It's funny that you say it's "invest to win" because a couple of weeks ago there was a similar discussion about the Steem blockchain in general with regards to Resource Credits. A lot of people were saying that the Steem blockchain was a "pay to play" system and I said that it was really more of an "invest to play" system!
You're absolutely right about Steem monsters being invest to win, which is something that the blockchain allows us to easily do that almost all other digital games don't offer.
That being said, in my opinion it is too much invest to win right now. This is only the very first version and we a have lot of changes and improvements to come. Specifically regarding the "invest to win" aspect, we plan to both add more skill element to the game and provide opportunities to earn more cards and level them up through gameplay.
I would be lying if I would say that I didn't read the passage about RCs you are refering to ;)
Yeah, for the current modus with an ELO System it might be too much, especially because worse players can comensate their skill and just copy decks. So you basically just need to buy the cards and copy decks. But once there are different modes (like a KO-system), own deck building skills become way more important imo.
And of course there could be other modes which allow way less room for such problems. I have been thinking about one a lot during my train ride today. I will post about it tomorrow, as it would be too long for a comment at this point. I will present the idea on SM-Discord as well then.
Your announcements regarding more skill elements, etc. sound great by the way! :)
Nevertheless, we should not forget that we need the people ... it is not that the people need us (the STEEM blockchain). So we should be attractive for newbies, not demanding. :)
That's great. :)