Possible Proposal: Arena Should Only Be For 500+ ELO

[Jontia]

I rarely play against any other Top 10 player in arena. Maybe 1 out of 100 games and therefore also most of the time only get like 1-3 rank points/elo points if i win a game.

This has come up on some of the other game forums, especially lower player base ones, and it was suggested that some players might be red-thumbing the best people to make sure they don't get hard matchups.

I don't think anyone had more than anecdotal evidence, and the Real-time Vs Turn Based split is probably a bigger factor, but if you open your own profile with browser developer tools on, you can see and check the people who have red-thumbed you to make sure you're not being dodged.

[WingspanG0D]

I find this a difficult discussion, i think currently the arena match generation is strange because a 150 elo player can face a 600 elo player, on the other hand i sometimes like a relaxing easy win. Also the luck factor of wingspan is getting really high if both players are above 500 elo because there are simply much less mistakes made during the game. I don't like it when the luck factor is to high so from that point of view the current settings are fine for me, but for lower elo players i can imagine it can be frustrating. If the elo system would change to a way where top players would only face each other it would be better for lower elo players but i think it can also be frustrated for high elo players because luck will decide each game. I recently played against Blackbeard who is a good player which is regular visible in the top 10 arena, he had the best starting hand ever and there was nothing i could do, i would score a 100+ game but he would still have destroyed me and that also sucks hard if that happens to often

[Jellby]

If any ranking should be considered in matchmaking, it should be EAS, and not elo. The point of Arena is that it doesn't care about elo, it doesn't care about your previous history, it resets (mostly) every season.

[Slarden]

I don't think Arena should be limited this way, but certainly an annual championship arena season for the top players would be a good thing.

[Meeplelowda]

This has come up on some of the other game forums, especially lower player base ones, and it was suggested that some players might be red-thumbing the best people to make sure they don't get hard matchups.

I don't think anyone had more than anecdotal evidence

BGA explicitly referred to the "abuse" of red thumbs in this manner when they proposed (but never implemented) eliminating red thumbs in Arena:

→ Red Thumbs for competitive play
One last thing that is going to be changed in a few weeks will be the impact of the Red Thumbs.
You can currently give a Red Thumb to any player with which you had a bad game experience. This prevents you from competing against them in ranked games or the Arena, but not in Tournaments.
This system can, and unfortunately is, used to prevent some players from competing against the best players. Considering that the Red Thumb system is being abused this way, on purpose or not, we will update the way Red Thumbs are impacting the matchmaking for the next season.

So even if players only had anecdotal evidence, it is unlikely that BGA even considered this change based purely on anecdotal evidence alone.

[Chocobo Kick]

i think what is REALLY needed is that BGA matches you with players no more than 50 points ELO difference, is really annoying, once you are in high ELO, to lose 35 points with someone 200 points below, and if you win you get 2 points.