Lightning bolt with a number: This is the card’s power rating. When cards are used in games, attributes like health points and attack power can be derived from the card’s power, so bigger is better.

DAGs: The name of the card set. Other sets, like Iron Pigeons, will have different names. Its important to know that each set is completely compatible with the others.

NO. 00000: Each card set has numbered cards beginning at 0 and counting up as new cards are minted. That means the counting is mixed between the tiers: common, rare, epic and legendary. The card above is no. 000548.

Set Number: DAGs is a card set and the first in the Ex Populus trading card system, so it will always be referred to as Set 1. Iron Pigeons will be Set 2. Subsequent sets will continue to count up.

Edition Number: Because games will heavily incentive burning of cards to evolve, the supply of Ex Populus trading cards is likely to decrease rapidly. Eventually, we will mint more cards to replenish the supply (never going beyond the cap for each rarity tier). These new mints will be 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions, continually counting up. Eventually, there will be very few 1st Editions left, so if you are a collector, keep your eyes peeled for those early editions.

Rarity Tier: To start, there will be 4 rarity tiers: Common, Rare, Epic and Legendary. Here is a supply cap for each tier within each set:

Common: 80k — Rare: 20k — Epic: 4k — Legendary: 1250

Supply Caps:

Each supply cap is per Set. Lets look at those caps again:

Common: 80k — Rare: 20k — Epic: 4k — Legendary: 1250

Does it seem high? Well, this isn’t a pfp drop, its a trading card system. Consider that there are only 800 Legendaries. Given that, many collectors are likely to hold a few dozen cards at a time to build complete decks.

Flexibility & Scalability:

This system allows for scalability. Based on demand and engagement, Ex Populus can determine if new cards should be minted to replenish supply after large portions have been burned (never going beyond the cap) or if new sets should be made to create new supply beyond the caps within each set. This allows for scalability based on demand with levers in place to keep an equilibrium.

Gaming with the cards:

There is an elegance in the design of the cards that is inspired by standard decks of playing cards. Standard playing cards have a suit and a number, which has been enough to inspire dozens of games for people to play with the cards. Ex Populus is already thinking about games for traders & collectors to play, but because of the simplicity and elegance in the design, there is a possibility for more games in the future with different rules or even the possibility that you can arrange ad hoc games with each other organically.

The cards, the game, and the Ex Populus vision:

When we started Ex Populus, we knew the company would be different. The company has a founding team with both crypto and gaming natives. As veterans in the business, we know that making great products takes time. Our company has a good flow of checks and balances, with Mark C Harris, an award winning Pixar animator pushing for quality, and our dear Soby on the other end of the spectrum pushing for quick cycles. We believe we will land in the middle, balanced as all things should be, and deliver fantastic value to our community. Please join us on Discord if you have questions: discord.gg/expopulus