Why would I play if I can just bot it? - Sun Tsu, The Art of Bots.
SPL Bots have been getting smarter and smarter esp in 2022. We had Archmage and now Xbot. Both capable of getting into champion level battles. Then soon they will take over the world!!!!
Kidding aside, I find the SPL team being bot neutral, ironic, considering the amount of effort they are also trying to negate the bots. (though I am aware their focus is to drive down bot farms specifically). So right now we have low/mid level bots and high level bots. Both present issues for the game as a whole. I'm a bot user too so I'm not hiding it or anything. Ehehehe. It's just so convenient.
Low/Mid Level Bots
Quantity:
There are a lot of them from what I've heard. I don't know how to get that information but I'll just assume that is the case.
Tiers/League:
Bronze Silver levels and Gold near the end of the season. You will see a ton of level 2 level 3 decks at Gold 3 by then.
Damage?:
Sucks a lot of cards and dumps the prices in the market. Though I like it because they are cheap even for krills like me.
Leaderboards are full of bots. or almost entirely owned by bots.
High Level Bots
Quantity:
Few. Archmage and Xbot are keeping the tokens in check for quality control. Though Xbot may drop in users once it's free trial is done.
Tiers/League:
As high as Champion.
Damage?:
Leaderboards are full of bots users
The fact that they are high tier can bring a bad rep for SPL as a bot driven game which can be detrimental for its Esports potential.
So in my professional conclusion (I'm a professional bum), I think having Bots is not healthy in the big picture. The downside is hurting the game both in the economy and growth potential. But very hard to remove because it is already in the ecosystem. Removing it outright can cripple the SPL economy, drive prices way up which in effect can discourage new players to get in because everything is so expensive. It's like a drug/addiction. If you need them out, you need to slowly take them off from it. Otherwise, they will collapse or something.
SPL needs to lay out what exactly it's future (5 years from now) target is. Then from there, identify if indeed the Bot Neutral stance should stand or not.
That's it for now.
Thank you for reading. Happy Holidays!