They never said it wasn't going to be pay 2 win, all they said was that the most powerful things will be earned in game and that you can only unlock/upgrade certain star cards if you meet in game achievements/rank requirements.
All that means is it's not incredibly broken but it's still bad. People with certain amounts of game-time are still going to gave more cards and more ability upgrades than someone with similar playtime because they spent more money- which still doesn't exactly sit well with people.
