I think its play to earn, not pay to win, because even the best cards can have losses, the constant changing of rulesets and which splinters are allowed allows skill to triumph money on occasion, that cannot be said of most games. Since the changes to disadvantage bots its a lot harder to grind up with just the spellbook, probably impossible. That being said, the more you invest, the more you earn no doubt in this game, when I was in Silver 3 last month i was happy earning 3 DEC a win, now in Gold 3 I earn between 20-50 DEC a win depending on which day of season. Thats a higher return for my play time, theres no way around it. But thats the way it should be. If people want to grow organically they can do it now if they buy the spellbook and $5-$10 dollars worth of DEC and use that to test rentals and rent key cards you can grind it out just need 1 nice person to lend u some power, and hey affiliate program and scholarship programs are all about that. These costs are pennies compared to Axie Infinity which was over $600 per axie when I looked a while back no idea now, so 1800 to start.
!BEER
!LUV
!PIZZA
!LOLZ