My first thought was that it was a bad idea, and would be frustrating for new player. Then I thought about it a little more, and maybe each season it could reset. And also if you complete a bunch of achievements in a season you could earn the starter decks for the next season. Achievements could be in-game and also out of game like earning SPT writing blogs or using peakmonsters or delegating cards to a friends, using discord etc etc. I think you have a decent idea that would be worth exploring.
RE: Mitigate loss due to bots