I'll start off by saying that Gwent and CDPR in general crafted a game that is extremely player friendly and I appreciate them for that. I usually buy the journey each time it comes out and periodically buy some cosmetics as I commit time to the game as a "thank you".
As the age of my account is growing (I'm still a newbie who joined on Yennifer's Journey), I realized I have most everything I need but dust is the rarest commodity and with Gwent's amazing animated cards, I crave premium versions of the crown jewels in my deck or staples that are used in many of my decks. This led me to transmute Oneiro, heatwave, and madoc right off the bat. Looking at this journey, it saddens me when I see that I won't be earning new premium versions of cards this time around as I've committed my hard earned dust to those versions. Worse off, when I mill these premium duplicates, it doesn't generate enough dust to premium another card in its place.
My recommendation for ONLY the journey premium cards would be to change the system to award you with the premium card if you don't have it in your collection or give you 800 dust instead that can be used on another card of your desire. My rationale is as follows:
- The premium card rewards are only accessible by spending money, so this proposal isn't to squeeze out more freebies, it is to bolster the ROI for players spending money to unlock that journey track.
- There are only 8 premium cards in the journey and journeys last several months meaning the rate of premium card acquisition isn't too fast to discourage purchasing dust or premium kegs in the store or invalidating reward book progress.
- This change could entice more players to buy the premium journey. In my short time here, there's been recycled premium cards in the journeys that reduce overall value for people who continuously buy the journey. Offering them a "wildcard" premium makes these nodes more attractive.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/gwent/comments/qkhebn/premium_cards_in_premium_journey_should_be_a_bit/