I'm glad I started when I did otherwise it would be impossible today. Cards have gone to ridiculous prices. My regular lineup that gets me to silver would cost $500 USD at the moment or about 100 DEC to rent for one day. When I started I was getting 10-15 DEC a win in the 1500-1700 range. Now I'm lucky to get 5. At the end of the season at rank 1700 I was getting 2.8 DEC with over 95% capture rate. The rental prices haven't changed so now instead of 10-15 wins to make your DEC back, now it's 30-40 wins.
I feel really bad for new players who can't even get new cards unless they're willing to drop hundreds of dollars into the game