It's probably about the same as Sylvans. I'm f2p and the only thing that took a lot of gems was getting 3 powerful rebirth but I had them already from my samurai build. If you have 3 pulse mines geargia is the most f2p friendly tier 1 deck currently.
New pack and geargia seem to be way stronger than Sylvans ihmo... and yep, less expensive as well. However, I think i'll save my gems for the regionals