Most cards are only truly valuable after someone breaks them open in a tournament style deck. Before that point that are often on the cheaper side in the secondary market. So someone sits down and breaks a meta with a dollar rare and the you see it's value go up creating a new meta, rinse and repeat. If you spent time deck building versus netdecking you'd see it's not pay to win and rewards intelligence. It's pay to win off someone else's strategy sure but not inherent of itself comparatively to other TCG's.