It finally happened, I reached 2000 games in the casual game mode and have some observations from this effort.

1.) I believe that I have reached the maximum sustainable win rate allowed by the game rules. I've been as high as a 90.3% win rate, but a lower equilibrium point is realized due to how the game works.

1.2) The way that the game works seems to cause long streaks of going second for the time being. This issue, if real, may impact my win rate negatively.

1.3) The way that the game works seems to cause card duplication to happen during most games. This issue, if real, has absolutely impacted my win rate in a negative way.

2.) The amount of skill or chance required to win a game is relative to who is playing the game, what the situation is, and how the game works.

2.1) Less skilled players may need extremely fortunate circumstances to win or to have those circumstances happen several times in order to win.

2.2) More skilled players may need a relatively less "lucky" moment to win. Such "lucky" moment can create an out of control game state.

2.3) Cards such as contracts, the hypothetical repeat card issue, and cards that are slightly or way too overlypowerful can create a mess out of otherwise thoughtful games.

2.3.2) It CAN be skillful to play around randomness, but that is a lesser skill than things such as card manipulations and creating a game plan.

3.) A number of players can only have decent odds of winning when abusing certain strategies.

3.1) There were a couple of players who always used Crow in our matches and would tend to build huge Crow chains during the games that they won. Both of these players, for some odd reason, switched to using Mora and now have a much much worse win rate against me.

3.1.2) It could be that those players were REALLY skilled at Crow and are REALLY unskilled at Mora. Maybe that is part of the issue, but I tend to think that the change has little to do with skill and more to do with their natural idiosynchrasies that just so happened to jell together with Crow. This type of dynamic could actually be revealing how unskilled they actually are at the game this entire time.

3.1.3) I would say that they are a archetype of player who just is not thinking very much about the game. They probably switched to Mora since they just want to not exert to much effort. Ironically, and possibly because of how the repeat card issue may be happening, it seems to be the case that their choice to switch is costing them since the Crow play is possibly more canned and less requiring of various skills.

3.2) There are a few players that have learned to only play Sorcerer-King/Pellin or Mora/power generating strategies against me and they have okay success.

3.2.1) I still defeat these players most of the time, but they are able to have some odds against me. I'm considering reasonable odds to even be 20% or the likes.

3.2.2) I'll be clear that I find such happening abhorent. Such players don't necessarily become more skillful because of their Patron choice, but they nonetheless invoke a strategy that has some % chance of winning a game, even despite poor decision making, just because of how such games inherently tend to play out.

3.2.3) It bears repeating that the win rate increase caused by these Patron selections also is impacted by the aforementioned skill diminishing dynamics of the game such if 1st/2nd player getting advantages due to their starting position alone, the hypothetical issue with 1st/2nd player choice being repeated over and over, the hypothetical issue of card repeats allowing for quick and dirty power generating combos right from the early game, the occurrence of contracts which may be timely, the issue of contracts that do too much for too little. and, of course, general balance issues which range from being minor to massively problematic in the most serious of game ending ways.

Those are all of the thoughts that I've hashed out regarding this experiment and, ultimately, how it pertains to what I think could improve TOT. I think that the game could be better if a number of the things that I point out in section 3.2.3 were removed/changed/improved/whatever. The goal of any game should be elevating the better and having as few of these side circumstances where the better player can get trampled because of circumstancial stuff rather than the opponents in the moment skillful play.

Special note: It may not be obvious, so I explcitly state that I'm not trying to deride or denigrate with the above discussion. You have to do what you have to do. It's a game issue that you may find yourself using certain strategies. it's not your problem. Additionally, my observations in this post are meant to come from my experience with the casual matchmaking mode only. I think that the lessons that I've learned from casual apply to the ranked playlist too, but because of what I point out in section 2.2, there is a limit to what a game can do to be better. There will always be a cieling on how much game outcomes can be skill driven alone. There is therefore a limit to what designers can do to imrpove their games past a certain point. For example, there are going to be limitations to games where one player moves first and a finite amount can be done about 1st/2nd player advantage. That said, as much that is possible should be done to improve games. And even without going to that extreme, it's quite easy to see how some improvements, especially concerning power level, would take nothing to improve. Other than that, please keep balance in mind as you continue to work on bugs and new content. I know that it's alot, but you have the tools and can do it - thank you.