Thank you for your question, @sparkesy43.
I have never understood why players who have cards of a higher level would be able to or even want to play players who are at a lower level in a tournament.
In the old time jousting tournaments, each entrant had to at least have a good horse, that long jousting thingy and armor. A naked man or woman or someone with just the helmet armor but with a horse would never have been allowed to enter.
Let lower level players play against lower level players so they have a chance to win the lower level prizes and the same for all the levels. Let gold players play other gold players. Let diamond play diamond and compete for the diamond prizes.
That way MORE players, of every different level, have a real chance to enjoy Steemmonster tournaments and perhaps WIN some of the prizes for the level of cards they possess.
IF a diamond level player TRULY enjoys playing at the novice level, then that diamond player can use an alt NOVICE level account to play in the novice tourney I suppose. But even this would be unfair for lower level players who just haven't had the time, money and experience to move up higher.
Why should it be ok for higher level players to clutch away all the prizes at EVERY level, leaving none for the real players who ONLY have cards at each of the lower levels?
Just don't get it.
As @davemccoy suggested, program the tournaments so that players' cards match the tournament level they enter.
I'd have to reread Dave's comments to be sure, so I'll own this other part... let players ONLY enter tournaments that match their cards, period. Bronze level account card holders can only enter bronze level tournaments, NOT novice tournaments too. Gold can enter gold ONLY, diamond enter diamond tourneys ONLY. That way every player can stay in their lane and have a fair chance to earn the prizes allotted to their lane.
This is an appeal for league level programming to be added and for higher level players to give lower level players an opportunity to play their equals in the official Steemmonster tournaments. This will give lower level players a real chance to share in the lower level prize goodies.
I'm sure when tournament hosting is opened up, there will be some other hosts who will allow higher level players to nab the novice, silver and other lower level prizes. ;)
I think what you are suggesting would be great for leagues. Instead of having one main league we have a league for each and every level of play with each account only being allowed to pick one league to participate in per season. The higher the league the better the prizes. For example ... Novice league would have very minimal prizes compared to Diamond league.
However I don't think its a good idea to make those with diamond level cards play diamond level games only and one main reason to this is skill wise not all players who have diamond level cards are diamond level players / Not all players who own Silver level cards are Silver level players. A newbie can sign up to Steem-Monsters today and buy his way into having Silver/Gold or Diamond level cards. It wouldn't be fair to restrict this player to only Diamond level play because they decided they wanted to start with a max deck.