All good observations. I was trying to get my son interested in playing SoG but he took one look and decided it wasn't for him. He said basically that it was a typical pay-to-win game and the only way to win is to have the biggest pocketbook. I guess he was correct. Those at the top probably already have every good card and don't need to win any good cards, but prevent anyone from below winning anything good because they are blocking the top positions! I can see where frustration and/or boredom could easily set in.

If it was free to trade cards (like in Monster cards on the Steem Blockchain), I could see more people helping others out by trading or lending out cards. This would create more of a social atmosphere and I think people would enjoy the game more. As it stands, everyone plays in isolation and competing with each other in order to climb the leader board.

After studying all my options, I think the Viscula Ladybug is still probably the best choice of all the Epic cards. It's hit damage is small, but it's the only card with a big spell damage. I'll be facing multiple challenges where there are many enemies all with a count-down of 2, so I need to blast them right off the bat. Viscula Ladybug is the only one that can do that. There are dark cards with bigger hit damage and also have 7 target damage, but that means you MUST be able to hit BOTH the target-all spell AND a hit-all fire spell without fail, otherwise I'll get hit multiple times and probably get killed the way I'm getting killed now. However, If the Viscula Ladybug goes first, I can miss the spell on my first shot and still have a chance with the 2nd shot.

It has already become obvious to me that one really needs all legendary cards in order to really make headway. I think from now on, my strategy will be to save up my diamonds to buy the legendary cards whenever they go on sale. There are only a few legendary cards, so chances of finding duplicates becomes greater. Having said that, I'm not so sure the cards are randomly issued. I created a table to track my cards and it seems like the cards are too evenly distributed to be random. I have exactly 3 of each type of epic card (3 water, 3 fire, 3 ice, etc.). If it were truly random, shouldn't I have perhaps 5 different ice cards and only 2 different water cards? I know I'm near collecting all the various types, so it could be coincidence, but it does make me wonder. (According to sogassets, there ARE only 3 types of epic water cards for instance, so I have at least one of each.)