Like i said, unless purple or gold gear comes flowing from the black market, spending trophies seems the complete opposite of what these match ups were intended for. If it takes someone 100 fights to hone a gladiators strategy or tactics....they have bigger issues.
I dunno, seems to me one of the chief complaints people had when I first started playing was they wanted more to do, they wanted to fight anytime they felt like it. Well, now they can do that. I'll disagree with you on the 100 fights to hone your strategies comment. You are an old DM player with years of experience with these types of games under your belt, many new players never played this kind of game before, so I'd venture to say it took you 100s of fights to attain the level of skill you have as a manager in these types of games and now new players can rapidly get fights under their belts as well.