8 Filter Sets For Finding Great Zed Run Horses!

8/15/2021

Wow, https://www.zed.run is easily my new favorite blockchain-based NFT game! Without getting too deep into it, the NFTs in zed run are virtual horses that you can race on the Zen Run website and also breed to make new baby horses! How fast a horse runs for any given race is determined by the horse preferences (such as preferred gate or distance), the horse's genetics (a combination of breed, bloodline, and genotype), and a bit of randomness. Here's a screenshot of what some horses racing looks like!

Another thing I like about Zed Run is that all transactions of Zed Run horses are done with wrapped ether which means all transactions for horses on the Zed Run website and even on opensea are totally gas-free! I think it's for this reason alone (and the many painful experiences with the mainnet gas station) that many users have flocked to Zed Run- some purchasing low Genotype horses planning to HODL them for eternity while other less patient speculators acquire horses for a quick flip. Regardless of your personal trading style, you need to find good horses to buy and recognize what's a good deal when you see one! Continue reading, because that's exactly what this post is about!

Interesting Metadata Usage And Controlled Minting

I can't believe the number of people I meet who either a) have no idea what NFTs are, or b) think NFTs are limited to just virtual artwork. To me, investing in art NFTs is a risky endeavor. You are not buying ownership of the image, just some random thing on the blockchain with the image link in its metadata. Anyone can (and many people are, all the time) mint new art NFTs on the blockchain (with sites like rarible, mintable, mintbase, etc...) which to me means the supply is just going to go up and up and up... And the worst part of it is that at the end of the day artwork NFTs have no functional purpose.

The key with that Zed Run NFTs is that minting is controlled. And by controlled, it's important to note that I don't mean controlled by some person or group of people. Rather, it's governed by the rules of how the game works. It's predictable in that you know that mating two horses will always produce a horse whose genotype z value is the sum of the mother's and father's genotypes. You know people can only create horses once per month, and you know new horses can only be minted by breeding (and the reserved 38,000 for promotional events).

Because the system is so, predictable and deterministic, people can plan and speculate in a very interesting new market, and it has a way of drawing people in as assets to hold for the long haul. Plus, to make things a bit more interesting there are some elements of chance- for example when breeding two horses with different coat colors you don't know what color the offspring will be, and you don't know off the offspring will be male or female.

Females Are Where It's At!

You should want to GROW your stable... make more babies and more ponies once a month, every month. The key is that when a baby is made, it goes to the owner of the female horse- therefore, I want to own females! Sure, you have to pay a stud fee, but the stud fee is minuscule in comparison to the value of the horse! Also, when you own a male there is no guarantee that you will even get picked to stud once in an entire month! Plus, you can't race when in the stud farm, you only get about 40-50% of the stud fee... yeah, owning males is a total drag. 😅

If you don't believe me, just look at what the market thinks- in every category, the cheapest female is going from usually 30-60% more than the male with the same breed, bloodline, and genotype! For this reason, all the filter sets here have an additional filter for only "Mare" and "Filly" genders. Feel free to uncheck these if you'd like to see male horses as well.

Hunting For Deals

Every once in a while there will be a very underpriced horse up for sale. So far you may have been letting these opportunities go by, possibly not even aware they exist at all! Well, let me tell you that yes- they do exist! Zed Run is a complex and nuanced game, and people don't look at all the different aspects of a horse. There have been times where I've seen the cheapest horse for a given category be only around 30% of the next highest horse with the same metadata!!

A Word On Racing Stats

If you look on great sites like https://knowyourhorses.com and https://hawku.com you'll find lots of stats and history on the specific races they won. I honestly don't race my horses much as I usually don't believe the prize pot is large enough to for me to make any money in the long run (a topic for another post though, hehe). When it comes to the stats for races, even that to me isn't really useful information. For example, this horse raced in 86 races, and his performance looked like this... is that good or bad?

This chart gives us a history of how the horse placed in previous races and what his odds were, but to me there are still so many question marks to make any real conclusions from this data. To me, the most important unknown is who were the other horses he was racing against? Personally, I'd rather look at a chart that compiles "average time the horse ran" for each distance, but sadly knowyourhorses doesn't compute this for us...

Since I don't think about racing times much, I generally like to focus only genetics (breed, bloodline, and genotype). There is one exception to this though and that is "U-shaped racer" horses. Don't worry, I'll explain what it's all about when we get to it down below!

To The List!

