It's a bit annoying that you'll only be able to trade with friends - unless you know people irl who play it, you'll have to organise trades on social media probably.

It seems simple enough to me. We already have a friend code swap post stickied for expanding your friends list. It would be trivial to spin up a SXC room or something for the community for real time comms when looking for trades. Of course you have to have people participating in it to make a difference but I've had several people from here send me friend requests since posting about it. I'm sure several people will be interested in trading too.

I was working quite hard to get all the genetic apex diamond cards to complete the dex, but now I'm more focusing on any 2-star and above cards I like.

I don't think it fundamentally changes how the game will be played, maybe just helps people fill in holes a little quicker. The competitive people are always going to be competitive so I don't think this will change much. Maybe early after new pack releases when stronger cards can be consolidated a little quicker. The collector is who I think this change will benefit most. The RNG factor will always mean there are people struggling to pull seemingly common cards, etc. Now we'll have a way to swap them and hunt for other things instead.