@llehsnatas: My intent for the play mat idea was that yes, your opponent could see if you had one or not; it would only cover that player's half of the field. It would be like a form of intimidation. (hey, look at THIS, I have a kickass playmat and you don't! :p) I didn't propose a specific mechanism for winning it; I was more interested in throwing it out as an idea. I was also thinking that you could change it in a similar manner to how you change your mark now; drop-down menu with the choices of the mats you have. You wouldn't have to pick the same mat as your mark, but you could if you want, and you could turn it off if you didn't want one visible.
In regards to some of your numbers, I think they are not correct, but I do agree that it is much easier to get score in the arena than anywhere else, particularly with the gold arena level. It's worth almost as much as platinum, but it's a lot easier, and it's worth way more than bronze or silver. A false god EM is worth 120, and a gold EM varies but is usually something like 310-330. I also find arena games take less time than fg games.
@contrary: By 'ultrarares' I meant the nymphs/marks, if that changes your opinion any. But yeah, I do agree that there should be more ways to get cool stuff, rather than getting very lucky at the oracle and/or grinding every weekly tournament.
Looking at the top 25 decks, I'm going to estimate that they have about a 7% loss rate, but we'll say 10% just to be safe. Scrolling down the top 250 shows that the win rate doesn't drop much. That's about a 50-60% difference from the number you threw out there. The decks under 250 will likely fall out of the league with 2 or 3 losses. Simply put, your statement has no merit.
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So, I'll say it again: Platinum League special spin would be an acceptable way to reward players with Ultra-rares.
In platinum, the top decks yeah, I'd say they are winning over 90% of the time. An average deck I post in platinum wins probably 80% of the time. However, it is not true that the decks under 250 will fall out of the league with 2 or 3 losses; there doesn't seem to be many more than about 500 people in platinum, and I have encountered decks that are 20+ days old there in the bottom rankings. Tthat statement is true in gold, though; gold has a lot of players and even a few losses will drop you out. My brother's account is in gold league, and if he gets a couple losses early, he's out, because it's so competitive. (conversely, even a few wins will skyrocket your rank)
I don't really agree with having platinum league special spin as a way to get ultra-rares, at least not in its current form. I don't know how it is for other people, but if I spend an evening farming gold league (I don't usually do platinum) I can get a couple rare spins. (last night I won a jade staff and a SoG, and I had at least 1 more spin that won nothing, for example) I don't know what the odds of winning a rare from them are, but it seems to be high, over 50% and probably something like 75%. I would be okay with having a very small chance for (unupped) ultra-rares to be in the platinum spins. For example, if every time you got a platinum spin, there was a 1 in 50 chance that one of the possibilities was an ultra-rare, that would probably keep them at the right rarity. Bronze, silver, and maybe even gold should not have a chance to get them, because they are too easy.
