There are tons of threads that ask for casual mode. I’m somewhat neutral about its re-addition but I’m making this post because I am surprised no one made a poll to have some “reliable” data or because it’s easier in general.
Poll : Do you want a casual mode?
0 voters
This may not be the best place for me to dump my thoughts, I feel I’m going to let it out before it slips away. I may make this post its own topic if warranted.
Anyhow, while I do not think it feasible without a larger player base, I would love to see a game mode that allows players to select opponents, much like approaching a player at a game store.
What I envision is an option to make yourself visible to other players and let an opponent select to play you or vise versa. The hosting player would have their name, current/highest rank and deck name visible. Anyone looking to join a game can select their opponent from the list of hosts to challenge them.
When the challenge is received, the hosting player is told they are being challenged. They are given a pop up with the name of the challenger, their current/highest rank, and deck name. The host can then accept or decline the challenge (to prevent extreme skill or potential card library differences).
Queues would be expected to be rather long regardless, but I believe this would bring an interesting alternative to queuing for a ladder game. It essentially mimics finding an opponent sitting at a table at your local game store.
Options to improve the mode include:
-Reduced, but incentivized rewards.
Say something like once each day, you earn 5 gold for hosting a game and 5 gold for joining a game. To improve availability, perhaps a day of the week can be designated “casual day” (bad name, just go with it for now), where rewards are doubled or can be earned more frequently on this day only. This would be like going to the cards shop for Friday Night Magic (you expect to find more people to play with given the event on that day).
-Allowing the host and challenger to add a small message
Sometimes, seeing another player’s rank won’t do their deck justice. Someone could be intentionally playing below their level to try a more fun but less practical deck. It would make sense to allow a player to tell their opponent this, so not to scare away potential opponents.
-Revealing the 2-4 cards in the host/challenger’s deck
Like the previous idea, it helps their opponent understand the nature of what they’re going up against. Make it an option to allow the host to enable deck spoilers when hosting a game. If they do, selected cards would be revealed in their game information and an equal amount would be revealed from their opponent’s deck.
-Reputation system
Players can choose to up vote their opponent after the match to indicate they were a friendly, good player. Also, maybe the number of casual games they’ve played would be an available statistic as well. Down voting would not be an option to prevent potential abuse.
Wow, that’s pretty elaborated dude ! You could make a full fledged a suggestion thread with that 
Before I played Duelyst, I played this MOBA’ish RTS game called AirMech. The game was growing at a pretty decent rate until the developers took away browsable custom lobbies and added an unranked queue alongside a ranked queue. It wasn’t long until the short wait times began to grow because of the split queues. Now there were a few other factors involved but splitting the queues ruined the game, and now the devs have a player base that consists of only casual bot farmers.
Splitting the queues in duelyst would yield the same result in my opinion. One of the greatest strengths of this game is the short wait times. This is only because there is one queue. If an laddering players reach an acceptable rank, they would quit and just play unranked until the season is over, leaving other players unable to find matches while the S-rankers fight bronze level players in unranked casual mode, no longer promoting fun gameplay and resulting in a dwindling player base.
However since this is the first turn based ccg I’ve played, maybe the market is entirely different.
I’ve already expressed my opinion on this subject but just as a foot note for me that I DID speak against wrongs. Right now without a bigger player base a casual que would be a bad idea. Longer wait times will definitely dissuade people from playing the game. You keep gold in any function in a casual verses mode people in droves will abuse it. I play lol and I play more time playing normal draft then ranked draft. Ranked games will become more serious and competitive leaving ppl scared to play imo. But at the end its cp,s choice and I will support regardless.
As I’ve mentioned in several other casual-mode threads, there is at least one game that allows you to enter both queues at the same time. This eliminates any real concern over increasing wait times, if that’s your priority.
Oh yeah, AirMech ! I used to really like this game but it died out soon enough…
AirMech was super cool. But it didnt have focus…
By that logic, we could also eliminate all real concerns over us chopping off your legs if keeping your arms were your priority. Just because something isn’t the absolute top priority doesn’t mean that it isn’t a real concern. =P
With such a small player base, it can make for some annoying wait time when you’re making your seasonal Ladder climb if they make the split. That’s a real concern, much like those of the select Bloodborn Generals who care about not getting their legs chopped off while keeping their arms. =S
The biggest concern is splitting the player base, and potential abuse. However @qeltar is on the right track, it just needs to be taken one step further.
There needs to be only one que and it is based on your rank. There could be a button that you can turn on or off before you que that makes it so you don’t rank up or loose rank when you play, but has no affect on the opponent.
