I decided to start an account in Novice in order to do a few things:

Check out the Bronze Meta
See how awesome Yodin Zaku was in that new meta
See how long it took me to get to Silver

Also- I wanted to get to Silver and test out a few ideas- see how viable they were.

How did I do?

As you can see- I did very well, overall. I rented up the account; started at 0 rating; played about 50 games over the course of the 24hr rentals. Ended with a 40-10-1 record while in Bronze and a rating close to 1100. I spent less than 24hrs in Novice/Bronze all together and it looks like I could spend some time there getting my rating up before pushing into Silver as there are 12K people above me in Bronze but it's nothing like it was during Bot Winter. I think I'm going to let most of my rentals lapse, rent up for Silver and start testing a couple of other build ideas.

Yodin Battles in Bronze

First Battle in Bronze: (vs Fire)
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_14ff4ab64a52a5834f772f2159da8034&ref=rhosho1

Second Battle in Bronze: (vs Death)
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_4a910036a0c12071776efbc082d8da1b&ref=rhosho1

Fourth Battle in Bronze: (vs Earth)
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_f141fe48b408250d77c52ea9929b2b39&ref=rhosho1

Battle vs Water:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_ca4c8739a43d15d379bade9010447c3d&ref=rhosho1

I didn't save any of my Battles with Yodin vs Life because.... I lost them all. ALL
Sloan beats Yodin, every time.
The bog-standard build was:
Shieldbearer, Stitch Leech, Time Mage, Truth Speaker, Pelacor Arbalest
Sometimes: Hireling, Archer, Herbalist.... depending on mana levels.
Taunt, Slow, Protect, Double Strike with +1 attack was just too much for Yodin. Just. Too. Much.

The real MVP of the Bronze League experiment?

Yeah. The Llama/Kron/L3 Flesh Golem build is still, pretty much, unbeatable in Bronze. Any Battle with <24 mana while Earth and Magic or Melee were allowed- I played Llama. I won, them ALL.

I always use @peakmonsters when building decks- it's easy, it's free and it's a VERY smooth experience.
L1 Llamas are ~30 DEC/day right now while
L1 Krons are going for ~25 and L3 Flesh Golems are going for ~4
So, for about 60 DEC (18 cents) you can rent those 3 cards and win most of your games in Bronze. Heck, maybe, you can rent a Time Mage too and, pretty much, never lose- in Bronze.
Is $0.20 too much to spend to get to Silver in a couple of hours?🤷‍♀I dunno, that's up to you but I do know that the Rewards and earnings are exponentially better in Silver than in Bronze and I'm sure I'll make my money back, multiple times.