I think what it will stop is the rating inflation of the leach bots (the ones that play only a few rented cards with the starter decks). By playing many thousands of matches against each other, this is how the level 1 accts can get to gold (and in some cases Diamond) each season. Since these accounts are not likely to pay the fee, they will not be able to do this on the same scale.
This wont make the bots go away, but will severely limit their earnings or make them pay a big chunk of those earnings (via the DEC fee) to the game to be burned.
Of course some bot makers will continue to give up with each change too, so while it isn't banning the bots, its certainly reduces the incentives for their makers to spend time and energy
It's VERY obvious this will seriously curtail bots rating inflation. I think some people are in for a rude awakening. They are playing in leagues they probably shouldn't be able to play at with the level of cards they have. The competition is about to get a whole lot harder...
I think they won't pay anything for energy. Amount of Dec required to get energy is way too high, 500 Dec is equivalent to 15 sps and there is also a risk of loosing the batte in champions league. In diamond league, equivalent is 5 sps which is barely seen in rewards. So overall, buying battles with Dec is a big loss.
That's the point. The bots will probably stop playing a disproportionate amount of games, thus they will not be able rise up and take rewards as much from the human players at all levels (but particularly silver and gold)
But there are players using bots in champions league as well, some names belong to new bot order guild
yes, agreed... that's a different issue that needs to be addressed as well.