Just a small qualm on my part, life had a REALLY difficult strength of season.
This was largely because we had a double header against the team in first place in round one, and then a double header against team number two in round two.
It was no fun.
Seeing as there are 11 other elements, the amount of repetition in our opponents wasn't necessary.
For that reason I propose this rotation:
I tried to put elements with similar play styles as far away from each other as possible, although the matchups weren't perfect.
(Earth == Gravity; Darkness == Time; Air == Life; Aether == Light; Water == Entropy; Death == Fire)
To use this rotation, simply find your element on the sliding scale. One player fights the opponent one to your right, so anyone from team life would fight light. Another player would fight the next opponent to the right, or entropy, and so on until the third player gets his fight. The remaining three fights would be determined by who challenged you, E.G, gravity death and time. Then, next round, the three elements you fight slide three to the right. Of course, when your three select your own element, you don't fight yourself, you skip it and choose the next element. In this way you rarely fight one element two rounds in a row, and the elements you do fight change slowly. If an element is eliminated, simply skip it on the rotation. This system tends to break when elements have under six fighters, but I don't really understand how that works yet. (My best idea would be to have player one fight two people if necessary, maybe even three, so that four people still fight six matches. If you lose one, you lose the deck, but keep the salvage. This is close to what a real war would be like)
Anyway, the new cycle aside, another change I found a solution to is the vaults.
Instead of getting a set amount of money, you get a set amount of electrum. Each element gets it's own elements user, called "LifeWarPlayer" or something, with a username and password. Then, that player purchases the cards for his deck. This solution has a problem, as elements would be unable to get rares, but I suppose you could trade in electrum to get a rare code (or something). That number could probably be based on the cards cost in the trainer.
The point is, you'd pay electrum to buy your fighters, and to buy your cards. Instead of putting a limit on the number of each card you can buy, the limit comes from the price of each card. In theory, death could pack a ridiculous amount of skeletons, but some cards like dragons would be way more expensive. This might balance out the more powerful cards. (Miracle costs 240 in the trainer, and seeing 18 of those wouldn't be so obnoxious anymore).
Meanwhile, once you've chosen your cards, you literally buy them. And those cards make up your deck. Then, at the end of every round, you sell the cards in your deck. You still get to keep the money gained from selling the cards, but that money can't rebuy your deck. And you sell EVERY card, not just 30. In fact, you can sell whatever cards you want, and rebuy them, at a loss to you. This would prevent elements from tracking the cards in your vault excessively, and make it less of a game of organization and espionage than a game of making better decks.
Meanwhile, the winning team would get a small bonus electrum code, perhaps based upon the difficulty of beating the other team, perhaps not. The only way this can go wrong is if players grind using the vault account. This can be prevented easily by logging on to it, looking at the win/loss record, and seeing if extra fights were fought. The win/loss record would also help the warmaster keep track of everything.
When battle time comes, the players log on to their war account, and fight the other war account.
Masters would still have to double check that the decks don't double up on card use, but other than that, the solution makes finding the games in the spectator easier, keeping track of the wins/losses easier, having the cards you need easier, tracking the cards in other's vaults harder, and it balances out the more expensive cards. It might make the war a bit longer, but it doesn't overpenalize decks for losing or being smaller. (A 40 card deck has 10 cards it will never lose. A 30 card deck loses everything equally. Playing and losing with a 40 card deck was FAR more advantageous) Instead, you'd lose 32% of your electrum, perhaps a number that's a bit big, but a number that gives losers a chance for a comeback.
These solve several of the most annoying things about the war, and I think they at least be tried out in a future war, even if not implemented permanently.
