First off, it's Pay-to-Win BIG time... The competitive balance between players willing to drop Hundreds vs even a casual-pay player is staggering. If this is a game you want to be an Elite, be prepared to drop a thousand bucks and that's just the start. If you don't want to pay, I won't say 'forget it'... But you will spend days/weeks/months/years grinding, and honestly not get anywhere. the key is that the top ranking cards have to be 'unlocked'. AND each unlocks at a certain level. You can pay for that key (of course), which is honestly the only viable way to get it without a borderline impossible amount of luck.

What is killing this game for me right now (and I have put in about $60, so it's not like I have nothing invested) is the Christmas Pack. The Ice Golem is fair - freeze on hit, freeze row on deploy - highly logical and reasonably powered.

Then you get to the other two:
Santa - when deployed, turns a random opponent into a 0/7 'wall'... Power, irrelevant. Lane, irrelevant. Column, irrelevant. One of your troops is essentially vaporized. There is no defense.

And the absolute game killer:
Drow - If you hit the warlord, a RANDOM character dies from your side. So you've done a beautiful archer-spawn... Or a Mummy spawn... Something that takes time, patience, good guarding, etc... And you have a good 8-10 troops on your side. Oh wait - Drow gets deployed on the bottom row, and EVERY... SINGLE... Warlord hit vaporizes one of your guys........ Randomly.

There is NO justification for a card this powerful, that takes zero skill to utilize... "they have more troops than me, so I'll just let them hit my warlord, and their army will disappear." Wow. With that card in the deck, the game is a joke, and with that, I won't be spending another cent on the game, and I'm one foot and 4 toes out the door completely.