I don't think it's a scam, but that doesn't mean there isn't a point where progress points you more towards micro transactions than in game progress. I don't think that's a scam, but that also doesn't mean it can't be frustrating
Honestly I don't see it. It's really hard to spend money on things you want. If you come out of a game where Elite Barbarians whup your ass and think "damn that's a real weakness, I guess I need to run Witch or Skeleton army as a counter to that", then you pop over to the shop and those cards simply aren't available... then there's no way to spend money in a goal-oriented kinda way. And even if the card you want is available in the store, getting a full level it past level 7 or so costs an absurd amount.
Like right now I have Goblin Hut at 12/200. It'd cost me what, $40? $50? to get to 200 and then upgrade it. And then the in-game benefit isn't all that great anyway. Well obviously that's a horrible value proposition, so I'm not going to spend it. If you put that money into chests, there's no guarantee you'd get what you want; in fact, the game tends to give you cards that aren't as highly-leveled as your others, so you'll probably get some card you aren't currently using. Buying your way into a real advantage at arena 8 would cost hundreds of dollars. It's so obvious that spending money doesn't get you anything more than marginal improvement that I can't imagine anyone seriously spending money on an impulse.
By the time you get within spitting distance of the Legendary Arena, real money is close to useless. I suppose you need a lot of gold to use grade cards beyond level 10 or so, but by then if you aren't in the Legendary Arena, you just suck at the game.
The returns to skill and meta-reading deck construction are so much higher than the returns to spending money, it's no contest.
