I guess I still have about one year (including if I decide to tank once or twice) before I start to see the high level desert .The most competitive seasons in my experience has been 6 to 12. The first couple of seasons where also really easy because so many people abandoned their team after 1 or 2 seasons. After you passed the 4th or 5th seasons it meant that the players where more serious about the game. I saw about 70% of my old friends/rivals abandon the game after the new TM. There are still some serious players that have been in my servers since the 6th season.

One of the main reason the game declined after the 12 season I think is that people who continued to buy Tokens or packs and didn't understand how the game really worked were disappointed. I still love the game no matter the many many problems and I do try to stay hopeful for an improvement even thou the last big update has hurt the gameplay furthermore.