I don’t disagree about your assessment of the Alpha Gold tournaments but how is that different from whales wreaking havoc in a bronze tournament? The novice tournaments are a crap shoot because of the high rate of no-shows and the somewhat random nature of Novice league.

What about structuring tournaments around rating? Or maybe tournaments with upper caps on card power or rating? Would either of those, along with a restructure of the season leader rewards, help to encourage talent to move up to its appropriate level?

No aggression meant here just random thoughts only partially hatched. But you started the juices flowing.