The team that goes first has a huge advantage over the team that doesn't go first. The reasons being that the team that goes first gets first use of their pips and can see the negative cards that the second team last played. So if the second team casts dissipate, guess what the first team gets to know that dissipate has been cast and can deal with it without losing their pips on an attack, same goes for damage reduction curses, and beguile.
The second team should be allowed to view what the first team plays as the first team selects their cards, or the first team should not be made aware of any negative cards the second team may have uses against anyone in terms of what I listed.
I would also favor giviing the second team an extra white pip that may afford and allow them to get first casts off ahead of the team that gets to go first. So an extra white pip to the second to go team sounds fair.
In terms of ranked matches, teams consisting of friends only should be paired up only against other teams consisting of friends only. Only when no other suitable teams can be found should a friends only group be allowed to play a non-friends only group and the non-friends only group should be given the opportunity to opt out if that is the case. With friends only players tend to be way more organized and have plans of action already well thought out in advance making such play with non-friends groups totally unfair.
Once again I posture the idea that some arenas should be made allowing everyone's health to be double what it is in normal game play. The reason for that is that in normal game play what you go up against typically has twice your health or more making game play and pvp play very different from each other. As it stands now lower damage cards and non-set up damage attacks are the way to go as there is no point in hitting for thousands of damage when everyone has way under what you are used to hitting. I'd also think that if health were doubled in arena play that ice school players would feel more like they were meant to feel.
