I agree. The entire game has been set up around pay-to-play members. All truly worth-while characters are pay to get (He-man, Xena, etc). If they are not in a pay tier, the time frame is so short you can never meet the requirements without paying for it. Case in point here...They are having a summoning boost event, and an bonus event on summoning legendary. I have run over 100 multibattles during the event and have received nothing but Mystery shards, not a single Ancient that's needed for the events. The game has become a straight money-grab- nothing more. I loved the game once, now it is a waste of time.

I mean, the majority of people with He-Man literally Bought him with real world currency so...

But no, almost no Fusion, Path, Deck or any other Event/Tournament is out of reach for players with at least 6 months of experience. The problem is you can't do ALL of them. If you save/stockpile and don't fall for the trickery of Plarium you can do anything, but not everything. 

Also here's some tips: If there's a 2x Event on a type of shard, expect a "Guaranteed" Champion for those same type of shards the following week. 

Second, ANY event can be completed if you have enough Gems and Time. Now, the amount of gems you need might be insane but it is possible.

Champion Training, Dungeon Divers, X Dungeon (Including Turn Attack types) can be done by buying Refills and running them over and over.

Summon Rush, Champion Chase and Any Path or Deck can be done by buying Ancient Shards (if Shards give points for the Path or Deck). Even if it's Soulstones for Paths and Decks, there's always a 2nd option that is either running dungeons or champion training.

Obviously you shouldn't ONLY use gems to complete any of the above BUT Gems can absolutely get you over the finish line

and I mean like ... He-man isn't even that good. He's a DPS champ in a very crowded field, and nothing he has in his kit is particularly special.

To add a few other points:

Don't expect to get ancient shards from dungeon runs - I might get one, maybe two from each full tournament during a fusion and that's usually at higher levels of the dungeons too. There are resources around that tell you % chances.

As pointed out above fusions become pretty simple for more mature accounts - energy is a factor but time is the biggest limiter for most I imagine especially given all the content that's been added.

Only a few must have/the best characters are realistically pay to win accessible only - almost all powerful characters are available from shards or playing over time. Yes money gets you more access to them  and quicker, but you can play perfectly well without them. 

Drop rate for Ancient shards on a stage 20 normal dungeon is 0.5%

Ill be honest, I've quite enjoyed the fact the straight up purchasable heroes have been rather mid.  They're nostalgia bait more than anything which is fine.  Id be way more upset if they were top tier meta.

I can't imagine running dungeons for ancient shards.

I think its reasonable to assume you can do 1 easily every month and potentially 2 some months as a F2Per.  But no way you'll be able to do them all over an extended period of time.

You can probably do everything in the game with only free champs including pvp.  I don't have a full list but:

Marius, wukong, Lydia, mithrala, udk, ronda, ramantu 

Gnut, loki, skeletor, ninja

Lady mikage, karnage 

I know I'm missing a bunch, but I don't think heman or xena are anything but niche dps.  Whereas the list above let's u do anything in the game. 

This game is a marathon, not a sprint.  You can get to end game if you have patience and play smart.  

If you expect to have everything in a month, this isnt your game.  

I am not the sort to defend plarium, it is definitely a P2win game, but it isnt true that all the good characters are pay to get.

Most fusions are doable as ftp, providing you have saved resources and are willing to grind to hell.

Being a whale IS a huge advantage, and that advantage has grown in recent years with the introduction of souls/mythicals/empowerment.  But it only affects you if you are trying to be in the top 0.1% .

I was an indifferent ftp player, but still completed all the content, it just took me longer than it would have taken a whale.

This is spot-on. Approximatley 75% of the toons that I use in most content, especially late/end-game content (Hydra, Live Arena, 3v3) are fusion legos, event legos and reward legos:

Adding to your list, here are some more awesome toons that most long-term players would have if they wanted them: Pythion, Visix, Armanz, Incarnate, Arbiter, Thor, Artak, Tormin, Wixwell, Ukko, Varl, Gnishak, Padraig, Freyja, Helicath, Eostrid...

If it weren't for all of these toons, I would be much worse at this game becasue my shard luck has been atrocious for a long while now.

While Xena is Niche, she is certainly beastly against the mega-buffers like Duchess & Siphi, and she gets Padraig too because of his passive.

I sometimes forget to ban her against Padraig, and usually regret it.

Id definitely consider Xena the more useful of the two because of her passive.  I've been caught by her before, though with more and more stoneskin her use cases have gone down.