I decided to start playing this again. I was playing this regularly 3 month ago. Now, for 2 days, playing almost all day, I have won 1 game. Matchmaking by levels does not work. My skill level is so far below what the people of the same are, I have zero chance of winning. I'm on the receiving end of perfect card combos and some ridiculous epic cards. More often than I like I'm at least down to 10 hp within the first few turns.

This hurts just a little extra because I have put a chunk of change into the game.

@kenobi: You can't get demoted? Oh, I had been holding off playing ranked till I gathered more cards as I didn't want to get hammered and get demoted. Maybe I'll just try it then.

EDIT: Decided to look up how the ranking system works, and literally have no idea what you are complaining about. Above level 21 if you lose you can get demoted, and the ranks totally reset each month anyway? So if you haven't played for 3 months you should probably be in a much lower league (you carry over a star for each rank you earned), and even if you are still too high (?!) then losing will demote you, and you'll end up playing worse people.

EDITEDIT: Oh you earn card backs for playing ranked?! Damnit why haven't I been doing this >.>

The ranking system is fine you just need to deal with the aggro heavy meta at the moment. Which means investing in some Taz Dingo's. The Meta has changed in the past 2 months so if you aren't playing into or against it of course you're going to lose at a highly regular clip.

I agree that ranks 19-1 are quickly advancing to the point of those players having nearly all of the cards, and they're looking up the top tier decklists to use those cards in. I don't think we're that far from rank 25-20 being a ghetto for new and non-obsessive players, and it'll be nearly impossible to get above rank 20 because you just don't have all the tools you need to combat those decks. Then rank 19-1 will be all the people who have 90+% of the cards and are using top tier decklists, and it will just be varying levels of "who actually knows how to play those decklists the most effectively".

I agree that Blizzard needs some sort of different matchmaking queue, for like "decks that have 1 or less legendary in them", or "decks that have no legendaries in them, and 1 or less epics in them". It's an increasingly hostile game for new players or very occasional players like @kenobi, because at a certain point their card collections just can't compete with the people who have all the rares and epics and the 5-6 legendaries that are actually any good.

I'm wondering if part of the problem people are having with matchmaking is due to the resetting of ranks each month, I always notice a major increase in difficulty around rank 20 and I reckon it's probably due to a clusterfuck as everyone tries to push against each other to the higher ranks. It seems to take about a week or two for the ranks to settle but it still seems like there are people with fairly strong decks in the lower ranks even towards the end of the month. It may also have something to do with people wanting to play multiple classes, I find myself at not as high of rank as I could be because I don't stick to the decks I get great results with. I will complete a 60 gold get 5 wins with a Warlock quest in one streak, increase my rank in the process, but then gradually decline in rank as I start playing or trying out other class decks.

Casual usually doesn't seem very great either, it typically has many high skilled players trying out new decks with some fairly good rare cards. I've been finding casual a lot more enjoyable lately though with all the people trying out new decks based on the currently released Naxx cards.

I'm sad. I was rank 13 two days ago using a basic deck and now I'm down to 20. I'm convinced the game hates me since I've drawn nothing but shit in 90% of the games I've played since Naxx came out.