Phew, well I've done a lot of rambling up above here, hopefully you found at least some of it useful!
Anyway, I promised you 8 links for finding great Zed horses. Let's get started!

1) Any Genesis

Ah, the genesis, the OG's, the top of breed chart. Genesis horses cannot be created from breeding, and so they will continue to be extremely rare as time goes on, and in fact becoming rarer relative to the total number of horses in existence. Because they are super rare, unmintable, and usually have extremely low Genotype Z values, these pretty ponies are the best in the game, although the most expensive too!

OpenSea - Genesis horses (only female), sort lowest price first:
https://opensea.io/assets/zed-run-official?search[sortAscending]=true&search[sortBy]=PRICE&search[stringTraits][0][name]=breed_type&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=genesis&search[stringTraits][1][name]=gender&search[stringTraits][1][values][0]=Filly&search[stringTraits][1][values][1]=Mare

Hawku.com - Genesis horses (only female)
https://www.hawku.com/zed?breed_type=%5Bgenesis%5D&gender=F&sort_by=price_low

2) Low Nakamotos

s I mentioned before, the lower "Z value" Genotype number, the faster the horse will be and the more ether you will be able to sell it for (generally speaking). Nakamoto is the rarest and fastest breed in general, and I'd definitely recommend going nakamoto if you can afford it! When I say "low" here I am referring to having a low Z value Genotype score, and depending on your budget "low" could be as high as you want to go. Would you be ok picking up a Z20 nakamoto if you could get it at a good price? The point of these filter sets is that it's a starting point. For these, I have filtered for Z values 1 through 10, but feel free to tweak them for your own buying preferences and try multiple different filters to see where you might find some deals!

OpenSea - Nakamoto Z1-Z10 (only female), sorted by price:
https://opensea.io/assets/zed-run-official?search[sortAscending]=true&search[sortBy]=PRICE&search[stringTraits][0][name]=gender&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Filly&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Mare&search[stringTraits][1][name]=bloodline&search[stringTraits][1][values][0]=Nakamoto&search[stringTraits][2][name]=genotype&search[stringTraits][2][values][0]=Z10&search[stringTraits][2][values][1]=Z9&search[stringTraits][2][values][2]=Z8&search[stringTraits][2][values][3]=Z7&search[stringTraits][2][values][4]=Z6&search[stringTraits][2][values][5]=Z4&search[stringTraits][2][values][6]=Z2&search[stringTraits][2][values][7]=Z3&search[stringTraits][2][values][8]=Z1&search[stringTraits][2][values][9]=Z5

Hawku - Nakamoto Z1-Z10 (only female), sorted by price:
https://www.hawku.com/zed?bloodline=%5BNakamoto%5D&gender=F&sort_by=price_low&z_value_max=10&z_value_min=1

3) Z1's to Z5's

Remember, when you breed two horses, the Genotype of the offspring is predetermined. It is precisely the sum of the mother's Z value and father's Z value. Since lower is better, it should be pretty obvious that the lowest genotypes possible are the best ones to have (from a strictly genotypes point of view, of course). Personally, I'd say anything that's a 5 or less falls under the "super low z value" category and should be strongly considered when you find one trading for a low price relative to other horses in this "super low z" category.

OpenSea - Z1-Z5 (only female), sorted by price:
https://opensea.io/assets/zed-run-official?search[sortAscending]=true&search[sortBy]=PRICE&search[stringTraits][0][name]=gender&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Filly&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Mare&search[stringTraits][1][name]=genotype&search[stringTraits][1][values][0]=Z4&search[stringTraits][1][values][1]=Z2&search[stringTraits][1][values][2]=Z3&search[stringTraits][1][values][3]=Z1&search[stringTraits][1][values][4]=Z5

Hawku - Z1-Z5 (only female), sorted by price:
https://www.hawku.com/zed?gender=F&sort_by=price_low&z_value_max=5&z_value_min=1

4) Any Cross

https://www.hawku.com/zed?breed_type=%5Bcross%5D&gender=F&sort_by=price_lowThe cross is actually one of my favorite breeds and the one I would recommend for a new user's first horse. Why is this? Well, it basically comes down to a matter of investment size and return on investment. If you are buying a mama horse with the intent of making babies, keep in mind that most breeds will only be able to make worse breed horses! Think about it- a genesis can only make a legendary, a legendary can only make an exclusive... Exclusive and elites can technically make more respective exclusives and elites, but only if bred with a genesis male which is actually kind of expensive and hard to find on the public stud market. Pacers are basically considered trash at this early stage of the game, and so that leaves the cross breed. Cross females only need to breed with an elite male or better in order to make another cross, and so your investment in a cross female should in theory pay itself off after one or two offspring, and at that point you can just be free rollin', continuing to make babies with your lowest Z value horses and growing your stable.

