Money and Magic

I’m probably the cheapest Magic player ever. I enjoy Magic and I read all the articles on their website, well maybe I skip the “Flavor of Magic”, because flavor is nice but who wants to read a whole article on it. I only own 15 Time Spiral cards, yup, I bought only one pack. Granted it was a good pack. I got two rares, a foil Lotus Bloom and Sengir Nosferatu. I never really understand why people like foil cards so much, because they are warped.

Anyways, I did play a little bit on Magic Online during Kamigawa, yes it has been awhile. Online was ok, but sometimes when I was winning, which was rare, my opponent would quit or just disconnect. This sort of rude behavior was really discouraging. I did enjoy going to the Tournament Practice room and replaying some of their games, I could tell that those games were more interesting than mine, but of course they were playing with decks that were compose of 70% rare cards, go Wizards.

Mark Rosewater, current Magic designer, said that they make cards that have lots of text into rare. He reasons that cards with too much text scare beginners, which is also true. I remember reading Myr Incubator and wondering, “Who would ever play this?” Granted there are good cards that aren’t rare like Sensei's Divining Top and Eternal Witness, but the majority of good cards are rare. Making cards rare increases their price, making them inaccessible to casual players, who are the heart of Magic. I’m not sure why Wizards makes some cards rare, they don’t make don’t make any more money. A booster pack of cards costs $3.75, so Wizards won’t lose money if they make more good cards non-rare.

Some friends did mention that people will buy more booster packs if they are looking for that one chase rare. Skullclamp used to be a chase card, an uncommon in this case, until he was banded and restricted. So maybe rares do drive the sales of Magic?