When I encounter a Soviet or Japanese deck ...

[BladeofSharpness]

I estimate that two-thirds of the Soviet decks are light infantry decks. As for the Japanese, it's the usual blitz-burn, sometimes the discard one. And that's it, 90% of the time, perhaps?

It's always a nice surprise to see another player use the heavier Soviet units or something different for the Japanese. It's refreshing.

But it's not often refreshing, and as time passes, I'm telling myself that this game is growing old and that I should move to more diverse and interesting gameplay.

I just need to convince myself that I'm not missing much with this free daily common card and 70 gold. FOMO, I hate you!

[puschit]

That all depends, light infantry is very suppressing other russian decks, however, you can do so much more with the japanese card pool. But most players lack one or more of the following:
- the imagination/creativity to come up with something else
- the cards to build it
- the skill to pilot anything other than simple aggro
- the time/patience to play games that last longer than 5 miniutes

It's not the game's fault when most players blindly copy/paste what they (often falsley) perceive as the shortest path to victory.
I don't know, though, if that helps you out with your FOMO or not :)

[BladeofSharpness]

That's probably (the last point) the part that bothers me the most. You have a game with hundreds of cards, and some are happy to play the same exact few dozen to win.
As an old guy, I like to play the underdog in strategy games but clearly I'm from a different dimension.

[puschit]

Not from a different dimension, just from a different time. Everything has changed dramatically since the early days of CCG. I started with Revised and Fallen Empires and worked my way backwards. In a world without internet spoiling everything where it happens frequently that you only get to know about a card when you actually see somebody physically playing it. We built theme decks, meme decks and just had a blast. Theses days even my group of oldschool regulars are frequently arguing about powercards, unfun games and such ... and these guys are dinosaurs, too. The happy times won't come back and the current generation of players just can't grasp the very concept of that ... well, some can but they, too are suffocated by rankings, pressure, guides, premade decks and copy/paste culture. And let's be honest here, that culture existed back then, too, it just wasn't at our fingertips. You had to buy magazines and people copied decklists that were already old when that Scrye or Duelist was shipped.
Anyway, think of japanese aggro like red in Magic back then: Most players played gobo-burn or some Sligh variants for the same reasons I stated in my first post, ignoring those other 90% of red cards. At least in tournaments. In casual/multiplayer you had Manaflare decks, dragons, Jokulhaups/Rukh Egg shenanigans, token decks with Keldon Warlord/Orcish Oriflamme and whatnot. But if you apply pressure to adapt, you'll squeeze out all the fun. And games like Kards don't have multiplayer or real casual formats, heck, we can't even communicate. So, competitive, silent 1-on-1 games about ranking points (that are also needed for end-of-month-rewards) is all we have. So does it really surprise if everyone thinks and plays cutthroat?

[mitrovich]

10 games and 10 aggro deck soviet token and Blitzkrieg. This is becoming ridiculous and pathetic.

Reduce the pool of cards because only around twenty are played.

[The Great Misanthropist]

This is why I like draft mode. you see a lot of cards that never get played in ranked.

[emahi011]

A genius for sure

[mitrovich]

against these decks the most useful thing is "surrender",... you therefore save time and energy.

[BladeofSharpness]

I encountered one at level 5. I was surprised the guy went that far, but given how efficient these decks are, it's no surprise. I managed to beat him though, it's really flip a coin, depending on how the cards are drawn initially.

And you are right, quitting is better actually, no need to waste time with these guys.