The cheapest ones are 300$ now and they will have bad cards/genetics and a high breeding count. Meaning, that you'll have a hard time winning battles and breeding will be very expensive or impossible.
The teams we'll give out to our scholars for example, would cost upwards of 2000$ to buy at a 0 breed count right now.
then for me it is a game that requires too large an initial investment
It is quite pricy yes but it's definitely worth it. At this point of time it doesn't take much longer than a month or two to get the original investment back.
Anyway, there are free ways of joining the game through scholarship programs. Something we'll offer to our community members in the not so distant future.