Looking at ‘Clash Royale’ as an example, since they are a card game app and made by supercell (which also makes Clash of Clans) and has got to be the biggest money making app game in the world. They definitely are doing some things right.
They have a ‘card shop’ tab that features a random card of each rarity that is available for purchase, and those cards change each day. In MTGPQ there are A LOT more cards, and I think that the card shop could have a card of each color (and colorless) of each rarity that changes daily, or if you dont want to change so often then have a few of each color and rarity switch out weekly.
I thought a lot about individual card pricing. You can calculate the cost per crystal and analyzing what runes and cards are worth with the special offers.
I will suggest an UPPER cost for each rarity and strongly encourage the devs to not exceed that upper cost.
I know that true PVP is possible since it is done with Clash Royale, but in order to implement that you need to have the matches timed overall and per turn. MTGPQ is turn based which is unlike clash royale, but there is a really easy solution to that. Give each player 15 seconds per round max, and after that time is up they auto match with the suggested match and cast ready to go spells ending their turn and resetting the 15 second timer for the opponent. Overall time can be different for events, there can be X rounds events, X total time limit events, and rage mechanic. When the clock runs out the game is declared a draw.
I like both of these ideas, and your pricing suggestions look pretty good.
In a PvP match though, I think instead of making a game end in a draw, they could simply make it whichever player has the most health.
I don’t know that the overall match has to necessarily have a time limit, but the limit on each turn is a necessity.
If you really want to speed it up and encourage faster play, they could even make you take damage and/or skip your turn if you take too long. That seems a bit harsh though..
Also, the timer needs to be clearly visible at all times.
If you go for higher prices there could be a shop with only a small subset of the cards (1 mythic ,2 rares and 4 uncommons?)that changes each day and maybe use a special currency tied to big boxes and similar things. to make them feel less of a waste.
You’d probably have to make this retroactive is some way however.
