There are 3 groups of people that win sages:

- The big spenders, that spends thousands upon thousands and end up with a big power gap over the rest of the crowd.

- Level freezers, who deliberately hold back on leveling, while still doing what they can to gain power. This can be done by both f2p and spenders. While leveling freezing is great for sage, and arguably good for arena; it *s for spacetime and put you at a disadvantage at gnw; due to making your power growth slower compared to those who don't level freeze.

- The lucky few who get thrown into a much weaker field once in a while. I've seen things like a lvl 89 being somehow sent to a field of 79 - 83 players. My uk char got sent to a field of lvl 55- players one time, as a lvl 76.

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Casual players basically do not win sages, spending or not. You'll always be fodder to the big spenders and level freezers, who have far more power at the same level. A player who spend a few hundred dollars a month inefficiently will fall behind a f2p who makes optimal use of resources in terms of power growth.

The people that suffer the most at sage are the low to medium spenders (and a few f2p players), who make good use of resources but do not level freeze. They can end up in an uncomfortable position of being too strong to appear in a lower sage field, and too weak to put up a fight against the super whales.

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PS: sage is impossible to balance. In my current LA bracket, the top 21 players that show up has a powers of 75k - 160k+. 21 players is the minimum number of players a sage field can have, and the gap is already that extreme.