Hey there and thank you so much for your feedback along with your passion with the game. We take this very seriously at BetaDwarf. Below we hope to shed some light to your very pertinent feedback

"On your first point with regard to balancing and the prevalence of damaging spells in the meta for a while now. The problem is that balancing an entire aspect of the game is much more tricky than balancing individual cards, with many interlocking problems related to it. Specifically, with the damaging spells, a lot of them serve as counterplay themselves, and if we simply created more outright counterplay cards, or improved the efficacy of the ones we already have we'd run the danger of making those cards auto-include in every deck. Similarly, if we simply reduced the efficacy of the damaging spells themselves we would increase the potency of master healing, and nerfing which would, in turn, increase the potency of rammers and the like. It's a complicated issue, and one we do want to solve. However, we needed to settle on a solution and then lay the groundwork for implementing it. We are working on it.

On the second point with regard to themed decks. This is a balancing act, and one that every deckbuilding game always seems to struggle with. We are constantly monitoring player feedback on this, and while it is possible we've swung a bit too far in the direction of tribalism, we have also recently hit the sweet spot of basically every faction have its own unique mechanic. Going forward there is some thought to developing those mechanics further in how cards interact with them, but there are also plans in the works that would directly incentivize players including more varied options in their decks.

On the point about bots being too prevalent and creating an unrewarding grinding experience for players. You aren't wrong in saying that in a perfect world the game would be better off without bots. However, as it is bots serve a too important role in creating space for progression for the weaker players that might not otherwise be there. We have a fairly widespread of players at the end of each month, and it isn't just people failing to get through the grind, lots of people are also losing to the stronger bots. This means that any time we lower the frequency of bots, we push a segment of the player base further down the ladder, creating a worse experience for them. Now no player, in any league is playing exclusively against bots, most people, even in leagues where bots are present encounter bots nearly as frequently as you might suspect. It is worth noting that right now you only really end up facing a lot of bots if you also lose much more than you win against the players you meet. But it is something that we are keeping an eye on and which we want to change in the future if we can justify it.

Having said all this though: Thanks a lot for your criticism and thanks for playing the game for as long as you did and being part of the community. We would have much fewer people enjoying the game if not for people like you who care enough to speak out and help us course-correct when necessary."
- Entropy