Rating "Rigging" vs Playing Best Cards

So this game has a somewhat unique game pairing system. Just about a week of play for me and it's clear that many of the tier 4 HQ's have a "sweet spot" and most player seem to be trying to keep their deck ratings as low as possible. I have a couple questions about this:

Does this happen with tier 8 HQ's?

At what point is it more advantageous to just play the best cards, regardless of what your deck rating is?

What are the most active rating ranges?

What are the top decks in those ranges?

Hopefully the more experienced players can break some of this down and we can get some discussion on it that will be helpful for all. Also, is there any information on the card ratings of the alpha/beta cards that are not available to the players that didn't get to participate in alpha and/or beta?

Most decks, with how the favorable cards work out, ends up lower.

Don't think of it as rigging, it's not. It's merely choosing to play at a certain deck power. I build a variety of decks to cover a spread of deck powers so that way if I can't find an opponent at higher deck power I can always go chose a toned down deck and find an opponent in the lower deck powers,. Since there will always be more players the lower you go in deck power you increase you chances of getting to play and decrease your que times. Also while some people might think of us veterans playing at low deck power as seal clubbing it also helps the new guys to see what the veterans do so they can learn the advanced stuff and not have to stumble thru it in the dark. You may have to take a loss to some vetran but I bet in the process you learned what cards are worth having and what targets are worth shooting. Also don't get all huffy when they beat you, be cool, maybe they will tell you tricks and tips. I know I do to people that are cool with me.

I just chose the word rigging because i like alliteration. In a way that's what it is because the players that have the rank 1 cards from alpha/beta are able to play decks that are much stronger than what people without those cards are able to play. The game is somewhat rigged in their favor, but, I dont get huffy when i lose to those deck. I say gg and im happy if i was at least close. But it's why i raise the questions i did. Might it not be better to just play the best cards you have and push yourself into a higher rating if you dont have access to those cards that? At some point, they lose some potency and become a sub optimal choice. The most successful version of Jute I've been able to play sits at about 360. I could easily push that deck up to something over 500. Since the tier 8 HQ's give a base rating of 1500 might it be better to just keep playing the best stuff I have with my tier 4 HQ's and keep it under 1500?

Also, i dont think veterans playing cards that new players don't have access to "teaches" me anything. I only need to see that they have cards i will likely never have, once. It's a pretty simple lesson. Now some of those players have been nice enough to post alternate choices for tbose that cannot get those cards. And for the most part I've gotten some good discussion from the vets when I make a mistake that might have cost me a win or their thoughts on my deck choices. Personally i think it does more harm than good, but, if I had those cards, I'd probably be doing the same thing, lol. More information on when those cards start to see less play would be helpful for new players.

First I think the non-beta players have really got way to much of a hard-on for the mythical unicorn cards they can't have. They are not exactly uber cards and in most cases were replaced by something functionally the same or better. I know that the only time I even used any of them was before I even knew they were special to me when I had just re-started playing and was still using the training HQ's. once I hit tier 4 and opened up the tree a bit I had zero use for them, so you guys really need to stop using these cards as an excuse, they are not game altering and rarely even see play past training HQ's.