Really enjoyed the game so far overall, glad my friend told me about it. Haven't read through all of these threads but what little I went over scares me (seems like a VERY unfriendly community, so many posts attacking other members for their opinions and it seems like a lot of the more hospitable posts are the ones from players quitting the game and being attacked for it by those hanging around). Still bad first impressions of the community aside (here's hoping thats all it is, a bad first impression), the game itself is pretty amazing, especially for a free game. That said, in any game theres always room for improvement so here's my thoughts on what I feel could improve it after having admittedly only played the game for about a week but played it a heck of a lot.

More Others elementless cards, particularly in the area of shield removal. Say a card "Shield Shatter: Cost 4 colorless - Shatter Target Shield". Right now it seems like 90% of the top decks I run into include dark or fire and either steal or conflag, and understandably so, certain shields in this game can flat out win the game on their own and most of the elements just don't have a way to deal with shields. Dark seems to be the most common, perhaps since it doesn't just shatter, but out right steals those crazy shields. If your going to make shields as powerful as they are in this game (and honestly perhaps a better option would be just to tweak the power level of certain shields) then it really seems like every element NEEDS to have access to some sort of shield removal, I think a weak (compared to conflag/steal) and more expensive but still useful generic removal like I suggested could allow this with out forcing people to splash dark or fire in nearly every deck they make.

Earthquake seems a bit much too me, I'm relatively new to this game so I don't know how long its been around, don't know if its been in the game for months or even years now and proven to been fine, but after a week of playing it really does seem overly strong for its cost. I suggest either having it only destroy 2 pillars, or upping the cost from 3 to 5. As it is now its just too mindlessly easy to play for absurd advantage, and not even all that hard to splash, at least that's my impression of it so far. I really feel that even with the nerfs I suggested the card would still be extremely strong and powerful with out be quite as obnoxiously strong.

Finally, while I can live with upgraded cards as they are now, I admit I really wish they were balanced with non upgraded cards. I'd still want to upgrade many of my cards even if in doing so they got additional costs to compensate for the increased stats/superior effects. For instance I'd upgrade to have a 10/6 jade dragon that cost 13 instead of a 8/6 phase dragon that costs 11. Having the cards flat out better as they are now just feels, I don't know, pointless. Like if the games balanced around all cards being upgraded, why have the non-upgraded cards at all? I guess this comes from the fact I'm a long time card game player and this concept feels more like an MMORPG concept (a genre I've never cared for), where lots and lots of boring grinding allows a player to gain unfair advantages over those with less free time or desire to go through so much grinding for what is supposed to be a fun past time.

If you want to give the computer AI cards unfairly over powered cards, thats perfectly fine with me, thats just an extra challenge, but in pvp, having cards obsolete others is really not something I enjoy or agree with. I'm willing to live with it to be sure, but just thought I'd share my two cents about it.

Anyway again, overall really liking the game, just some initial impressions from a week of play, impressions may change as I play more, but figured I'd share them and say thanks for creating this awesome game and thanks to those donating allowing the game to continue.