(PS: if you are totally confused about what I'm talking about here, have a look at the zed run guide on breeding types!)

OpenSea - Cross Breed (only female), sorted by price:
https://opensea.io/assets/zed-run-official?search[sortAscending]=true&search[sortBy]=PRICE&search[stringTraits][0][name]=gender&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Filly&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Mare&search[stringTraits][1][name]=breed_type&search[stringTraits][1][values][0]=cross

Hawku - Cross Breed (only female), sorted by price:
https://www.hawku.com/zed?breed_type=%5Bcross%5D&gender=F&sort_by=price_low

5) Supercoats

Supercoats in an interesting fun little extra the creators added into the game. Your horse's coat color is yet another thing determines by its genetics and DNA, but when you breed two horses that have exactly the same coat color, there's a chance that the offspring will be a "supercoat". I don't think this affects racing, but it is a rare element to the horse which can make its value much higher than other horses with an equal breed, bloodline, and genotype. Some users may not even realize the horse they are selling is a supercoat and are willing to give it away for a bargain!!

Note that you can tell if a horse is a supercoat by the word "Super" next to the color when you look at the Coat color on the horse's page on Zed Run website.

You can tell if a horse is a supercoat on hawku, denoted there by the letters "SC" next to the color name.

It's interesting to note that the supercoat status is not displayed at all on OpenSea. Not only is it not displayed, but there is no way to filter for only supercoats on OpenSea nor on the Zed Run website...

Luckily, we at least have hawku to help us find underpriced supercoats!

Hawku - Supercoats (only female), sorted by price:
https://www.hawku.com/zed?gender=F&supercoat=true

6) Low <Insert Bloodline Here>

7) U-Shaped Racers

Alright, so now we are onto the "U Shaped racers" category. This U shape refers to the the shape the bars make in the Finishes table representing the history of places your horses has won.

The reasoning for why "U shaped" horses are said to be good is that these extreme places on either end will either win you money (ie. the first, second, or third place prize of the pot) or they come near dead last, either 10th, 11th, or 12th. The reason why coming in last is actually better than coming in fourth is because it will lower your horse's rankings. This sets up for a more profitable horse in the long run since you will be able to participate in the class v or class iv races with competition that is not a fierce as the lower classes.

This is another category that cannot be constructed with OpenSea filters unfortunately.

Luckily, hawku provides a simple checkbox for us to filter by "U shaped racer". I also like to set a minimum number of races since you kind of need a decent sample size of data points before you can really look for any meaningful pattern imo.

Hawku - U-Shaped Racers with at least 25 races (only female), sorted by price
https://www.hawku.com/zed?gender=F&races_min=25&sort_by=price_low&u_shaped=true

8) Any Female

Welp, sorry if you were expecting me to hold the coolest filter for last and bust out something wild and crazy... Instead, I'll just remind you to keep it simple. Sometimes a bargain doesn't fit into any predetermined bucket of a stereotypical "good pick", but so what? Once in a while you'll find a downright dirt cheap horse. Sure, she might be slow as molasses or have a Z score through the roof, but I'm not gonna say there never profits to be made with these horses too!

OpenSea - Any Female, sorted by price:
https://opensea.io/assets/zed-run-official?search[sortAscending]=true&search[sortBy]=PRICE&search[stringTraits][0][name]=gender&search[stringTraits][0][values][0]=Filly&search[stringTraits][0][values][1]=Mare

Hawku - Any Female, sorted by price:
https://www.hawku.com/zed?gender=F&sort_by=price_low

That's All For Now!

If you've read this entire article then I would just like say thanks for sticking around until the very end, you're a trooper!

Did I miss any key filter sets that you love using? Let me know in the comments!

And feel free to join the CryptoDevs slack group where talk about all kinds of interesting crypto-related things and have a channel specifically for Zed Run conversations!

Slack group invite:
https://join.slack.com/t/cryptodevsworkspace/shared_invite/zt-tfvuzov9-T0D0cWGY~fiNpHTt6cBB7A

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