I'm probably one of the top F2P coliseum players never missing a day (at least in my guild), and now after the next few days i'll lose significant daily era currency payouts b/c my guys are capped at 65 until I give out a metric ton of crystals to hit 4 stars & above.
I purchased several coin and material packs to maintain pace but i'm now at a brick wall, & will be punished inadvertently in the coming 3-4 days by being pushed down the leaderboard pushed from the 91-250 reward tier into the 251-500 tier, and invariably into the 501-1000 tier by the end of this era due to the rng of said character shard packs.
I can understand locking Maul's journey behind the star requirements, but tying the leaderboard rewards with P2W leaves a bad taste, after an already mediocre but fun gamemode.