Not to steal cheesy's question, or insult you, but I feel it isn't really relevant. (Partly answering part 2 of your question)
Some might feel that a person who isn't willing to face the strenuous play of CL not entirely ready to lead an Element to a victory in War...
I play in CL. As long as you have the upgraded cards, it really doesn't rely on that much skill. The current meta, is rushes, stalls, raibnows (usually involving sosac), mummy rt decks (dafuq?), and a couple novelty things. Because upgraded cards and decks become much more effective at what they do, it is more of an RPS than unupped play. For example, Immorushes kill in 3/4 turns quite frequently, with powerful wyrms coming in at 5/6ish, albeit more stable. Either you counter them or you don't. In upped play it is really hard to make a versatile deck that wins vs a lot of different things, just because specialized decks are more effective. War and trials is how I believe it should be, partial ups. It takes more skill to design a deck taking into account what would benefit most vs. upgrades. Look at the masters tourney this time around, many people were complaining about it being fully upped. CL/upped games are mostly just predictions, counters, and RNG.
EDIT: As to cheesy, 90% of people ban sofo in our games, and many ban sosac as well. Some ban shards all together.
Also, I have played maybe 2 games that actually came down to skill. They were both vs. the blarp. Who would have though it XD? First one was with an immorush, coulda decked him out if I saved a couple SoB. Second one me and dragon both derped, and his derp cost hiim the game. I was able to capitalize.
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