The are about 35 non-foils available on TCGPlayer.com alone, so you can easily go deep at $25 or less if you are ok to sit on them for a while
Some decks do this deliberately
Lastly, just because trading cards have remained popular doesnt mean it will last forever
But you have to be willing to crowbar open your wallet if you want to buy them and not just see them
Instead, Howling MineHowling Mine is the quintessential group hug card, highlighting list after list of decks that want to break parity in another way: by giving the table all the resources in the world, and building their deck around being able to use those resources more effectively
To top it all, EX cards are basics, so they can be played immediately rather than forcing you to wait several turns to evolve