I guess throw onto the pile a Sulfurion/Demytha team.  Like Islin, I could have let the Arena battle go on for quite some time.  Why is it combinations of toons that can't straight up win an Arena battle that are great for CB and other PVE are being put into arena?  Are these people being spiteful dickheads?

What's the point?!  Ugh...inner calm...😏

there are two main reasons. first is that in arena battles the advantage lies overwhelmingly with the attacker. the lone advantage of the defense team is that forcing a stalemate counts as a win for them, so it's no surprise that some people build teams to capitalize on that. more likely though is that a team like that is intended as a deterrant. a tanky, support heavy team of champions like demytha and sulfyrion will generally be able to drag a fight out for a while and for many players, that's not worth the hassle. making an arena defense that can consistantly win battles isn't usually a viable strategy, but making one that's too big a pain in the butt for people to attack is pretty easy.

not a whole lot of advice regarding islin, unfortunately. you can use heal reduction like you mentioned, try and overwhelm him with damage, or destroy his max hp, but your best option may be to simply avoid teams that use him.

The thing I don't get personally, relates to how I use Arena.  I don't care if I lose all defensive battles.  It cools off rising beyond Gold II, a tier I am comfortably farming gold medals with a 140k team of Hierophant Lazarius, Chronicler Adelyn, Elhain, and either Deacon Armstrong or Coldheart depending on opposition.  I don't have a lot of trickery with that lineup, and so I do try to pick smart battles, but I find it works for grinding medals and that's what I got at the moment.  I want to make sure my Main Hall doesn't hold up chasing Arbiter, and I want magisteel and to upgrade the hall.

Is it purely ego to never give up a win, or are there other valid reasons to do a stall defense?

i think you'll find that your approach to arena makes you the odd man out here rather than them.

broadly speaking, classic arena can be divided into three tiers. there's Platinum, there's Gold V, and then there's b1-g4 a.k.a. The Tutorial. pretty much everyone in The Tutorial is trying to get up to Gold V because the rewards are better and the only thing easier than getting to Gold V is staying in Gold V. you do get the occasional person like you who's simply trying to maintain their current place as well as people who couldn't care less about arena, but the bulk of players don't want to take any more losses than they have to.

Interesting.  Thank you for the insight.

One last question.  Is a team of 140k viable to gain enough winnable matches to be worth Gold V?

Or is it best for now to stick here until I have a better lineup?

Team power means so close to nothing in questions like this. It is calculated in a way that it tells us nothing about how strong champs actually are, and a team of 900k can be beaten by teams under 250k.

And saying power is calculated is giving it too much benefit of the doubt. It basically barely counts as being calculated.

As far as G5, making it up there and then farming one man defenses is more than a viable strategy. I started an account and did it with a solo Athel, and again with a solo Ronda when that test account fell back to bronze. It's more than doable if you spend enough time on it. :)