Saw this, decided to give my opinion
I prefer PvP over PvE, because PvP requires improvisation and rewards clever deck building. You can’t just construct the “standard level deck” using the coalition “cheat sheet”(If you’re fortunate to have one, otherwise from the one you built up from prior practice with the boss). PvE also relies on single-strategy enemies and preposterous boss life allocations.
As for which specific event: Current favourite is the Rising Tensions event, due to the excellent rewards and the need to use multiple planeswalkers(i.e. you can’t simply dump Liliana in with your best black deck).
Of the free PvP events, I’d say Dragon War. It’s structured in a very similar way with an added bilateral bonus (or hindrance, depending on how you see it). The objectives are more realistic (Mightstone at power 5 instead of the usual 6!) Also, it’s a coalition event.
As to PvE, I prefer playing Avacyn’s Madness to any others I have encountered. The boss levels can be realistically beaten and the grind isn’t mind-numbing.
Nodes of Power is OK, but can be improved by colour-locking the usable cards in the nodes(so that if, for example, Sorin is put into the White node, he can’t play with a Black deck)
Now, as to my least favourite events.
Of the PvP events: Broken events (Hour of Destruction, Zendikar-Eldrazi)
Even if Zendikar-Eldrazi worked perfectly, it would still be biased towards the Eldrazi, as it can play with everything but green. Nissa can only play with green and colourless.
HOD also has a problem in addition to being broken: If you happen to have the PW du jour, you score big. If you don’t, and don’t want to buy it(personal priorities, you think that that PW is not great, etc.), welcome to the middle rungs.
Of the working events, Trial of the Planes is probably the worst. Straight waste of mana crystals, rewards don’t merit the participation cost.
Of the PvE events: RotGP. It comes across as a severely nasty bastardisation of Avacyn’s Madness designed to annoy and bore you simultaneously.
Bonus events such as Hallow’s Eve are always welcome, and I would like to see more of them.
Some thoughts:
If the Zendikar-Eldrazi duel decks format can be fixed, there is no reason to keep playing these two against each other. Why not use the duel decks format to let people try out new planeswalkers which are being promoted - at maximum level(for example, recently you could have featured Tezzeret vs Arlinn Kord). This will certainly put the event at the top of my rankings!
Why not make an event similar to HOD but with three open nodes, basically removing the “compulsory planeswalker” aspect. I for one would like this a lot.
Have you considered giving away planeswalkers as prizes? I’m thinking of old veterans such as Koth or Angrath, which newer players will otherwise never have a chance of getting.
Also, why not look through your list at some “legacy” events which are no longer being featured and put them into the roster (unless there was a very good reason for removing them). Even RotGP would be far less obnoxious if it only came around once a year.
And think about drastically varying boss strategies in the more regular PvE events - maybe the guys in the “cheat sheet” rut will dust off their brains and work out their own strategy for the levels!
