Cards becoming prohibitively expensive and only accessible to rich players is disgusting. Your free market fantasy here is just saying it's better when wealthier people have a better time. Get this ugly shit out of games.

It is doubly ironic that this your dream while simultaneously saying the game runner could be corrupt, so you better let market forces determine who gets to have fun with the game rather than yourself. You know what's really altruistic and good for players? Card distribution models that introduce needless artificial scarcity.