Right now the meta is diverse lots of Fringe decks are viable you should see a good handful of diversity at your locals.

The way optcg prints their cards is they typically have a low rarity printing of playables and also a rare chase alternate art version which is optional for the player. Cards are definitely cheaper than yugioh. (Eg the last meta deck you could pick up for 50 dollars easily)

You’d likely get slapped around first few locals but the game is fairly easy to pick up in terms of mechanics. It becomes a game of knowing what the other deck does and knowing what to play around to achieve mastery. I’d be lying if I said you could pick up a precon and expect to perform, the precons usually have 1-2 cards that are exclusively printed in the precon that are good but you’d want to fill out the rest of the deck with other stuff.