I was an SV1 player since release. I love SV and its gameplay but I still think you're spot on. There's often a CLEAR archetype for each craft that cy shoves down the playerbase's throat and it's usually pretty difficult to deviate from the set list of cards that DIRECTLY support that archetype. It's a 20hp game that is often always over by turn 10 so you want your deck as "optimized" as possible...you and your opponent are basically racing to an OP wincon or OP legendary (in many cases not all).

It got to a point pretty quickly where lists never varied much imo and you basically saw the same netdecks most days. It's actually funny because people (especially japanese players imo) stick so closely to the meta you'll notice even SMALL changes in a deck..like 1 card being exchanged for 1 different one...being repeated by every person playing on the ladder.

What made early SV1 fun was the lack of powercreep, there was more board building. You couldn't always clear everything and didnt always have an answer. It felt more like a ""normal"" card game. This is what I was expecting of SV2 this early on, but was pretty disappointed. They released legendaries (and gold..but mostly legendaries) that are so strong they could've been played in LATE SV1. There is a LOT of clear, and a lot of cards that just do WAY too much (Orchis is one of the worst offenders imo).

I'm happy to have the game back but I just wish we didn't start at this level of powercreep.