I recently started playing Splinterlands and encountered an extremely frustrating new player experience. Changes made to the game over the past few months, mainly the removal of DEC rewards and chest drop updates in Bronze III, made it very difficult to get started. I understand that they were made because of players making large numbers of accounts to farm DEC and I agree that behavior such as that should not be incentivized. However, it is also important that new players enjoy the game enough to stick around long enough to learn the ropes and (hopefully) like it enough to invest in the game.
The default spellbook purchase should give players enough to fully experience the game, including both the gameplay and the game economy. While the free set of cards takes care of the gameplay part, the economy side is lacking. Increase the price by some amount and include some mix of starting assets. Maybe bump the cost up to $15 and throw in some credits and a semi-randomized "Welcome" booster with cards pulled from the reward pool so players can experiemnt with the purchase adn rental markets? The value of starting assets would have to be slightly under the increased cost, but that's absolutely worth it in order to avoid selling an (in my opinion) incomplete game.
Heck, you could even still give people the option to purchase the barebones wallet/spellbook for $10...just don't make it the primary/default option. It feels bad to pay $10 and then have to pull your wallet out again later - it makes it feel like a bait and switch, and is not the kind of thing you want to have new players experience. Luckily, it would be easy to avoid with some small changes to the way the spellbook purchase is packaged and/or presented to new players.
I like the idea of having an premium starter spellbook. I would have gotten that for sure if I was giving the opportunity. I recently got my second spellbook, and had to send my new account a few cards just to be able get to bronze 2. The fight to get paid is real for new accouts now. I was also able to send my account 35 DEC, and get a few good rentals that are really cheep to have in your spellbook, but like you mentioned, I had to open up my pocket book just to get to the vaults they have tempting us to spend. All in all, since I started about 2 months ago, I have done well on what I have invested into the game. Great read!!!