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If WWE Supercard were to announce the game had reached the end of its life, I don’t think I’d be too traumatised. Despite putting in countless of hours of gameplay since its launch back in 2014 – People’s Champion Challenge anyone? – and it being probably my most played game across all devices and consoles in that time, I wouldn’t feel like I’d been punched in the gut. The game is, and has for some time now, become stale. Even the addition of a new tier probably won’t save the game, merely extend its life for a couple of weeks…until the novelty has worn off and we realise we’re just re-playing the same thing over and over.

Having said that, I don’t want my Supercard days to be behind me. Putting that much effort into a game would leave a void in my life, as pathetic as that sounds. I want to be the Chris Jericho of Supercard. I will be its saviour. So here are my suggestions on how to improve WWE Supercard.

1) More Events

I’m not asking for the return of PCC – no way – but there should be a stronger rotation of events to cover a four week period. For example, you can still only offer one event card per event to keep the pro’s at bay for a week, but instead of the constant Ring Domination, Road to Glory cycle, add two more. I’m sure CatDaddy or 2K could think of something to do with the WWE’s other major properties, like Survivor Series. Perhaps you have a deck that loses energy after every match and you have to rotate the cards throughout. Once they lose all their energy they’re out and can’t be used again but they will re-energise themselves slowly over time.

Throw in another event, maybe like the Royal Rumble mode or something totally new and then you have four events to carry you through a month. Maybe you offer an event Bray Wyatt card in week one’s Ring Domination and only offer his pro card in the fourth weeks event? The cycle should also be varied, not always Ring Domination, Road to Glory, Event 3, Event 4, allow randomness to keep everyone on their toes.

2) Less reliance on Females

Team Battleground was a positive move for Supercard and I can see it helping lower ranked decks enormously. When it first started, female cards were available as rewards but quickly taken away. When you have a Ranked or Exhibition deck of 4 males and 2 females and after you have a few events under your belt, you’ll find everyone has a pretty similar deck. Females are the wildcards, the one area where not everyone will have the same card so can be the decider in who wins the bout. This shouldn’t be the case.

Event cards are currently the strongest in the game but should they be? If events featured more females more often then you would have a greater variety of cards to fill the two slots and thus the chance of more variation, not seeing the same deck every time. With the introduction of fusions and Money In The Bank females, we are seeing a greater diversity, but it may have come too late. Fusions require weeks of effort, especially if you’ve got to start from a common fusion and work your way up to Wrestlemania 33. Having to put that much energy into them, they should perhaps be on par with event cards in terms of strength. I know I’m going to upset a lot of people but pack cards, those you actually have to spend money on to acquire, should be a lot stronger than they are. Although I’m a sucker and really do want to own that Hall of Fame Bret Hart card, I don’t see the interest in paying actual money for a card that probably won’t make my ranked deck and will just be filler in my Road to Glory team. I would be paying up to £40 on just an image.

It sounds like I’m saying make all the cards equal in terms of strength, and I think I am. Maybe events should be the strongest, but don’t put them too far ahead of the regular tier. Regular WM33 AJ Styles should still beat Event WM33 Jinder Mahal in speed for example.

3) Token Reduction

As each new tier has been introduced, the number of levels you need to rank up each card has increased and as such, the number of tokens you can use to improve that card has sky rocketed. It’s got to the point now where you can lay 10 tokens on a single card, 11 on a pro. The whole idea of these tokens was to add an extra layer of variety on the cards so if two of the same went up against each other it wouldn’t always end in a draw. The sheer number of tokens now means that every card is going to be almost identical to the last, even those people who put tokens on the weakest stats are finding lots of others are doing the same.

I was the Paul Heyman of tokens – an advocate. Back when season one was being played out, I mentioned the idea in the forums of adding permanent stat boosts to cards and was thrilled when the idea was implemented for season two. But now, in order to solve the problem, we need to review it and I think the solution is pretty clear. Only offer 3 tokens per single card and 4 per pro over every tier. It would make the choice on which stat to boost all the more difficult and not everyone would follow the same pattern offering (here’s that word again) variety to game play.

4) Alternative Finishers

In a similar vein to tokens, finishers can also offer another layer of diversity for the same card. We have already seen two different animations over different tiers for some cards, such as AJ Styles and his Styles Clash and Phenomenal Forearm so why not offer alternative finishers to boot? When you have your card you can select one of two (or more) finishers to be associated to that card. For example, John Cena may have the AA and the STFU as his two finisher options. If I select the AA, if the card hits its finisher (or proc) then he gets the boost in PWR and CHA, but if I had selected the STFU and the card proc’s, then Cena could get his boost in PWR and TGH.

Maybe not all cards would have two finishers, the lower end of the tier may only get one. Perhaps for event cards the first card would have the one finisher and the second would have the alternative and only when the card is pro’d would you be able to switch between the two. There are options for this and it would bring another element of strategy to the game. If you only had cards that were strong in speed, by switching up the finisher you could get that little extra boost in toughness if you needed it.

5) Team Event Rewards

As a long-time player of this game and part of a great team (Wolfpac 2.0) who always put the effort in, I have collected a lot of top tier cards. So many in fact I’m now getting my third or fourth pro of the same card. It’s annoying. It has reached the point where no card is going to improve my deck from these team events because I have all the event card pros which are so much better than these on offer and thus, my team and I are at the point of not caring and not playing.

Back in season two, during the team events, there were two new cards introduced. Tyler Breeze and Apollo Crews were added to the mix. This was a brilliant move. It presented us with a brand-new tier card to expand the catalogue and it wasn’t an instant pro. If you wanted to pro the card, you had to earn it through other play methods. Genius. This is the solution that is desperately needed again. Especially with the rather slim collection of WM33 cards on offer already and the constantly changing WWE landscape. Adding new cards to the deck in this way would seriously reinvigorate team interest in events. There could also be a pack card thrown in there occasionally. The Hall of Fame pack has already been added as a prize claimable in Team Battleground, but give us a Team Ring Domination or Road to Glory where the top prize is a throwback or Hall of Fame card and suddenly you’ve given everybody a reason to buy a pack.

So there we have it, five suggestions for how to improve and extend the life of WWE Supercard. I fully expect there to be a SummerSlam or Survivor tier added in the next few weeks but this will only cover up the issues the game has for a little while. Drastic changes need to be made to improve the quality and longevity of the game and I believe my suggestions will keep it fresh and different across all levels of play.

Does this mean a hard reset and a season 4? Probably, and that thought doesn’t thrill me at all, but if it helps the game, I’m willing to accept it. There are alternatives to a hard reset which include re-mapping all the tiers down three pegs, so WM33 becomes Hardened and Ultimate becomes Summerslam, Super Rare is now Common (if you get what I mean), all the stats are lowered but all your current crop of cards remain (expect Common, Uncommon and Rare which are replaced) and we begin climbing up the ladder again. But a hard reset could also being other new features and abilities to completely customise the card from the background, image and layout perhaps? Whatever happens it needs to happen soon. Save our WWE Supercard.