There was a large community of those that favoured arenas. I didn't do much ranked, but I found my 3 mains playing pubs and racked up some pretty impressive stats. Got my Mirage's arena 500 badge, and enjoyed a lifetime kdr of .89. not awesome I know, but for a casual player, I was happy for it. It was like playing a very fast and intense game of chess. Even if I fought against Preds and cheaters, I still had a blast overall. Now my kdr is at 0.16 thanks to the TDM variants and gun run. I love how you advertise mixtape as a "community selected" mode, yet most of us fail to see just what community is being consulted. Certainly not your forum here.
Tried the competition and hate them. CoD is too toxic, Fortnite is not FPS perspective, overwatch has mechanics and physics that are too embellished and not as realistic as Apex. Apex is great at making me buy into the illusion, and have met many wonderful people here. Sure there are trolls, but that is life on the Net.
I am playing this season to see if the devs will actually return what they stole from me, but it looks beyond doubtful at this point. The only thing that will see me participate in season 18 would be the return of Arenas.