Whether it was intentional or not, the reality is that the amount of luck/money you would need to invest in this game has gotten to a point whether it is no longer sustainable.

I think you meant "where it is" not whether.

Anyways, as a player who came back from Beta and only played it for a few hours right before standard dropped I bought all adventures (BRM, LoE, ONiK) and about ~150 packs of classic/old gods. Let's say ~400 bucks for a year and I made every competitive deck.

Two things:

It's about ~350 bucks give or take to craft all the cards each expansion. so let's say less than 1200 a year counting quest gold/etc.

That's every card.

There was also an article about how staying competitive each expansion is going to be ~160 bucks.

So, let's say under 600 bucks counting quest gold/etc.

Now, I don't know about you but the last time me and my girl went out for dinner and a movie it cost me about or just over 100 give or take and that's not going out for drinks afterwards.

So, I could reliably play each expansion competitively by staying home one night and making dinner and streaming a movie.

Someone linked me the two articles yesterday, btw. Let me see if I can find them.