I am a noob, in Bronze, trying to make it into Silver, so excuse me if I am misunderstanding.

But, when you are in Bronze 1 with 1000 Rating, you have to rent a Card to get the 15,000 Power to unlock Silver 3. In order to rent that card, it costs you 28,920 DEC, and your account only earned 252 DEC. Where did you get the other 28,668 (29,920 - 252) DEC, to rent the card to unlock the Power?

I have spent a little money, I've learned the basics of the game, but I am extremely hampered by this Power rating system. Having to rent cards with extra deposited money just to unlock Bronze 1 (5,000 Power), much less Silver 3 (15,000 Power). It seems I started at the absolute worst time, on the last day before the "bot" fix and bronze rewards nerf.