Passage of Persistance should just be get 7 wins and you get the adept. Losses don't hurt in anyway, and you don't have to do any card resetting until you get the adept. Once you get it, you reset and get another adept roll after 7 more wins. This would keep people in the playlist until they get their god roll and make the mode much healthier.
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Despite being a PvE main, I'm going to hard disagree with you. Adepts are supposed to be superior versions of weapons in the game, so there needs to be some risk in obtaining them to balance that out. Otherwise, they would lose their value. Imagine if GMs didn't kick you to orbit it the team wiped. Imagine if you could get away with someone being AFK for an entire encounter in a Hard Mode Raid Challenge. That's what you're asking for. Adepts to lose what little value they still have.