I agree myself. More specifically, E&P is a game that awards offense more than defense. I have been getting better performances by embleming all the heroes I use regularly, rather than focusing only on a few heroes (as I used to do before).
It’s getting harder and harder to use non-emblemed heroes on offense for me.
I remember we had a rather lengthy discussion on this topic (but don’t remember whether that was one of emblem-related topics or one of future-costume related ones).
My voice was that with emblems I fell into a situation that after emblemming a few chosen heroes, I’m quite discouraged from doing quick reshuffles in my teams based on the opponent I’m fighting (the main team with emblems is most often still stronger than handpicked team).
There were quite a few opposing voices that I should make strategic choices and stick to them (for months).
I’m still quite unhappy about the emblem situation 
The situation will partially solve itself in one more year once we have emblems on more than 10 main heroes. But that’s still 2 years of having to bear with this design flaw.
And I’m scared that costumes are going to further deepen this problem.
Quite the opposite; costumes may solve this “problem”, by doubling the emblemed heroes in one’s roster. You attack with one emblemed hero and then you put the costume on, turning him in entirely other hero (different class, different special skill), but still emblemed. Because the costume doesn’t need emblems; inherits the original hero path. And the costumes will be a success, mark my words. Only for the new stats (which surpass with much any event hero or hotm in game) and worth it. Some have better special skills than the original.
So you see, the costumes should make you happy, not scare you 
The way I see it is: Once I have fully costumed Boldtusk at +20, I’ll be less likely to use naked kiril at 4/70.
EDIT: I get it, that the costume, kinda ‘doubles’ the potential of a hero and introduces variety.
But at the same time, it makes uncostumed/unemblemed heroes pale in comparison.
I speak about emblems and this “issue” some of you think it exists. The costumes will double the emblemed heroes this is what I’m saying.
L.E. Lol, you edited meanwhile 
Will heroes with costumes be able to be used twice in war? That’s the only way I could see costumes adding to depth… or maybe that’s not what you mean…?
Good idea…just sorted out my heroes and in some classes I’m missing healers or something else - but thanks for that suggestion, gives me a lot to think about regarding my emblem ways…
@topic
I have “only” 20 5* heroes, none maxed yet, so my natural choice are my 4* heroes - of them I picked a few, which get heavily emblemed and with color stacking it’s no problem to win against emblemed 5* so far…when they are not too heavily emblemed. But I have the feeling - regarding the raid tournaments - that the emblems have an heavier impact on 3*, followed by 4*…the gap between “somewhat emblemed up to 7” and “(almost) maxed” in 3* tournaments is - for my feeling - huge. In 4* tourneys I don’t have so much trouble to fight against more emblemed, I think. Okay, there are no max emblemed 5* yet, maybe I’ll change my mind then 
Dunno if it’s clear, what I mean
It’s kind of stupid to war against an entire field where the weakest teams are 4300tp. That’s what emblems have done. On average my 6 war teams are going to be 3800tp. And there’s really nothing I can do to change that. Of course I’m still getting kills but it’s quickly becoming ridiculous. Many defending teams are 4500tp. It’s just impossible to build 6 war teams that are comparable in power levels.
As long as you have to level a costume from 1/1 to 4/80, is like you actually use a new levelled hero. And there is. Will have different look, different name, different description, different class, different special skill. So you actually don’t use a hero twice. Only his emblems.
P.S. And his endoskeleton 
Although emblems contribute largely to those high TP, but lets not ignore the troop levels, most troops at lvl 30 contribute some relative team stat boost and TP.
Also at this stage of 5* heroes talents ( that I considered mid range, +10, +11…) some of those 4300 team could still be knocked down with very good combo of 3800 team and decent boards.
However in the next 6 months to 1year when we will likely be seeing fully talented 5*s, the situation would most likely be different.
My understanding is that costumes create a virtually new hero that needs to be leveled up and emblemed on its own, no matter how many emblems the original hero has.
Nope, you misunderstood. Read again the thread about costumes. They don’t need emblems. They inherit the emblems and their path of original hero.
Even when they change class from the original?
Yeah, and this is problematic. But you should go at the thread for further questions about costumes.
Are you sure?
That post is since summer. Like I said, here you are off-topic and if you have questions about costumes you should post there.
This has not been my experience. I have one of the more meager rosters in my alliance, but really don’t generally struggle in wars. Yes, those +12 Guin or Ursena tanks are noticeably tougher than nekkid ones, but offense is already at such a huge advantage that win rate still remains high.
Mono stack still goes 6/6 in war about half the time vs. 4200-4400 teams.
The other half the time you catch a bad board (and for me that means triggering an unexpected cascade in an off color that sets off a bunch of enemy specials). Or my 6th team - usually a mono ‘b’ team which isn’t that strong, can’t quite get the job done (killing 3/5 heroes or so).
I can’t really say what it was like pre-emblems because my mono teams were really only starting to come into their own when emblems were introduced, but right now, fighting +10 heroes on average, its still not that daunting and I am disappointed in my effort if I don’t run the board.
Been changed since then.
Now costumed heroes do change classes
But the emblems applied to base hero are transfered to the costume version and class but are applied in exact way they were to the base
And u have to emblem the base version to emblem the costume version, so depending which version you use more, you’ll want to look at both paths to make sure you’re embleming the right path for the hero version you prefer most
