Board Game Arena

I'm trying to "get good" playing arena games, and it's really really frustrating. I feel like very few strategies I try end up making a difference, even when I feel like I'm about to win, I end up getting destroyed, once again. Added to that is the fact that when I look, all the players I play against are mostly 300+ ELO Elite league players , whereas I'm stuck at 100/Bronze. Should I just give up on Arena because the matchmaking is bad / only great players play arena? For the record, I play arena at about a dozen games, and this is the only place where I feel that way. Thoughts? Am I the only one?

Being a better player and having a high rank correlates to having played a lot. When queuing up for a game, you are more likely to meet a player who plays a lot than someone who plays only a little. Ergo, you meet many more strong players.

I see this in many games, not just RftG.

For some reason, it is possible to select access restrictions based on Elo level in Arena. I don't know if that works, and if it does, I don't understand why it should be possible, but you can try it. I've never tried it, in Arena I kinda want to play the field, and maybe learn a thing or two from better players' strategies.

Otherwise you can play Simple mode, possibly with access restrictions, from time to time. I do agree it can be frustrating to feel like one never wins so a breather from playing Elites in Arena isn't wrong.

Wow I did not realize I can set access restrictions on Arena games. I agree, it's kind of icky, but as you said, I might use to take a breather from the pummeling

Otherwise, yeah, the longer you are in a season the more often you play against strong players, but could it be that it's particularly true for RftG? Just my experience tells me so, I've had what feels like a run of 15 games against 300+ players. In any case, thanks for showing me that setting!

Think it's the same in pretty much every game, especially nearing the end of the season most people are burned out and the only people left playing are just climbing for final rank or just really enjoy the game. In both cases the players are usually quite good. Try joining near the beginning of a new season, and you will see a more diverse range. It also depends on the expansion; I've found a majority of players really enjoy the base game (I get it, simplest to understand), so you can try to join a season where it is base game rules and you should find a more diverse range of players.