Why are pre set builds a thing . Pay to win

You did not have to buy them... all you had to do was reach LEVEL 2 in the FREE part of the pass last year. If you missed out on them, then yes you can buy them at that point but you know what? They are a business and in this day of gaming, this is just part of the live service models that many games run. Similar with the skins. Now do I think that they should be giving these exiled abilities on the prebuilds? No they probably shouldn't be giving things like wheels and EE etc. when they were taken out of the game. That being said, those builds all have downsides to them... (maybe Agent Blueline is the outlier) that make them really not viable to use vs custom builds.

And yes Electronic Arts made 7.2 billion last year, which runs games like Apex Legends, Battlefield, etc. That's the games that are making that money. EA Sports Vancouver is a tiny company that makes NHL and have nowhere even close the resources to spend with an expectation of profit back from the consumer.