I am very happy with how steemmonsters has been building. The battles are fun. The league play is good, you end up where you are well matched and are rewarded at any level. This is good.
The best thing they added is the quests. This allows players to be able to build up their collection by just playing the game. To add to that, they are having a raffle right now ( https://steemit.com/steemmonsters/@steemmonsters/beta-gold-foil-legendary-daily-quest-giveaway ) where a legendary gold foil card will be given away.
In the past, they gave away these cards and each pack purchased was an entry. So, the guy who bought 1000 packs would win the prize. Now, we get entries into the raffle by completing the quests. So, every player has the same chance of winning. This is great. It is moving away from the 'pay to play' model.
Sure, if I wanted to be in the diamond league, I might need to upgrade my monsters... but, I might just need more time to battle... either way, you are paying to play. The way it is set up right now, seems pretty good and I want to congratulate the people behind steemmonsters for doing a great job keeping the game with integrity.
Keep up the good work... and for all of you players out there... complete a quest so you have a chance to win the gold foil legendary card.