Card Game Meta Is Annoying

I remember way back when I used to play Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic The Gathering with my friends.  We would save up a little money, head down to the corner shop or the nerd store in central Manchester buy some boosters and play.  While it was frustrating to lose to a guy because his luck was better than yours there was something fun about being at the mercy of a booster pack.

Card games however are an expensive hobby so as I got older I drifted away from them.  I didn't have to give up completely though as thanks to games like Hearthstone, Shadowverse and Dragon Quest Rivals I can enjoy the TCG experience for free.  All of these games let you play for free and earn cards for free with the option to pay for boosters if you so wish.  

Now all of these games come with a ranked play mode and when I see that kind of thing of course I want to get as close to the top of it as I can.  While it is fun to collect cards, make decks and climb the ladder the higher you get the more dull these games get.  

There's a meta in each of games that, once you hit a certain rank, what decks you HAVE to use to see any kind of success.  If your not using one of these top tier decks that you can just google up you're basically doomed to sit in the middle of the ladder forever.  If your good you can get a bit higher but unless your a TCG god you ain't reaching the top without Professor Google.  

This is because getting boosters is just about playing a lot and instead of duplicates sitting in a shoe box for years they can be "dusted" which allows a player to craft specific cards.  So not only can you google a top tier deck but making it is a cinch so OF COURSE everyone is going to use them.  

That's not to say creativity is completely off limits.  Unranked play and the "random deck" modes keep the fun alive but the fact that ranked has to adhere to strictly to a meta makes things a little dull sometimes