Prologue
I was very excited when the the proposal to re-introduce leagues to Splinterlands was made. I wasn't expecting it, but hoping for it. I'm not big in the Discord, but luckily, there were some very interesting comments under the post, both for and against and the best - the compromises. I want to go over them and give my opinion, and please, feel free to comment and give yours! This is just a draft proposal, and the more the community weighs in, the better the team can implement it (if it passes... please vote!).
Pro 1 - Safe space (by @ghostlybg)
Having Leagues helps smaller players to slowly improve their decks without being constantly beaten by players with higher cards. I, personally, am a case for that. I have a Advanced League Deck, not complete, but I mainly encounter decks with maxed summoners. Sometimes my skills are enough, sometimes they aren't - but it would be great to go back to play skill against skills, and not against money.
Having Leagues back would just allow that - there wouldn't be any cards above that. They'd automatically been reduced to the league level, just like they are in tournaments.
Counter 1 - Cheaters vs. Real Players - by @aironeous on X
The argument is that cheaters could just stick to a league, and use battle helpers to beat other players again and again.
In Wild and Survival, that is absolutely possible, since bots are allowed. It honestly wouldn't make much sense to introduce the level restrictions there again. But in modern, it's not allowed, so it would make sense there. A compromise could be just that, having the caps in modern only.
Also, as many comments pointed out, one of the original problems that lead to the League-Removal were the DEC rewards on the leader board. Those are gone now, all that is available is the soul bound Glint, and to make that valuable, you need to jump through a few hoops. I don't think it would be worth it sticking in Bronze, Silver or Gold League, with the danger of being caught and blocked from playing all together, just for 200k Glint.
Counter 2 - Useless Cards (by @udow)
Udow presents a few points, but I will focus on the cards. If I play in Advanced/Gold, I can only use those cards. If I decide to stay in that League, all my cards higher than that (including reward cards) would not make sense to have at that level, and I could only burn them for Glint.
Which is true, there would be less incentive to buy and that could have a negative impact on the market and card prices. But especially with reward cards, I'd see this the other way around. I love my reward cards, and a lot of them are at their best on max level. So, I might take it as incentive to level the rest of my deck as well, and eventually start in a higher league, working my way up. And even if I wouldn't want to - I can still use the Glint for a lot of other things. Energy, potions, merits... the list is long.
Pro 2 - Learning Experience (by @ninjamike ) and Deck Building Motivation (by @tarabh )
Those two link well together. We do have the Frontier-Mode now, which is a great first experience and does lead into the rest of the game quite nicely. But then, it's not that gradual anymore. I sometimes went up the ranks nicely, not because of a streak of luck, but because I played my cards perfectly. But then I suddenly encountered only the heavy decks, and got bashed down with long losing streaks by max level cards.
Keeping it to one league allows me to master that league, which then will help me in the according tournaments, too. I remember being an Intermediate-Player and entering a Ghost-Card-Tournament. Boy, was I overwhelmed! Being able to choose my league will help me feel more comfortable, when I think my slowly built deck can support the next step, and seek the challenge when I'm ready, and own the challenge. I'm not thrown into it, I can choose to be beaten up. Or not.
Pro 3 - Ending CL Domination (by @megalithic )
This is a very long and interesting one, I hope I got it all right. The core seems to be this sentence:
It's better to get a few of the cheapest max level cards than to get an entire bronze playset [...]
With getting Leagues back overall, non-maxed cards would gain in value as there is use to them again in Bronze League. I can see how that might work for the older editions, before CL, but only to a certain point - CL cards will still be cheaper to get than UT/Beta. The CL set just was an overall disaster for card values, and I doubt that would change with leagues.
Compromise (by @clayboyn)
Card limits - Both max and minimum, with minimum being for Gold/Diamond/Champion. I like this idea, as it gives incentives to level up cards. Some cards get their most important ability at Bronze, but in order to use them in Gold, you'd have to get them up at least to Silver level.
Allowing Players to choose their Leagues - That would be for those who come into the game and buy a max deck. Though I would find a system like in sports more interesting. Get into a certain range, and you can choose to be promoted to the next league. But if you don't play well, you can also get demoted in the the league before. That would increase competitiveness on both sides. ( @femisapiens proposes something similar)
Rewards split - yes, absolutely. Can't give the same share of the reward pot to Bronze as to Champion.
Conclusion
Getting the old system back as it was is not an option. But things have changed a lot since then, and there are many advantages that a League system could bring. Even though the draft-proposal might fail, I hope that the discussion itself brought the topic into enough heads to spin off some ideas. There are many ways to make the game more fun, and keeping the competition within a certain range is one of them. How that is done is open, though Leagues seem to be the most obvious solution.
But we're a community of many creative minds, and we have a team that is listening to ideas (both Davemccoy and Clayboyn commented already). I'm pretty sure that if we keep the wheel of thoughts spinning, it will slowly build a great compromise that enhanced the overall experience of the game.
There were many more interesting comments and ideas, and this post is not complete by all means. I picked the ones that seemed most important to be, and most interesting, and wanted to present my take on them as well as my own ideas for solutions. I hope it helped, and I'm looking forward to discussion.
Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it at least as much as I enjoyed writing :-D If you have any comments or feedback - please let me know! And don't forget to leave your own posts for me to curate. Thank you very much!
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