You should play decks you like in ranked (or casual). Your ELO will adjust and you will be match with players of similar strength.
I think itās actually a very good thing that competitive armies are available. Iāve seen people with rather expensive (non oversky) setups play in casual anyway. I would feel extremely frustrated to be paired with people who beat me solely due to the quality of their setup. Thatās precisely what drove me away from HS after 2 days and from Duelyst after a month.
In my opinion, collection grinding should offer more diversity, while standing a fair chance with at least one setup should be granted (after a small amount of time).
I think the issues to address are flavor, variety, consistency and power level.
Flavor : I think even if it were weak (overpriced), the current iteration of swallowing would still be lame. Now if youāre picky and only like playing some archetype that have became unplayable (like control without greedy ramp or burn damage), Faeria also tastes bad.
Variety : Thereās a problem if new pieces actually reduces the number of playable decks available. Or even played decks, it seems top players have cooked some alternative to BG Ramp to some extent, but that does not mean much if the people you play havenāt. I donāt know whether itās the case, Iām too new to know.
Power level : I think if the power level is too high, there are bigger swings happening. Not only it can be upsetting for a control player to see things go, well, out of control, but I believe it also makes the game more reliant on RNG (cards draw and matchup) and on bluff, and less on strategy.
Consistency : I think it should be expected in an online CCG to see the peta vary a lot after each update and I think that to some extent, player should attempt to adapt and explore the new possibilities. But itās also nice if classic setups donāt become unplayble when they go out of fashion.
To some extent, I second what xged said. I finished rank 10 with a rather mediocre neutral rush on december, and have seen other new players share equally bad setups here and bragging some kind of achievement, I imagine any setup is playable if you dive deep enough. I see one problem though : itās not that easy to lose ranks (and if matchmaking depends on a hidden ELO, itās not very intuitive) and does not feel right. Also, keep in mind that there are some try-harder in Casual. I test almost all my deck there and I imagine strong people do it too.
Just to be clear, I finished top10 (#10, 10th best player in Faeria at that season) not to be confused with rank 10.
Matchmaking does depend on a hidden ELO (its not hidden if you are in God rank).
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Lol Im not arguing that swallow sucks. I was kinda just yanking your chain a bit when you say that you hate the 2 (generally) most common archetypes in any given card game.
I never played before the xpack so the current state of things is all ik. As a longtime HS player, however, i guess im just used to the whole RNG deciding a lot of games nonsense.
Has anyone told him that Skywhale was heavily nerfed into Legendary rarity thus only 1 can be run in a deck now. Flowers are still a thing though. Seen alot of rush decks abusing 3 flowers and 3 drains, very obnoxious.
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