How are you being "punished", if you can't spend at least some money to play? The game is not "free", and it has a cost attached to it to play.
(Answer in my another comment)
We all knew this would happen, and there was plenty of notice given both on discord and in previous posts.
It's not because we were warned that it makes the idea a good one.
Players with level 1 decks have been used to earning rewards way above their card levels for quite a while now because of the level 1 bots that have helped them rank higher as a consequence
And WHO should banish bots ? Splinterlands. So they "must" do this and force people to pay because sadly they don't banish bots ? No.
The players who have been in the game from the beginning understand this, as many of us started from the bottom too, and then either worked our way up slowly, or payed a lot of money for our cards collections
I started day 1, and today I will be relegated to Diamond 3 just because I never won an exceptional card or because I didn't spend 1000$.
BUT, important point : I know this system will also change the ranking for any other player, so I will still have decent opponents; and the new system will change things, but the thing is for the moment we don't have the details... the only thing I'm blaming is a limit, a ceiling we can't pass through just because of 1 thing : Money.
Splinterlands is a wonderful game which I love, and I respect every decision which has to be made. I just think the team deserves every opinion.
Thank you and goodbye, I would be happy to continue this debate with an explained and thoughtful reasoning.