# 4. You Shall Whine About Matchmaking
There are various types of players in the game, and some are always ahead of you. Paying for power is not worth it.
Frustration hits every player sooner or later, even whales. F2P Players and P2W Players are just dealing with that frustration in different ways.
Eventually you will encounter opponents you can’t defeat with only your skill… or your wallet. Paying for power only accelerates your journey towards the Matchmaking Wall.
When people complain about whales, veterans, or P2W, they are actually complaining about the Matchmaking System. Players complain about the Matchmaking System because of the Matchmaking Wall.
The Matchmaking Wall is very frustrating, it pushes many players away from PVP (and the game) altogether.
# The Eight Types of Players
“There will be eight Harry Potters moving through the Dueling Halls tonight, each of them in a paid outfit, or a filthy rag, depending on their playstyle.”
—Harry Potter and the Deathly Whales 🐳
There are different types of players in this game. You have to understand what it means to be a whale in Harry Potter: Magic Awakened. Here is a list of ocean dwellers, ranked from harmless to scariest:
F2P Players do not spend money in the game. At most you bought the Battle Pass once or twice. If players are sea creatures, you are like a krill — the creature whales feed upon. There are a ton of us in the game, and nobody cares when a single one dies 💀
Dolphins spend a decent amount of money in the game. A dolphin may buy the Battle Pass often, and many cosmetics. Dolphins do have access to more resources than F2P Players, but not by much. Dolphins are like F2P Players with prettier outfits.
Whales spend a lot of money in the game. Like a dolphin, whales tend to spend most extra resources on cosmetics. Whales are stronger than F2P Players, but a few days on a break from the game would close that power gap.
Blue whales are not like most whales. Most whales do the math and realize it would be insane to pay for a High Magic Book Level. Blue whales follow the P2W Code.
F2P or Dolphin Veterans are the reason why so many people argue the game is not P2W. Time allows you to collect a fortune worth of resources. A veteran is like an Orca — not really a whale, but only experts can tell the difference.
Veteran Whales are whales that play as much as veterans. How do you catch up? You don’t. The difference in power between veterans and veteran whales is not huge, but it does exist. This only changes once both veterans reach Magic Book Level 100.
Eldritch Veterans. Little must be spoken of such creatures —least one incurs their wrath. Beyond Hall of Fame, at the top of Global PVP rankings, you may glimpse at them. To speculate on how they got there is folly. They lurk… on long queue lines.
Cthulhu does not upgrade cards but defeats veterans anyway. Cthulhu is real.
Now you know whales are not all the same. It’s all about how players spends their extra resources. For all intents and purposes, F2P Players can be just as scary. Whales just dress better.
# The Matchmaking Wall
Paying for power only delays the Matchmaking Wall. Whales suffer from P2W too, there is always a bigger wallet in the sea. Our common gripe is with the Matchmaking System.
PVP is fun for F2P Players until you reach a rank full of whales. PVP is fun for whales until they reach a rank full of bigger whales.
Skilled players can defeat opponents with a higher Magic Book Level, up to a point. Eventually players can’t close the gap with skill alone. This is the Matchmaking Wall.
Against the wall, even victories are not as fun. The only way to get past the wall is to upgrade your Magic Book Level and Deck, but upgrades take longer each time.
Players need a lot of money, a lot of grind, or both, to get past the Matchmaking Wall. And on the other side of the wall? A bigger wall and longer queue times.
Magic Awakened is great, but the matchmaking system sucks.
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