Short answer
Card power can grow without making new players useless if the game protects meaningful jobs for early collections. New players do not need perfect cards on day one. They do need decisions that matter before they own them.
That means power progression should create aspiration without deleting participation. Strong cards can be better, but weaker collections still need routes, support roles, timing windows, and ways to contribute to the season.
The design tension
The tension is familiar: progression must feel real, but the ladder cannot be so steep that late entrants are spectators. If upgrades only increase raw output, every older card becomes waste and every newcomer starts behind a wall.
The solution is to mix vertical and horizontal value. Some improvements can raise power. Others should reward coverage, specialization, low-cost utility, set completion, recipe timing, guild coordination, or contribution windows. New players can then matter through fit, not only through maximum strength.
Player benefit
For new players, this creates a better first week. They can learn the economy, solve visible shortages, and help a guild without being told that nothing counts until they acquire the top tier. That is essential for retention.
Veteran players benefit too. If the best answer is not always the highest stat, advanced accounts still have planning work to do. They manage composition, timing, and coordination instead of simply pressing the strongest card into every slot.
Miracle example
Miracle can protect early usefulness through six mining slots, eight resources, set interactions, recipe needs, and seasonal contribution goals. A newer player may not own the rarest miner, but they can still cover an underproduced resource, complete a small set, or help a guild hit a specific target.
Veteran progress can still matter through stronger cards, gems, sharpening, and deeper collections. The goal is not to flatten progress. The goal is to make progress coexist with participation.
What to watch
Watch for exclusion signals: one rarity tier erases all lower tiers, guilds have no practical reason to invite newer players, contribution math rewards only top accounts, or the UI teaches players to sort by power and ignore context.
A healthy card economy lets a new player describe a useful role after the first sessions. If they can only describe what they lack, the system is drifting toward exclusion.