It's a long haul investment game, you can be totally f2p and get plenty of top tier champions over time. Yes there is luck to the pulls but if you are consistent on using shards during 2x you will get enough S tier champs eventually. Every single thread will make note of the importance of getting 2x top chest from unm cb for more shards as well.

If you are getting knocked down very fast in arena you're defense is a problem. Grinding does take time but use auto battles while you sleep if time is that bad. Farm better gear and roll the right pieces.

The road map for next year seems to be focused on PvP. One of the first changes listed is adding more tiers to gold, which many of the community has been asking for as long as I've been playing.

If you want to post your roster we can put together a decent team for you. You don't need meta champs to win. 

11,500.  Thats the number of wins i need to max out my great hall.

Farming for gear is a constant daily struggle since most of the artifacts i get are junk, 98% at least are total trash, so trying to give 1 champion a speed near 300 is currently a  bigger herculean task than getting into gold 1 without getting raped back to silver or worse, bronze. 

So how am i supposed to increase my champs speed if i cant get decent artifacts to begin with?

I can do fire knight, ice golem and dragon at level 20 on auto. But thats not pvp where people spend more money on this game than this country spends on its military annually. 

So im at the mercy of a very crappy rng that rarely gives out an artifact with 3 usable  substats, 4 is the unicorn ill never see in my lifetime.  To say nothing that half of the decent artifacts i do get have the most awful rolls.  

It is virtually impossible to do pvp in this game without grinding for artifacts for what seems like a several year investment in a game that tries to force everyone to spend money to just break even. 

I know, you think im making it up or exaggerating but im not.  Ill go through a couple thousand energy in a dungeon just to get barely usable artifacts.  Maybe if they increased the odds of getting truly usable gear by say just a percent or two, i might feel more optimistic about this game.

11,500 wins. At 20 wins a day, thats a year and a half of pvp so im guessing itll take 50,000 battles to get there. 3-4 years minimum. And thats at gold 4, any lower and the above numbers will need to be doubled. 

I know how to play this game but this imo is the worst pvp ive seen in a game.

If i didnt need the great hall id stick to pve.

You  shouldnt  be  knocked  down  that  easiely  i  stay  where  i  put  my  team  at  as  i  build  up  i  have  been  gold  3  now  for  four  seasons  

If you are only playing "part-time" between other games, then you will have trouble competing.  It is not rng for good artifacts and rolls it is grinding,  the rng evens out over 1000s of runs despite the posts from those with only bad luck.  You say you know how to play the game, but I suspect you are doing something wrong (trying to gear too many champs? focus on wrong areas of game? idk tbh, but I am guessing if you posted your arena team the answer would lie within).

I  will  gladly  help  you  with  team  picks  and  gearing  

I was gearing too many champs at once but i stopped and am focusing only those i need for farming dungeons and im trying to use those champs in as many areas as i can. I was also not focusing on the right areas.  

I fixed these problems not too long ago so im trying still playing catch up but im doing it right now. 

Maybe i need to give it more time for better gear until i make up for some huge mistakes i was making.