Taking a long break, meta and game balance are awful

It's been one year since I started playing Gwent. I don't regret taking it up, it really is a great game with stunning visuals and atmosphere, and its core mechanics are very solid. Unfortunately with the last 2 expansions the game has descended into powercreep hell. Alumni is a ridiculous and unfair card but it isn't the only problem. There are now too many cards that fish out half your deck, cards dropping 3 times their provision value the turn they enter, wanderers…all stuff that gives ridiculous advantage and has no efficient 1-turn response.

You'd think this is the game to play if you want to play your own thing and experiment with all the possible ability/faction combinations, but it's really not the case.

In hearthstone I managed to reach the top 50-100 of the ladder consistently playing my own decks. There is so much rng bullshit in that game but I can see now that it helped even out some hard matchups.

In Gwent the busted deck are far too consistent and way too far up on the tier list, it's impossible to climb pro unless you are willing to play the same 4 decks over and over in a d*ck-measuring contest against the same decks.

I think in the last few months whoever is in charge of balance decided to take a "if everything is op, nothing is op" approach that really doesn't work well with this game.

Some things I would personally like to see in the future for this game:

-Larger deck size

-A complete revision of the provision for all the cards. A 8 power + ability and a 2 power + boost by 2 cards can't reasonably cost the same provisions.

-Less consistent tutors, no guarantee of always getting your wombocombo wincon, being forced into reactive plays and on-the-spot decisions.

-New, original and daring mechanics/play modes (3 rows with homecoming graphics, interrupt spells, card-guessing and so on)

I'm confident in the potential of the game, at its core it is an awesome game with so much potential, but right now it lacks the resources or the vision to be where it needs to, or at least in a good spot.