This is mostly going to be a rant and a bit of advice and a look at the current state of things in regards to the card rental market. As a player who has been around for quite a while, I think I can at least impart some of my personal experience. I'm sorry if this comes off as slightly disjointed, it's like 1am and I'm quite tired after a long working day.
Splinterlands has seen huge growth over the last 2 months, and that surge of new players has caused this somewhat new idea of renting cards purely for gaining power in the final days of the season and boosting yourself for better rewards.There is quite a few problems with that and most new players cannot seem to realize that.
Rental prices have gone through the roof over the last month, and although there has been some minor market corrections, prices still remain high. This presents a pretty high barrier for new players seeking to rent cards for a deck, and to be able to work there way through the ranks.
Main thing is cost vs reward. If you are a broze 1 player wanting to boost yourself up to silver 3 or even 1, the dec cost is often going to outweigh and major daily gains you make, and for the post part you will barely break even. Most common season rewards are potions or minor amounts of dec or cards, there is a reason rare cards cost more and that is because they are rare and not every player is going to get lucky enough to get one.
Now one could counter that players would earn their ROI through the end of season rewards, and although that is possible, most won't. Even looking at my own season rewards, I earned more from renting out my cards in a day than I did across my entire chests. For most players this will likely be the same.
The goal for newer players should be focused on gorwing their own collection and building power enough so that they can buy cards that will give them a solid ROI later on, and be able to give them enough power to further their rankings as well. Its a slightly slower build-up, but also cheaper and has a better chance of being sustainable, rather than burning birhg then being brought back down to earth when your end of season rewards end up not being what you had hoped for.
With rental prices being what they are now? newer players can't possibly hope to make a profit unless they get very lucky, and Splinterlands shouldn't be a replacement for a casino. I honestly don't think it's sustainable for new players to dump in money to inorganically get higher rankings, because the only players who really end up winning are those who are renting the cards out and earning a nice tidy profit without ever having to worry about rankings.