Because I was bored and probably a bit masocistic, I attempted the 40win/top10 in S3 CL8 for the Cat-5 event. Note I am a f2p 5* player who hoarded and ended up with champ Thanos/BP. Under the old system I would climb to 1200 and shield to the end, I had no interest in playing for the placement rewards. Here is a comparison between when i got the rewards and where I would be with the old system. (I only started tracking the higher end awards since old or new the early ones come very easily). I ended up 8th in my bracket.
| Wins | Old | Storm | Delta | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 cp | 16 | 575 | 658 | 83 |
| event | 20 | 650 | 758 | 108 |
| hero | 24 | 725 | 824 | 99 |
| 3* | 28 | 800 | 1052 | 252 |
| iso | 32 | 825 | 1382 | 557 |
| event | 36 | 850 | 1682 | 832 |
| 4* | 40 | 900 | 1905 | 1005 |
| 15 cp | NA | 1200 | ||
| Final Score | 1905 |
Even at the 10 cp you can see I would have gotten in much earlier but for me the ugly part is at the top end. It look less than 32 wins to get to where I would have stopped under the old system. It took a score of 1905 and a number more shields to get to the same rewards as a would have gotten with less play under the old system. Pretty much as I feared. If the event wasn’t being run on a weekend where I had nothing to do I doubt I would have gotten anwhere near this score but it was new and I had a kind of sense of morbid curiosity about how much more difficult it was going to be.
TLDR: half was probably an exaggeration but it takes a lot more playing for a 5* player to get the same rewards