Look at the league rank distribution. For a second, I thought Crystal and Masters was mixed up... This is why the game is considered broken: players actively downrank themselves by dropping back to Gold again and again, creating a trophy windfall in Crystal, which in turn makes it easier to climb up to Masters, inflating those league levels.

The fact that there's no middle ground between "farm" and "war" armies (simple binary question: "are spells and DE troops required, or not") probably also contributes a lot to this warped distribution. For starters, Crystal simply does not reward enough DE to sustain "war" armies.

Plus, all the lower league rewards (including collectors) are still balanced for the old "farm" paradigm, and "war" attack costs are really only tuned for clan wars. Fact: the only justification right now for the comparatively high clan war rewards is that the defending heroes are always awake – which is obviously bogus. Historically, a more serious army composition was assumed, the higher costs requiring higher gains. Which, in turn, reveals that non-clan war attacks were not meant to require high-cost DE troops and all spells.

This paradigm has changed now, I get it, but if warlike armies are the new norm, across all leagues, then the gains should also be changed accordingly. Right now, the incomes (league bonus, collectors) are untouched for over half the playerbase (meaning players in and below Crystal), the easy raids which supplemented income in the lower leagues are radically decreased, BUT army costs went up?

This creates an upwards pressure for players in Gold, but Crystal cannot sustain warlike army compositions, which is a huge problem. We can't all be masters and champions.

Regaining that middle ground should be a priority. It would allow more developed players to come up from Gold, which in turn would make it easier for newer players to save up and keep upgrading their bases. Look at the distribution numbers again: the 10% missing from Crystal is exactly the third of all players currently in Gold.