to be honest, i was actually quite surprised of how far i was (am?) able to get up the ranks with relatively low-level cards and i was totally experiencing the issue which is tried to be adressed here, most of my "enemies" were variants of the "en-miners" bot, which felt pretty annoying and made it somewhat easy to beat for me.
i just think it would be way more effective to somewhat "ban" botting per se (@steemchiller seemed pretty easy to be "banned" from hive) than to restrict the ability to progress within the game (i did not invest into the game besides the summoners spellbook, i even used to do some sort of "diary" about it on steem/hive), which is one of the games biggest assets imo.
the issue with the relatively large number of bots is easily solved by a large enough audience (the bots were relatively easy to beat for me, proving my point), because you need to win to profit from the game, which the bots will no longer do...
i think, ultimately only time will tell. i am - let's say - suspiciuosly enough to assume this move is more like a "limit how much profit someone can make in a certain timeframe" kind of move which comes along somewhat of a wolf in sheeps clothing.
also, i do not feel concerned for myself here, but imagine if you are a new player:
i remember the times when you got cards as a reward instead of picks, but they don't.
imagine how long it will take to get a collection big enough for entering just silver 3 (15000 dec) with your 3 "picks", which are pretty likely to drop a potion (wow...) and maybe double-digit dec one per day - even if you get "lucky" and pick a booster instead of an epic or legy, which might not even be really adding much value to your collection (i honestly did not do the math on that one, but someone is of course welcome to assist).
for me, it would make the ability to actually profit pretty theoretical.
i know,this seems a very "money-focused" point of view (or at least, point of argument) and the game can convince via gameplay and quality, this update is heading in a wrong direction imo, but - as stated above - i think, time will tell...