It's Pay-to-Win in the same sense as any collectible card game. Collecting cards and leveling them up is part of the game's strategy. Just like Magic: The Gathering or Hearthstone or any similar game.
In other words, the more cards you collect, the more battle strategies are available to you. Fortunately, Splinterlands allows for all types of players, even those who are content to simply play without a lot of upfront investment. The Leagues within the game are structured to keep things competitive between whatever investment tier you're comfortable with. If you're in the lower Bronze League, and you make it into the Top 20, you WILL win season rewards (even though you hardly put any $ into the game).
i would argue that because i had played a lot of card games so i got some experience. I agree about Magic the gathering and many other card games were modeled after it that's why we got the pay to win aspect. (The trading cards which i think is in splint too is a good option though)
Hearthstone when it came out you wouldn't pay money to have a very good but i think they milked it and made it nearly impossible to aim a bit high without paying quite the amount.
Duel Links (Yu gi oh) a couple of months after they launched it was not a pay to win. You got the option to buy booster packs but you had gems that could use to buy those booster pack as well. You could earn tons by doing simple things and by doing that many people among them me, managed to reach the highest rank, or 1 rank before that.
Then they decreased the number of gems you earn and the time the new booster packs go live, thus money needed in order to be in top ranks. But you still can do pretty well.
Also i heard about another card game named Spellweaver. I have tried that one but everyone says it's not pay to win at all! I don't have a personal experience to share though!
All in all card games have the tendency after a while to lose their audience because the game becomes more complex and "force" players to other pay or stay at the bottom forever. I hope splint won't be like that and keep on increasing their player base!
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