Is the mastery system effective?

chillyerrmac

Read spoiler for background on why I feel this way, otherwise skip.

In my opinion the mastery system has one major flaw, and I am going to explain why, as it so happens I unknowingly participated in the cause of its ineffectiveness.

When I began playing MTGPQ it was several months before the mastery system was implemented. When I began playing, I found the starter plainswalker decks were very weak against players, and even with the runes I crystals I earned through story mode, I was very limited in my capabilities in PVP.

Fast forward to a few months after the mastery system was released, where I basically only logged in for my daily rewards, but stayed true to that and collected plenty of rewards over time to build strong decks.

Now, the issue here, is that I had very strong decks for for bronze tier. While this is only a minor complaint, it is something I continue to notice even into silver tier. Other players have very strong decks (myself included) that are not silver level decks.

How does this happen? People might have done like me, amassed a large collection of rewards over time, then put it all together and begin competing, where no cards are mastered, so their decks are very strong, but having no mastery, keeps them in a low tier.

Proposal for new system: Variable win/loss-based tier ranking tied to each Plainswalker

Much like other PVP games, having a system where player rank can move both up for wins, and down for losses would be key to maintaining an overall fair playing field. Keep the 4 tier system, but the ranking variable is no longer color based, but Plainswalker based.

This means it is the PW that is given the tier ranking, and that PW's W-L ratio, determines its rank, and what PVP bracket that PW would be in for PVP events, which will fluctuate based on each win or loss. This way, the specific PW being used in any PVP event would only face other PWs of equal tier.

Possible benefits and drawbacks

The major benefit here is creating a more even playing field. Mastery only works so well in moving up the tiers. I have managed to stay in silver for some time due to slow gains in new cards to rotate into the decks I built when I first got into regular PVP play. This means I experience a high amount of wins, which is always fun for most.

The significant drawback of this is that a more even playing field will result in more difficult matches as all players would be on a more narrow playing field. While this might overall be desirable, some would find displeasure in having more difficulty performing well in events.

Please leave feedback on this idea or provide your own thoughts on what a new system might look like!

majincob

The problem with this approach is that players would tank their win/loss records in-between events if possible or within certain events in order to be able to be competitive in more desirable events.

For example, I have a large collection of very powerful cards, but it would be trivial for me to pick a PW and lose every game with it for 3 events in a row if it means I can play in Bronze for an event with an exclusive PW as the prize and ROFLstomp the competition on the strength of my collection alone. I even have some un-leveled PW to use if they put a PW level cap on tiers.