None of the original cards were useless. While some were more situational and dependent on party composition, there were numerous cases where I made use of every single one. If someone was fishing for balance, that was a player problem; not a design one.

There is nothing superior about the new system, nor can it be salvaged. Damage-only is incredibly boring; it lacks actual strategical input. I spend more time looking for seals/Arcana conversion than I ever did trying to get a particular buff I wanted with the old cards. Single card deployment is exceedingly cumbersome, especially on controller. There's also the issue of how this change completely and utterly butchers both the storyline for AST and its core lore. The same goes for removal of the time stretching with Celestial Opposition and Time Dilation.

For those of you that actually prefer the new cards: I genuinely question if y'all ever played AST long enough to understand what made the old system better.