I'm not a card collector, so don't have a dog in this fight. I am interested in Steem, and Steem Monsters affects it, so pay attention for that reason.

You and I have not agreed on some things in the past, and a similar genesis of this particular issue is apparent to me. You've made statements that proved impossible to live up to, and instead of just saying 'I thought I could do that, but it couldn't be done', you ignore that, and instead have a different conversation. You do that here, and just skip that part.

"...player willing to waste 2 hours of their time..."

Is the game just about prizes and payouts, or is there some merit to actually playing?

Just...

IRL sports have playoffs that winnow the field and end up with finals. Rather than simply avoiding 'wasting all that time playing games' to just cut straight to a final and using financial barriers to exclude the poor, I recommend you adopt that mechanism for Steem Monsters. Everybody gets to play at their level, and the financial barrier is effected organically, which prevents many more people from becoming aware of it.

Nothing will kill popularity faster than elitism, because the populace isn't the elite, by definition.

I note that you have been very successful at starting good things up, and then getting good folks in place to run those balls. We all have skill sets, yet I wonder if we really know what they are.

This is an opportunity for you to gain understanding. You are definitely able to create financially rewarding mechanisms, but keeping them financially rewarding requires maintaining the non-financial features of those mechanisms, and I observe your personal focus on finance seems to be getting in the way of that here. Ignoring valid criticisms prevents you from gaining understanding.

I wish you all the best.