I don't agree with you at all. sure at the start getting mastery is easier through fast death but as the game goes you get more ways to multiply mastery at late stages so it's a lot harder to get there fast. for example, the shop item for mastery makes it a lot better if you buy a couple of them you can get many times more mastery
the goal of the game is to get as far as you can and continue to live for as long as you can at the same time so if the goals make it harder on each other, it would have been good anyway