But really, aether doesn't use fractal that much better than other teams like fire, life, light and darkness, graboid is already usable by everyone in a bow, and vamp dagger is seen in most dark domins already. These cards just need high market prices (as usual), off element discount for them doesn't fix anything.
There's an entire thread right now about how SoP is usable in every element, I've had discussions with previous WMs and generals about it being strong in most elements the way grabbows/dark domins/fractal duos are, and Darkness won a war because of it.
In other words, these cards share that property with SoP. The power gap exists, but not there. Incidentally, that does happen to be where SoFr currently separates itself, even from SoP.
Water is more than playable without discounted SoPa.
This is very true. SoP should be restricted in some way, and Water will be fine.
Some people want it banned, though, not simply restricted, which I don't understand. Consider that the best player to ever play this game only got 5th as general of pre-SoP Water - and got 2nd (and should have gotten 1st) with Light, which has always been low-mid tier at best and is currently the meme element now that Life won a war.
There's plenty of room to tune SoP down from last War, but other cards that have dominated the meta of War for 2-3 times as long should also be tuned down - Fractal/Graboid/VDag are the worst offenders, but there's also four cards in Firestall and a handful of other OP cards to consider.
Also - OP cards should not have reduced prices for off-element use, whether that be just SoFr/SoP (a weak choice) or a wider collection, including both SoFr/Fire Bolt that are much stronger in their elements and several others that are strong in the majority of elements. They're prevalent enough. I didn't realize that was your primary suggestion - I think the meta would be improved much more by having in-element discounts for weaker cards.
Here's
iancu's post on the topic of balancing powerful cards from January, and
my response.