I think a key part of this conversation that is being overlooked is you saying that you were getting first in both arenas. That’s 900 crystals a day which is almost 330,000 crystals a year. If you convert that to an equivalent value of $20 crystal packs, it’s worth almost $2400 a year. So yes, it’s f2p, but in many ways, it’s not. There’s only 24 people in each shard that can do that.
Many f2p players I know earn about 200-300 crystals a day from arenas. That’s about a $1550 to $1800 difference in crystals. 200-300 crystals a day f2p probably won’t get GAS.
Speaking for myself, I earn about 500 crystals a day from the arenas. If I hadn’t finished Rose, worked on DR/Malak, and worked on geos in the last 6 months, I could have met the requirements for this event. But that would be giving up a lot over a long period of time (I won’t argue Rose but the others are legitimate).
Not trying to beat up your argument too much, but there’s been a lot of GAS is definitely f2p threads popping up here. They’re not really kept in context though. Yes, it’s f2p, but it’s because you can bypass spending through arena crystals...it’s not just a farm smarter issue.