At least it's clear from the get go that Minifig based games are not just pay to win, but pay to even come to the table. Magic tries to pretend that it isn't gacha with clear metas that cost a thousand bucks.
Miniatures games aren't really play-to-win, though. You have to spend (lots of) money to be able to play, but you can't spend arbitrary further money to increase your chance of winning. The size of your army is limited by the points cost of the units, and the composition is limited by various rules, so you can't just buy twenty super-duper battle robots and steamroller everyone.
I don't think it's even reliable that the point-for-point best units are the most financially expensive ones. With 40k, i believe the most expensive stuff is often obscure Forge World models that usually have terrible rules.
Some find their own minigame in this. One good friend of mine is apparently in it to produce the most powerful deck at the lowest cost - usually via second-hand purchases.
Others just fish for foil cards, which apparently are measurably heavier than normal ones and with a precision scale it's possible to tell whether a booster has one.
I'm not a collector, so I stopped buying them when power creep rendered a second deck of mine useless already.
There's playable game in playing what essentially amounts to no longer "legal" rule sets, but that requires finding a niche partner in an already niche game.
