Playing as long ❀as you have, and having only posted this article 4 days ago, I'm shocked that there's zero mention of the 100% free starter Ex deck they gave everyone with the most recent expansion. It's not a rental deck either. You pick one of the new Ex, and you get a full 20 card deck to keep forever including all items and trainers in said deck as well.

This alone goes a long way towards helpin﷽g new players keep up.

Also, I'm not entirely sure what you're doing. I've been playing since the week of Global launch, and have collected the base art of every set released. Yes, I pay the $10/no for the premium pass, but that combine🧸d with all of the free hourglasses you get just from PC battles is enough to obtain 60%-80% of most sets from what I've seen amongst my friends.