I disagree on a few things. First, I'll start by saying that yes, Splinterlands is too expensive. It should certainly be cheaper. It shouldn't cost over $10k per core set to have everything maxed out. To be competitive in MTG you don't need to spend anywhere close to that. It's worse in Splinterlands because in MTG you can choose a deck that meets your style and budget. There are usually cheap decks that are still competitive. That works because you don't need to have every card and it's 4 copies of each one, at most. In Splinterlands you need between 400 to 11 copies of each card, depending on the rarity. And you need all of them. Sure, you don't need literally all of them not have everything maxed to be in the top. But you need close to that. Packs should cost less than they currently do or they should reduce the number of cards needed for max level. They don't want to go in that direction and the whales wouldn't let them anyway. IMO, core sets should be much more accessible, while promos and possibly mini sets would be the difference for whales. Those cards couldn't be generally OP but situational OP. That way, in the right situations, the whales would have the advantage but not every game.

However, where I disagree with you is that these new types of packs are what causes this. This already happens and the new packs don't add to it. In fact, they help a little bit. If you only have 4k DEC, it's not a single regular pack that is going to do much for you. But if you have 24k DEC, a legendary pack is not going to do much too. You'll need to spend much more, regardless of the type of pack. These packs reduce RNG a bit, which is nice.

The starter packs are also nice. I'll say it's still probably best to buy the cards you need from the secondary market, as long as there is enough liquidity. However, it's much better to get several different commons and rares over less cards and maybe get lucky with an epic or legendary. Legendary and epics aren't always better than commons and rares. I'm fact, due to the number of cards needed to get to max level, there are many commons and rares that are more expensive to max than epics and legendaries. In the end it's all about the supply and demand. Supply of commons and rares might increase but legendaries will too with the legendary packs. It might be epics that get more scarce because starter packs don't contain them and with some players buying a legendary pack instead of 6 regular ones, there will also be less chances to get them.