Incentivizing new players and plankton went to shit ever since they decided cards will NOT gain xp through playing.
I know, to protect the market price blablah, but if there isn't new interest in the game, the card market will slowly collapse by itself. And we'll end up having a circlejerk between the top investors, without any sheep to make for a foundation. And without the sheep, the wolves slowly die in any online game.

And at the moment, a sheep has almost ZERO incentive to play the game. Like really. A quest that makes progression absurdly slow. A season reward on par with the quest. And the intrinsic pleasure of the game itself - which can keep you engaged for only so long anyway.
Other than that, a beginner will feel there isn't any point to play more, play harder, play smarter, because a sheep can never become a wolf (because by default you have to play catch-up, and your rewards are so small that you'll make a deck for gold1+ in over a year).
So the new player will think "What's the solution to get better? Oh, spend cash on packs/cards. Ooohhhh, it's THAT kind of game. Oh...."