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As a Balance main I had high hopes that I would make far progress and spend a lot of time farming this event. I even made an alt character and boosted him to lvl 10 to fully enjoy upgrading my deck for this event.

Sadly, the difficulty level in this deckathalon is incredibly far too high. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good challenge here or there, but the sheer absurdity of some stages in this event makes it feel outright impossible to progress further.

I am currently stuck on stage 5-2, the double minion fight. This stage is infamous for being way too difficult. I have failed it about 6 times now. Unfortunately the minions are obsessed with mana burning so maintaining pips is difficult, let alone setting up sufficient defenses seems like an impossible task. In my 6 failed attempts I feel I have tried every method, but this fight seems to rely entirely on luck and luck alone.

I have not enjoyed the Balance deckathalon as I was hoping I would. The difficulty level makes the event feel impossible. I feel I have plateaued and I am only halfway through the event. THERE ARE STILL 5 MORE STAGES. And I will never get to see them, because honestly I'm not playing this event when it comes back around in 7 months unless they sufficiently reduce the insane difficulty level. The deck is a nice reward but is it honestly worth the levels of stress, pain, and frustration I have to go through in order to stomach this poorly-constructed event?

I have played 3 other deckathalons: fire, ice, and life. And none of them were this incredibly difficult. I didn't feel like I had plateaued halfway through like I do in this one. I can't even fathom what the stages beyond 5 must be like. All I can assume is that they are even more annoying and awful.

Here are some possible solutions for balancing this event:
-Remove or drastically reduce enemy pierce in the Balance deckathalon. We MUST rely on tower shields to tank a majority of their hits, which are already significantly worse than shields possible in other events. So the fact that they have pierce means our towers are only shielding us from roughly 45% (this is at stage 5 they have around 10% pierce, which means in further stages it is likely higher). As such, to bring this in line with other deckathalons, enemies should NOT be copypastes from other deckathalons. This one needs to be treated as unique and balanced with that in mind.
-Reduce enemy starting pips. Already the enemies start with much higher pips (about 3-4 starting in stage 5). Sometimes the enemy gains a power pip. These mechanics put us at an incredible disadvantage already, which understandably contributes to the difficulty of the event, but in the face of all the enemy's insane tactics and massive outgoing and high pierce, it becomes dangerous to be alive when a single enemy has more than 4 pips.
-Remove mana burn as an enemy spell. Just remove it completely. There is nothing balanced about this spell in the deckathalon, and nobody should ever have to face it when pip gain is already our biggest hindrance. Don't even attempt to balance this spell, just remove it entirely.
-Lower enemy outgoing damage. Enemy damage in this deckathalon is insanely high. I can take around 470-500 damage from a single spectral blast (4 pip spell) WITH A TOWER SHIELD ON. That means without it, the blast would have hit me for around 1,000 damage. Which is more damage than health one could possibly have in the deckathalon. This is flawed game design. The enemies are already whittling away at our health, they don't need oneshot capabilities as soon as stage 4, honestly.

If you have any further suggestions of opinions feel free to comment below. I'd like to hear what others think. I know for a fact many people have said this is the hardest deckathalon and the difficulty level currently feels too drastic. If we voice enough of this concern, KI might see this and consider balancing the event so it becomes playable. I hope to finish this deckathalon one day, but not in its current busted state.