I think it goes like this. You need to beat someone with the same or higher ELO rating than you. But the problem with GC is that it doesn't pair you by ELO rating, I believe it's random. Example: You won 10 games from people with lower ELO than you, you don't get points. You lose 1 game from someone with a higher ELO than you, you lose points. You win 1 game from someone with the same or higher ELO than you, you gain points (painfully slow).
The real thing is... Gamecenter Leaderboard doesn't count anymore: it's easily hackable and you can easily figure how many stupid people cheated their Highscore via some sort of illegal app or script. I personally don't care about Leaberdoards, since it's no more reliable. I prefer to stick in some fun multiplayer games (Magic's stopped some weeks ago for me, I'm enjoying various new apps and other platform games, but who knows, surely I'll pick again for some fun match) but not paying too much consideration to highscores: I've read about too many flaws/exploits in Gamecenter to give it some trust. Useful only in pairing some friend for multiplayer matches... And often it isn't useful as you're expecting. Bleh.
New DLC coming November 8, 2012. There will be 3 deck packs, with the first coming out this week, 2.99 USD each, with 2 decks each pack. Source: Dotp Official Forum
Cool, only a little depressed by the ol' diminishing returns here. We just recently got 5 decks for $4.99, now, if grabbing all 3 sets, it will be 6 for $8.97?
The later expansion deck packs were similarly priced for Duels 2012 as well. I think the idea is that these are advanced decks that are likely to see fewer purchases than for the core decks and the initial expansion, although I'm not sure if there's any truth to that.
All the more reason I'd assume they'd charge less than $2.99/2 decks when the fervor for Magic 2013 has died down a bit at this point.
Hah well, that's what sales are for Also, here's a preview for what's coming on the 8th with extensive spoilers
I wish there was an option to increase the size of cards in your hand. I can't even read the titles of cards when playing on my iPad mini. I don't expect to be able to read the descriptive text. But a readable title would be very convenient. Too much double tapping as it is. Do the devs read this thread? Where is the best place to submit a request?
Not quite. Your Elo score almost always goes up when you win a game, even if your opponent has a lower Elo score. But it goes up more slowly than winning against a higher ranked opponent. When you lose a game, your Elo score goes down by the same amount that your opponent's score goes up. So you are basically "betting" some of your Elo points with your opponent, using odds that depend on your relative scores.
Is unlocking cards tied to your account or your iPad? If I upgrade iPad will I have to start all over again?
It is supposedly tied to your GC account so it should easily carry over to a new system BUT I'm not sure how that works if you were last playing offline and therefore had no way to update your online GC profile.
Ranking is tied to GC but not campaign progress. You will have to unlock all the cards again. Unless you are restoring saved data uploaded to iCloud. I don't know if that's possible going from iPad 3 to 4, or from 3 to Mini.