Interesting points.

I found it interesting when you said that "the meta has gotten to the point where it's just so confusing it's gone past fun to annoying." In what way?

Obviously it's no fun seeing the Karrion/Kenny Cr/Azel/Pan hand every now and then (I always *facepalm* when I do) but it seems your main point was about seeing some 'random' cards. I think it's a good thing... if people are game enough to go using Sliman in ELO, then I'm all for it.

I've only recently started playing ELO more seriously, so I can't really comment on the 'better or worse' question. But if the meta is so confusing that you can never really know what to expect, and can't go in with a sure counter-deck, or counter-counter deck, then I'm all for it.

I think the issue is that we have quite a few powerhouse cards that were recently introduced, so UR is going through a bit of a transitional period right now. Most weeks go like this:

Player in a Big-Time guild: "I want to play with some of the new cards, they feel pretty OP! Let's go ahead and vote to unban a bunch of them!"
Rest of Big-Time guild: "GREAT IDEA!"

...A few weeks later:

Player in a Big-Time guild: "I am sick of seeing all the new cards, they feel pretty OP. Let's go ahead and vote to ban them all!"
Rest of Big-Time guild: "GREAT IDEA!"

And of course every time you see a week with confusing meta, a bunch of players decide to cram as many 50% win cards into their deck as they can... Blissfully unaware that having 2 or 3 of those cards doesn't drive their win odds above 50% unless they play well.

I think that this will even out a bit as ELO Karrions, er... I mean, carries on.
And I am happy to report that I'm still doing fine with Junta/Vortex (or would be, if I could pay attention instead of playing UR every time my poor achy hands need 3 minutes away from work...)

Lol Skeelz really counters Nightmare and personally ive been running Skeelz to great success (just saw you yesterday with that funky Piranas

Very interesting points indeed. ELO has seen it's ups and downs and I think this has to do with the bans over the weeks, months and years. New cards like Beeboy and Clover are making ELO a pain these days and people are trying to get cheap wins. If anything it has lost morale.

As for the Silmans 's I don't believe I have seen 1 at all this week! however I have seen my fair share of Bangers/Pussycats decks so it weighs out in a way, sorta.

Personally I don't think the game is that dependent on what cards are banned or unbanned, it's how skillful you are with the cards that are already there. I honestly cannot think of one card where it is impossible to win no matter what the situation; it all boils down to your deck strategy and partly chance like when you opponent overpills on your bluff.

Too many game changing cards are out in the wild these days compared to previous years

so to answer your question wats_happenin, yes, ive definitely moved away from ELO... ive played the last 2 weeks... which would make it about 2 weeks in the last 40 (at least)

the big change in meta was the 14 life increase, the game became more about pill hoarding and loading up on your nuke card. but now with more nuking cards out there, hands will often have multiple hard hitting cards, which reduces a lot more games to guessing

decks are now loaded with dangerous cards and solid throw away (low or zero pill) cards... this makes opening rounds a lot more decisive that it used to be.

I Agree
elo I cant got 5 games without seeing a same or similar deck that's is overpowering
elo was good as it was with 12 life and 12 pills now it is hard to get to 1300 for me back then that was easy because the opening rounds usually didnt mean you win or lose that decison use to take round 2 or 3 but now it is possibly 1st round

I find ELO easier if there is a strong trend of decks. It is easier to counter that way rather than play a mono GHEIST deck and seeing several mono Skeelz or Stop cards then switching to an AS/PC deck only to start facing NM and Junkz half decks and so on.