cards unbound is an objectively worse system that the previous cards system. now you have to buy loot boxes to level up your cards and loot boxes dispense cards at random which is loving terrible. granted, there are character specific loot boxes, but i'm not sure how frequently you're awarded those and the cards you get from it are still random, so you might not even get the cards you want. you should just be able to buy cards like you were able to before. this is an obvious ploy to try to get people to buy huge bundle packs of loot boxes once they run out of gold since there's no mechanical reason for this stuff to exist.
TBH it seems more to be the opposite nowadays, w/ the cards unbound and battlegrounds updates
battlegrounds hasn't even come out yet but it looks interesting. a fast-paced (hopefully) class-based battle royale with a half-decent combat system hasn't been tried before and it might end up being good. if they go down the route of you having to loving do a scavenger hunt for your weapons and bullets though battlegrounds can forget right off.
i used to play paladins a lot but the whole seris and strix updates disillusioned me since they both entirely replaced other characters, showing that the paladins dev team truly doesn't know what they're doing in terms of balancing
