Player power is meaningless in this context.  The matchmaking is done based on your ranking points with the LA Tier you are in.  If you are at 3000 points, you aren't really a newbie.  

You are smack dab in the of middle of G1, and you are going to see the full range of opponents, from F2P to Kraken Teams w/Mythcials, who just recently go into LA becasue of the new missions. 

I have noticed that there is a ramping up and down on who you face based on your wins and losses. Maybe it is confirmation bias but if I win a few in a row I get matched up against harder oppnents and if I lose a few in a row I get a soft ball. To be honest, I am not 100% confident that the soft ball team is a real person unless they are playing on auto. 

If you are in Bronze or Silver, there are bot teams that give you an easy win after three consecutive losses.  If you are in Gold, no bots. 

Recent Win/Loss ratio definitely seems to be a highly determining factor in your matchups.

I intentionally stick in silver since there isn't an incentive yet for me to be in gold. To me, gold is kind of stupid because if you go first you essentially get a double ban. If I go first I am going to  start with Armanz, that way you can't pick him and you have to ban mine, and then I get to pick someone else on your team to ban like WuKong or one of your bomb champions. I think the mechanic of not being able to pick the same champions is kind of stupid. If you want to up the difficulty make it so that both teams are blind during the selection and then let them ban two or something. 

Well, then after every third consecutive loss, you will be given a bot to beat.  

The pick 6 blindly and then ban 2 is an interesting idea.  Maybe a mod will pass it on.

However, I think the drafting phase is a big part of the strategy of the overall fight. 

It is for sure but I just don't like the, "Can't use the same champions." mechanic. I suppose it works out a little bit because after the first pick the other person is going to lock you out of two champions you would want to potentially use. I think the issue right now is that I never see myself not throwing out Armanz first to block you from picking him. I have other options besides WuKong or UDK, etc. but there really isn't anything comparable to Armanz IMHO right now. And if I block your Armanz with my pick chances are my ban is going to be your decrease defense champion or your bomb champion if you run a bomb team. Mostly because I lack a great combo cleanser/block debuffs champion. I have Skytouched Shamman but I damn well better defeat your team in the first couple turns else you are going to blow me up. 

Tbh, live arena doesn't start until Gold.  It's just preseason til then.  Honestly, I would expect low Gold to be no different than silver in terms of account level.