It's been clear that SM is going downhill for almost 2 years now.

Many top players quit after update 5.4. Many of them because they hated the new weight mechanic added in that update, but also because of the new ladder and matchmaking system.

Bit of SM history for you:

Before that update, ladder points were used to measure how good a player was. Each week every player would be reset to 1,000 points, and winning and losing battles added or subtracted from that, and you would get more points from defeating more powerful players. As for matchmaking, the level of the parts on your mech determined what level players you would fight. If you had level 15 parts, you would fight level 15 players. Players could choose what level bracket they wanted to play at, and all players fighting at a certain level would only have parts from their level or lower available, so most battles were fair. If you were skilled at playing in the level 15 bracket, you could play there. The limited item set for each level encouraged players at those levels to use them in innovative ways. Tokens were mainly limited to premium accounts and fusion.

The update in question removed all of this. The new ranked system (apparently added to 'stop cheaters') would put a lower level player against a very strong player if they were the same rank. Since there is a fixed amount of wins required to progress to each new rank, the ranked system did, and still does, essentially ignore player skill and strength level. It is possible for a level 10 player with 250 HP to be matched against a level 30 with 500 HP. Is that fair? No, but in a system that doesn't match players of a similar ability, that will happen all the time. It isn't a fair system, it's biased towards whoever has more mythical items. At rank 1, it's about who has the best mythical items. Unsurprisingly, this unfair system results in a lot more wins for payers, who will pay hundreds of dollars to win almost all of their battles.

About mythicals. They're a cash grab, that is pretty clear by now. They have never been, and will never be, a useful addition to the game. However, flooding the game with items locked behind a paywall means money for Liran. Spenders will pay for OP items that give them a huge advantage over 95% of players any day of the week, simple as that. Before mythicals, all players had access to the same set of items. In 2013, all items could be bought with credits earned from battles. You needed to grind to buy the gear for a level bracket if you wanted to play there, but at least it was possible for every player. Now, the best items are premium-only. Long story short, Liran is trying to milk this game of as much cash as possible. He has a group of elite players who will line his pockets into eternity. This money-based game model works just fine for him, and will do for a long time. He doesn't care about you if you won't spend money on his game. He's been ignoring all of the suggestions, complaints etc. on the forums by non-spenders, because nerfing OP mythicals runs the risk of the spenders becoming unhappy. They don't complain because the game is perfectly tailored to their style of play. This is going to happen until Liran literally cannot squeeze one more cent out of this game. There is nothing we can do about this, he will eventually doom the game this way. Only listening to the tiny minority of your playerbase that spends works for a while and may be very profitable, but it isn't a good strategy if you don't want your game to die.

No offense but I have disscussed Liran with lots of other high members of staff (Xzy and others) We all think liran has somehow lost it. Ever since this youtube stuff, the game has got worse, he hasn't focused on balancing the game out or anything. he hasnt looked at our youtube channels and done more rewards. he has released weapons that have broken the game. Everything has gone down hill. I remember when battle credits wern't a thing and the game was chill to play and alot more fun. liran please fix this for our sakes. You will lose ALOT of players if this continues.