Amazing game!

[ikinone]

Wow, this is easily one of the best free games I have seen.

However, I seem to have hit a wall after finishing all the quests though. Level 3 AI seems easy (80% win), but level 4 seems like an incredible jump in difficulty (5% win), I have not even bothered trying level 5. PvP 1 seems pretty much 50% win chance, and the opponent will most of the time drop in to AI control.

The only next step seems to be that I have to grind level 3 AI for hundreds (perhaps thousands) of matches (using almost the same deck) in order to get enough gold to upgrade and attempt level 4 or 5 AI. This is where the game suddenly plummets from amazing fun to zero fun.

You could claim I simply have an awful deck, but I have read up on the Wiki on numerous builds, and surely something that crushes level 3 decks in 60 seconds should stand a reasonable chance at the next level?

The rewards system seems a bit off, you can only win upgraded cards off beating a level 5, but it seems you need a mostly upgraded deck to attempt level 5 in the first place, thus you are winning things you don't really need.

Am I just missing something here, or is this how the game is meant to be?

[RootRanger]

You're missing a lot.
A good fully unupgraded deck can do well against Level 4 and Level 5.
Also, upgrades are not a key part of the game. Most tournaments and Events are fully or mostly unupgraded.

[ikinone]

I realise that. I just don't get why there is such a huge difficulty gap between AI 3 and 4. It just makes the game feel vastly unbalanced. It seems there are some specific deck designs (mostly rainbow) that are effective against high tier, but the vast majority of deck builds become almost pointless beyond AI 3 gameplay.

I don't feel like I can just come up with any interesting deck and have a go at endgame, I have to stick to cookie cutter builds.

It is a real pity in that the game suddenly flips between casual friendly to hardcore only in such a short time.

[ZephyrPhantom]

The order of the game used to be AI1-3, Top 50, AI4/Half Blood (Formerly AI5), AI5/False Gods (Formerly AI 6)

With the introduction of the Arena (replacing Top 50), the order is now AI-1-5 and Arena separate from this below the quests button. From what you've said so far, you might be missing out on it.

You might want to try Arena instead - it has variable difficulty level (Bronze-Platinum), and decks are built by other players (also, it was originally between AI3 and AI4). Level 4 is known for being hard due to it's varying deckbuilds, while Level 5 is specifically a 'Boss Level' (though once you have an FG grinder the difficulty gets pretty reduced).

[RootRanger]

There's a huge gap between AI3 and AI4 because there are actually two levels between them: Bronze and Silver League.

[ikinone]

Okay, fair points. It does seem a little bit unintuitive from the interface however!

 I will give it a go =)