I 100% agree with the issue with SB cards. It should be impossible to reach/earn on a level higher than Bronze 1 or something with only reward cards. When I started in Sept 21 the prices were prohibitively high for existing cards (i.e. as a new player who was used to putting 50-60$ on a game I was not about to put thousands of $ into an unknown game...). This was before CL edition came out, so my only option was to rent, but I still got the rewards for playing, although back then we got like 1 chest daily and I think 10 season chests in Silver :).
I wanted to get involved in crypto and gaming felt instinctively right for me so that is why I checked out different games. I landed on SPL because the game in itself felt easy enough to understand but at the same time really challenging to win consistently. I trudged through all steps to set up HIVE accounts etc. and get some money in the game to be able to buy some single cards and later on rented some key cards (hello Yodin...) to get going. My point is that I would never have continued to put money in the game if I hadn't gotten hooked on the game itself which led me to having bought a bunch of packs and continuously complemented my collection with card purchases. (Don't think I wanna know how much I've spent on this "game"... :D)
To @bronko, well done for re-working the proposal so it wouldn't just die by the roadside. I am very encouraged by the way the SPS community can vote on these issues, no matter the outcome. I like the CP "soft limits", that is not restricting anyone from moving up but simply capping them from extracting more than fair value from the game. I believe that Matt and co. have taken many prudent steps during these years such as the energy requirement to make it prohibitive to play 24/7.
From my perspective I think rentals are an important category for many thousands of players so it should be empowered rather than nerfed. I understand that you fully believe that it would raise prices, but perhaps the drop in turnover rate would fully negate any earnings for the renters. On the flip side, should the CP be heavily reduced or even nullified for Soulbound Reward cards then the CP requirements put forth would in theory increase the demand on rentals again, and possibly then push up the prices. Even if it won't be the ultimate solution it could be one step in the right direction without alienating a large share of players.
Last point about Modern, I used to only play in Modern but since a few months back the lack in liquidity has made it horrible to play with my Gold league-ish collection. I mean, I get whopped by max-decks in Bronze... I used to float between Silver and Gold but now I just hang out in Wild and are enjoying the game so much more again. I play against really good players with awesome decks one game, and next one against an even-levelled player and then against some low-level bot. I love that! I think it gives a sense of suspense in the match-making to see what you might be up against. I don't buy for a second that bots are better than me, my statistics are probably 2/3 wins against bots if we have similar deck strength, especially with the Tactics part from Rebellion.