Unpopular opinion: I actually really like having a reason to grind Arena.
I’ve decided I like the mode, and I’ll make a devil’s advocate case below for why I don’t think this Arena of Valor is the worst event despite having the worst rewards.
Why I like the mode in one general thesis:
In a fairly-streamlined manner, I am forced to switch things up and keep teams fresh.
That’s it. If that’s the feedback that gets collated in the “Pros” column, it’s that.
This thesis does not happen for other events, where it’s just a matter choosing what the optimal choice is given the restrictions. I ask myself questions like, “Can I use [Insert Tesla, Queen Beetrix, Doomed Weapon here]?” And if the answer is Yes, the team-building goes no further for as long as my sigils (or play session) last.
Bounty has a META + plug-in-Captain. Each World Event has a META. Delves, Class Events, and even Explore has, what amount to, METAs, and often they are the same METAs as what are found elsewhere, in other modes, with maybe a few tweaks or two (that are usually just me thinking, “Ah, man, I can’t use [Insert that troop I like, King Gobtruffle, say, or my second Empowered Converter usually used to fill him]).
That’s why people complain that every mode feels the same: because, in a way, they are. And not just because scoring doesn’t vary, or because restrictions don’t actually limit choices enough to alter how players play — we’ve seen changing either tends not to be the sort of thing players actually want. But I digress.
Arena does have an optimal choice-pattern BUT it is not overly-present because it is obfuscated (and therefore hard to choose, which is bad; see below) AND changed every 6 fights (which is good — there are multiple “Bests” and a player MUST alter his or her BEST being used every so often).
Overall, I like being forced to play with different teams, and I’m never going to force myself to do so in another mode if it means having slower battles, fewer tokens, etc… This is why stricter restrictions DON’T work on the “make player play with troops they don’t usually choose” front, but Arena, often, DOES, because I can use my go-to AoE Queen Bee and Vanya Soulmourn in this week’s World Event, but I don’t even have a guaranteed AoE option in an Arena run. See the difference? I hope so. I don’t feel like I’m explaining it well, but maybe a tangent will help…
The only other mode that makes a player redraft teams again and again is Guild Wars, and this ONLY happens at the top, where offenses NEED to be constantly altered to directly counter defenses. THAT — more than the 1500 gems, I would argue — is why the people who like Wars like Wars (and why the people who play in top guilds for the 1500 gems only tend NOT to like Wars).
The problem is, Wars does both teambuilding/drafting and turn-by-turn choices better: they’re strategic, and at the highest levels of competition slow, which is why enthusiasts love it and detractors hate it. It’s not for the grinders. It’s for the people willing to take 4 hours to complete a pure-faction at 500 in a delve at Pure-Hoard 100.
But Arena is sort of trying to do the same thing, I think, but in the middle as a less-hardcore version—and, uniquely, as a sort of “training wheels” version where it’s way harder to choose poorly (in Wars, the world is your oyster and you can construct a truly awful team if you don’t know what you’re doing. Arena saves you from that by having very few very-bad options, and because synergy isn’t really a priority, which I think is a shame, but in this way Arena becomes a tutorial for Wars).
Arena is not all that strategic (each choice amounts to: does it do damage? Okay! Then that’s the one I pick) but it is still slow, which is the worst of both worlds—this is at the root, I think, of why strategists are mad that team-building isn’t really being supported, and grinders are mad that the battles are slow and the reward payouts per-unit-time are terrible (which, to be fair, I think strategists are also mad about, but are probably just slightly less perturbed about it).
Also, as an incidental tangent to my already-a-tangent: I also like playing with the underused troops. In any other context, they are bad. But when facing only themselves, it can be fun participating in the Littles-Bracket, like playing Charmander vs. Cyndaquil rather than Charizard vs. Typhlosion. Imagine a “Mythics only” Wars, or a “No Mythics or Legendaries” Wars. This is (sort of) trying to be that. A fun idea — but only if done well, and not for everyone, regardless.
Ahem
Tangent(s) over…
Back to the main thrust of the argument…
I have critiques about the drafting system and the “freshness,” too; I am not some sort of “wholly satisfied customer.” If you’re looking for that, don’t point to me — I’m getting my two chaos orbs, and then I’m out (and I’d wager that’s farther than many will go).
…I definitely do have critiques for both, despite defending them each just now, as I think my frequent caveats demonstrate. But if you will indulge me further (you really are a glutton for punishment if you’ve read this far, but thank you if so; it means a lot to be heard)…
For one (and there will only be one here, as I’ve already overstayed my welcome, though I will expound more in a future post, if pressed), the drafting could do with some serious improvement. The best idea I’d like to spend some words promoting here is to draft all 4 troops at once: resize the rows so that they can all be seen at the same time, “click one from each row” instruction written at the top, gray-out the rest of the row when a selection has been made. Simple. Feeds two birds with one scone, too, as it allows people to plan synergies better, knowing how their choices would complement one another, AND plan around what will likely be their best card on the team—the Epic—which is supposedly “the point” of the mode: Team-Building.
At the danger of making Arena-METAs similar to the ones I railed against above, I think that’s the best change that could be made to “solve” the problem that is blind-drafting from low-rarity to high-rarity. That danger realized would be bad.
But it wouldn’t be inevitable if the system were done well, and all that would require is having large enough pools that a player couldn’t/wouldn’t just use the same really-good-troop over and over. Or hey — here’s an idea — if really good, OP selections weren’t as common as they seem to be: Actual Troops that break the Arena list
Maybe some would pay 1k gold after seeing a bad draft screen. Over and over. But I doubt it, and feel like anyone willing to pay such a tax is already doing so.
Make it harder to be stuck with a bad team, and fewer people will quit-out. Make it harder to sweep with a single troop and no team will be too tough to overcome.
Anyway, if the reason to play the event is the rewards, then the reason to grind very quickly diminishes because rewards very quickly get stuck behind dozens of battles. Therefore: so does the enjoyment of said grind, if it was ever there in the first place (like in my case). Maybe there will be enough of these things that 12% of an Imperial per-event is actually 1 Imperial a month. It remains to be seen — if it so happens to be this way, then I’m more-okay with it even though I still think that’s too stingy. If it’s not the case, and the inadverdant nerf to other events mentioned by Schu (spelling? Sorry), then I’m going to be upset.
That’s a problem if the goal is to get people to like playing Arena rather than just play it enough for the low-hanging fruit and then participate no longer (if they even bothered to participate in the first place).
Also as a final thing the entire event is very poorly explained in-game, but what else is new 
Tl;dr for the dev(s) collating feedback:
PROS
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Building a new team every 6 battles keeps gameplay fresh and fun
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Playing with low-rarity troops only makes for interesting match-ups rarely seen in the mid-or-endgame
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The mode serves (potentially) as a tutorial for other parts of the game requiring deep thought, like Guild Wars and level 500 Pure Faction battles
CONS
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The rewards per-run and per Valor lap are terrible unless there are to be very frequent occurrences of the latter (the former could do with a gold buff at the very least)
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Team-drafting is done blindly and therefore lacks a strategic element that could be easily had
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Certain troops currently included in the draft pools risk being OverPowered to the point they become the only reasonable choice to make, if presented with them
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Having no hero XP is a “cost” problem that is not addressed with some other “benefit” reward, like tokens or more diamonds or something could be
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Stunning focused troops are much less useful, and shouldn’t be here if that’s all they do. Same with Curse.
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The event is not explained well at all in-game. Luther would have been nice to see.