I never was a serious buisness kind of a Duels player. I am too chaotic to grind rgularly, or to always think before act.
So, now I have just 100% of Origins set and 33% of Shadows set. Most of my decks just don't have those obligatory powerful cards their archetypes desperatly need.
BUT, by the time of Aether Revolt, I had two decks able to get me to the mid-tiers - WU True Tempo and R Burn. One thing those decks have in common - they don't pay much attention to opponent's possibly OP creatures. (Burn only cares about damage, able to shoot it's burn spells into face, give all it's creatures away for a few damage, get hit by an A-strike of three 5/5s, and still win. Tempo just disables ALL creatures of an opponent, ALL of them. So they don't really matter.)
At the end of an AEther Revolt, I got 25 rank. (max was 29)

At this season, my max was 12.
Currently, at 2.
PWNED...

WHAT THE HELL ?! I had a 10 loses streak ! EVERYONE uses OP cards - THE SAME OP CARDS - and they are NOT EVEN FROM NEW SET ! Amonkeht boosted instant-control, zombies, stompy, auras... NOBODY USES THAT ! Everyone runs Sylvan Advokates, Fatal Pushes, Languishes, Yahenni's Expertises, Gearhulks... EVEN RANK 3 PLAYERS !!! ALL OF THOSE CARDS !!!

What is happening ?

You shouldn't be too shocked that people will try to run good stuff

i am shocked how 1) everyone runs the same good stuff and 2) how everyone has it, even rank 3.

EDIT: also 3) how that wasn't the case a month ago.

With the recent reset as of the beginning of the Amonkhet season, there is a good chance that you are actually facing off against higher-level players who just haven't been playing as much and are still on their way back up the ladder.

I think that's a big part of it, I've only played about 20 online games so far this season, just for example. I'm definitely not rank 40 yet, or even near it.

After 10 days ? Surprising...

I'm in the midst of final exam season... in fact I've got one in 50 minutes.. Duels is generally not a priority, but especially not now. Can't speak for anyone else, of course.

I only get the chance to play a couple games a day, what with shift work, family life, and whatever else it is that I do. By now, I haven't even touched 20, though I expect to climb much higher, once I cut the brake lines on everyone else on iOS's cars, and I'm the only one left!

:sinister laugh:

So, yeah, you're probably getting into the water with seasoned players who just haven't been hitting it too hard so far.

Also, the power curve has gone up greatly, overall, so if you've fallen behind, it can be hard to catch up. I suggest finding one deck that works well with the cards you have and plugging through as best you can.

How'd you do?

I've hit rank 40 only using engima drake and fling... you don't HAVE to play the meta decks to beat the grind just play decks that are good against the meta decks and you're all set.

Basically:
superfriends
zombies
vehicles
ramp(whatever variant)
energy aggro
BG/x +1+1 counters
junk midrange
RDW

seem to be the most common decks i see.(all of which are a fairly good match up depending on their builds)
The odd control deck which is mostly really bad news for Eflingma drake, but these are rare and still not an auto loss depending on the build.

Good... gooooooood.

Are you finally going to pass sixth grade?

Pretty much. You should all be proud.

I shall buy you a fancy cake! It will have green icing and sprinkles. You've earned it.

People have outlined exactly what has happened with the meta previous to this new set and why it happened:

Duels was becoming more exclusive, in that you needed all the sets to properly win against good competition. This does not mean that their moves specifically targeted the game to become inclusive, it just means they did have a little bit of a problem.

So with the last couple sets they have made it obscenely easy to run aggressive and cheap cost decks, and you basically don't even need many of the sets to do this at a high level.

Of course it helps if you have all the cards, but Magic I guess wanted newer players to fundamentally not be turned off the game. Burn in general has gotten too much love IMO, to the point yes you see a lot of people running the same archtypes and cards.

It is what it is. I've already played too much of this game. I'm not worried about any of that to be honest. I needed a large break from Magic last season.

I will say the new deck set has given more options for white and black to deal with things like planeswalkers, which is really nice.

ON THE OTHER HAND, somehow someway this piece of **** game got even more buggy and inconsistent, and the new board sucks as well. They added basically nothing to the game but cards and random ****, and Duels just appears to be riding its small wave until the full Magic digital game hits.

I am actually liking the new set. I'm using new cards as opposed to the ridiculous last set which basically targeted Red for superpower.

But damn it their programming can suck my balls. We should have more customization and options at least for boards for the love of ****.

also Kaladesh was discounted shortly before the release of Amonkhet, so everyone who was still grinding for unlocks at that point got their hands on vehicles

This is something I've noticed this season. The R10-30 ladder is tougher than R40 Last season.
My explanation is that people in these ranks are generally trying to climb, so they are playing their spikiest spiky decks exclusively.
This makes playtesting untuned new ideas frustrating, because you really don't get a chance to see what actually works, you just keep seeing what is failing.
I got to a point where I just played my decks from Last season and finally started climbing the ladder. This also made me wonder if the new cards are a load of crap. I mean, I've been trying out several decks with lots of new cards (to road-test them) and I keep getting crushed by all the goodstuff decks I keep facing.
So, next stop... Vehicles (but I'm gonna do it with style )

I've noticed a lot of premium items like sleeves, full art lands and special portraits even around rank 20-25 or lower.
I don't know if this hints at big collection or at different priorities.

Could just be people trying to rank up to 40.