EA will make sure it will just be "barely" playable unless you spend cash on upgrades, shields, weapons, etc. If you dont want to get killed by the whale spenders within 20 seconds of the round starting, you must spend cash on upgrades.
Now if Capital Games (see star wars galaxy of heroes) get a hand in it, you can guarantee it will be pay to win and be full of bugs (not the geonosians)
I do play SWGOH, and its a hot broken mess right now