IMO the fundamental problem is that insta-kill and loop/spawn are two abilities that should never go together, or this will be a complaint that never dies, though the specific card under scrutiny at any given time will change. Remember the Bone Dragon? Extra nebulous abilities apply in these conditions like complete board reset, Proc Traits, etc.
Kraken violates this “unwritten rule” that all other cards follow. No looping on True Damage. No looping on Mass-Affix applications like Borealis, Plague, and more. No looping on Devour. Oops.
Kraken also has one of the best Mythic level Traits in the game (and as a non-Mythic troop)!
Compare it to the best PvP Mythic in the game: Famine. So ‘Aspect of Famine’ only does -3 Skill points to a single Enemy every turn. While Kraken’s ‘Tentacles’ -3 ALL (-12 potential) enemies with 4-5 matches so it isn’t guaranteed every turn but with spawning from ‘Depths Below’ it can proc multiple times per turn. Toss in another gem spawner (like Troll) plus a second Kraken and your all set to melt points off.
There might need to be other changes, but one easy change would be to change ‘Tentacles’ to -1 or -2 per 4-5 match.
Also, one of the aspects people don’t tend to think about are all the free bonuses. Entire team has Barrier? Not no more on a single 4-Match. Board sucks for AI? Not anymore because now the whole thing’s been reset and flooded with AI Mana. On and on I could go lol
Remember the Bone Dragon rant? Much of it is perfectly applicable here… - YouTube
It’s not the losing that bothers me. It happens. It’s the fact most of the time it’s completely out of my hands.
It certainly isn’t boring to fight, because it is normally over within a matter of seconds. Boring to fight was the old mana drain meta. Never bring that back.
I wouldn’t say Kraken is overpowered, not alone anyway. It’s the team it’s used in.