The game currently is off-putting for casuals. - Normal mode doesn't feel normal

I convinced some friends from TFT to play the bazaar, and after the honeymoon period wore off, everyone but me has quit.

We'd jump in discord, stream our games, see what insane builds we would get, try to do goofy things, but it wasn't "fun" to try new stuff anymore.

It slowly went from playing 3-6+ games a day to play free ranked, to they just stopped playing the game entirely.

And when asking some friends why they quit, they simply said:

"I have to try-hard every single game. Even during normal games"

It's been discussed ad-nauseam at this point, but there is currently no game mode to just chill and have fun, because normal mode is tied to 10 wins = ranked ticket.

Without having super extensive knowledge of the game to see what avenues you have to do the fun builds, you start trying to "follow the meta" or go with what you believe is the most consistent and strongest build.

It feels bad to lose sure, but it feels worse thinking you wasted your time, and the worst - you no longer have fun with what made the game fun in the first place, which was deck-building with whacky things.

Obviously this is a small sample size, but was curious on people's thoughts about normal mode? For those who do not go infinite playing ranked and have to grind normal games, are you as "stressed" as playing ranked?

What about others who go from ranked and normal?