The stats is very impressive and well done!!
My wife is one of the new players, luckily she had an old dormant Steem account with a few Steem in that she could transfer, just to get a bit of DEC to participate in the airdrop!!
I am a bit worried about the new players as it is very difficult to progress in the game if you don't invest money. To receive only one chest with a few DEC will be discouraging in the long run, I think we need to look at ways to keep these new players happy, so that they don't leave again!! Perhaps we need to ensure that they at least get a card or two in a week, as quest reward.
For me, I love the rental market and it gives a nice additional DEC supply. #PeakMonsters had a nice feature that showed if your rent was below or above the prevailing market prices, which is currently not available. This feature helped a lot to keep your rental prices inline with the market, it would be great if they could fix this again.
The sky is the limit for #Splinterlands!!
That's a tricky slope to be on. Who's to say someone doesn't just create a bunch of "new" accounts to get the guaranteed cards with a chance of getting something good like a legendary? I know what you mean for sure but it's hard to figure out how to do that properly. Once the new packs get released some of the prices will come down and cards might become more reasonable to buy. Plus the new cards will usually be very cheap.
I hope you are right with the cheap prices for the new cards!!