Best Of

Not an exact answer but might help a little, https://playcontestofchampions.com/news/february-27th-livestream-summary/ :

I disagree with the healthier for the contest approach. If the balance program did it's job, we wouldn't need ascension to boos a pool of champs to make them usable. There was obviously a ton of effort put into updating all of those champs. Those champs should have been updated already. Instead, they lived at the bottom of our rosters for years while they figured out a clever way to monetize the balance program.

I am all for the game evolving. We had a core concept of ascension in the game via dust that allowed us to choose who we wanted to ascend. If it's game breaking, limit the arms race of ascension to competitive modes so the team doesn't have to design content around those rank up choices. The team already has the ability to disable added power to defenders (battlecasts in AW for instance). Couldn't ascension be coded like relics to achieve it?

Anyway, we'll need to see how it unfolds. I have a funny feeling we'll be seeing some of the newer champs from 2025 added like Dracula in the future. Big wins on the new challenges, progression title and some of the other things coming to the game.

Here is confirmed

A1 materials after the release if you get Pavitr from double track.

The buffs go live in a few days. Let’s wait till we can actually test them before forming opinions on them.

The more expensive it is the better it is too. That means it is targeted to the very few whales. It would be much worse if it was actually affordable if you think about it

Yes you are right; but how does that sffect other F2P players? The faster they realize they will never catch up the more enjoyable the gsme will be.

You have made it clear that you do not understand half of what is happening

You are right; but why does that matter? They are not competing with each other, they might face each other in a BG match once in a while but they are not competing on the long run.

A negative thing that impacts the Majority less than it does the Minority, is still a negative thing.

By saying you're fine waiting 1+ year (up from waiting 3 months if opening a Titan, or 9 months if opening a Basic crystal) for a non-limited version of a champion, you are in essence fine if Kabam keeps increasing the time (why not 2 years?) and costs (if 36000 units is fine, why not 50000 units?).

And that doesn't even get into the opportunity cost - the "effort" that went into buffing mid champions for a mid Base pool is effort that could have gone to other champions. The "effort" that went into designing a new ascension economy is effort that could have gone fixing parts of the current economy. Etc.