Everyone wins with this, que times stay the same, you can play casualy without any penalty, and those trying to rank up enjoy their easier win agaisnt a more casual deck, or a loss that was going to happen anyways.
I voted no on the poll, as a seperate mode will indeed be harmful to the game, although my suggested toggle could work. Also a much simpler solution is why don’t we get rid of the quests that encourage people to do stuff they don’t want to do? A simple daily bonus like the play X games is all there needs to be.
Casual mode is where people with performance anxieties play their ranked decks in Hearthstone and similarly in Scrolls. It just really doesn’t work the way people imagine it. Because you can’t drop an entire league at a time, it’s sort of moot for a casual PUG ladder mode. Hell, we have friendlies for anything else that the ranked mode doesn’t already cover.
I think you misunderstood me there. What I meant was:
Yes this means that that queue times for people who only want to play one or the other will be longer than those happy to play either. But @deathsadvocate’s solution is even more elegant and simple: have one queue, let each player decide if they want it to count or not. And there can’t be any abuses or “veterans preying on newbies” because you won’t even know what the other person selected.
Edited in to my op, but you would need to press the button before you que not after to prevent any abuse.
I like that idea… Very sensible bit I’m still worried ppl will still complain x has you amount of rare cards why am I facing him. Ppl will do this but that aside to yours sounds like a good solution
Still based on your rank so shouldent really happen, my suggestion requires 0 change to how the current que, or match making works, just simply you have the choice to neither gain/loose rank before you que up.
Sure someone could freeze them self in silver at the beginning of season if they wanted to for some weird reason, but someone that determined can already do this by just auto conceding on occasion to not go up a division so it’s really not a concern.
While the pre-S Chevron part of the Ladder already isn’t zero-sum, I think the potential for collusion and other kinds of abuse with a system which has that degree of player control over Rank inflation/deflation is too high. Aside from the big problem of collusion, it also allows players to “farm newbies” without having to concede the Chevrons back into the newbie Rank range. This much player control over Rank inflation/deflation is going to be very problematic.
I understood you perfectly, which was why I objected to your logic. =S
Your “priority” isn’t your only “real concern.” There can be multiple “real concerns” with many of them not being your “priority.”
Yeah, sure, maybe you value keeping your arms more than keeping your legs, which makes keeping your arms your “priority,” but that doesn’t mean that keeping your legs isn’t a “real concern” to you anymore. The system certainly doesn’t eliminate my “real concern” about keeping my legs just because keeping my arms is my “priority” and the system offers me the option to keep my arms by having my legs chopped off. =S
It’s such thinking that makes for all the missing limbs in Mythron.
I… honestly have no idea what you are talking about with all the arms and legs. But I am happy to have a possible explanation for all the amputees. 
Anyway, DA’s idea is better than mine and has no drawbacks that I see. You make the choice before you queue, so I’m not sure how collusion is any more possible than it is now.
Sadly, I see many drawbacks with his system, too, as I have outlined in my previously reply.
I briefly contemplated a modified version of his solution by eliminating the option for Diamond+ to limit the damage to the Spirit of Competition™, but I quickly realized that the problem cuts both ways in giving the player base that much additional power to manipulate the Rank system.
It can be abused not only by generating Chevrons, but by destroying Chevrons as well, depending on how the abuser base overall chooses to abuse it. =S
Okay so everyone wants to find faults in the idea of adding a casual mode.
Meanwhile the vast majority of players have indicated they either want it or don’t care, nearly every other game has it, and this game is getting loud and frequent feedback from casual players that they are increasingly not feeling welcome, all at a time following about 2 months of declining playerbase.
That matters more than nitpicking to me. YMMV.
TL;DR: Find a way to give the customers what they want here, or they will find it elsewhere. Do you have any idea how much competition Duelyst is about to have to deal with?
I don’t want to find faults with implementing Casual Mode in Duelyst, but I see faults. I only rarely argue the point just to argue the point and this is not one of those times. =S If it’s any consolation, I prefer your solution to deathsadvocate’s. =P Desolation-atmosphere-conjuring Ladder wait time and less Rank inflation for casual players are less problematic than the serious feel-bad abuse potential deathsadvocates’ system introduces.
I mean, we can Brexit to Casual Mode right now, but I doubt that the overall casual experience improves because of it. You can get a few "Friggin’ A"s giving 'em what they ask for, but they’ll quit on you all the same when what they ask for and what they actually like better turn out to be very different things. Right now at least they have the fantasy of a no-drawback-they-care-about Casual Mode to look forward to. =S