Mythic rares. . BoOoooooo.Thats my usual response. I mean I am a college student after all (or at least for another month); I dont have any MONEY. If you are a competitive magic player you probably already know that saying mythic rare is about the same as saying itll cost ya.The classic argument against mythic rares is that WoTC promised, and I quote: They will not just be a list of each set's most powerful tournament-level cards. Face Palm?No, no, mythic rares arent a list of the most powerful tournament-level cards
Sun TitanFrost TitanGrave TitanInferno TitanPrimeval TitanThey are a CYCLE of the most powerful tournament-level cards! DUH!......Wurmcoil Engine..Clearly, WoTC filed that promise under A Funny Joke, but what other justifications did Mark Rosewater give in that same article (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr334) for the mythic rare slot?Reason 1: It attracts new playersMagic is the only major trading card game currently printed with only three rarities. If we want to stay competitive in attracting new players we have to keep up with the industry standards.-MaRoNow this is just silly. In the article MaRo claims that its the industry standard to have more than 3 rarities. I wouldnt know because Ive only ever played magic. He also says that adding a fourth rarity will attract new players, who are used to them from other games, like Yu-Gi-Oh. I have a question, does WoTC just hate competitive players? Is that not one of their focus markets? I for one havent played standard in over a month because I simply cant afford the cards I would need to compete. Do I count as -1, WoTC? Me: Hey! Do you want to learn to play magic, maybe we can start a competitive playtest group!Friend: Sure.Me: Sweet! Lets start by buying a set of the most played card in standard. Since well be sharing them, we can split the cost!Friend: Sweet.Me: Got $200.00 bucks?Friend: The prices of current standard staples are fencing people out! Its like standard is a fancy alpine skiing club with Frost Titan guarding the entrance. I really dont think anyone can argue that adding mythics has boosted the magic playing population. Reason 2:We were already printing mythic raresTo elaborate, when you crunch the numbers it turns out that Magic has used the word "rare" to stretch across an insanely wide band of rarity -MaRoNow this is a reasonable argument. Magic was already printing rares at power levels all over the board. It completely makes sense to separate them. No ones arguing that Kuldotha Phoenix should to be buffed or that Vengevine should be made worse so they can occupy the same space. So for this reason, Mythics seem fine to me, but the problem was never in the MYTHIC rarity, it was in the mythic RARITY. Right now, if you open a booster, you are guaranteed to get at least one rare card (HOORAY!), and you have about a 1 in 8 chance of opening a mythic rare. Altogether thats not too bad, but the problem is that for every high-price mythic rare, theres a Hellcarver Demon or the like. This means that your actual chance of opening money is ridiculously slim, which in turn raises the prices even more until eventually magic people are murdering openly in the streets for a foil Koth. (KoTH?) I dont think WoTC really took this into account when they started this system. Last time I won a draft, I opened six packs, and the best card I got was a Phyrexian Crusader. Not a mythic in the bunch. I think from now on Ill keep my winnings as store credit for future tournaments because, really, who wants to crack packs anymore? WoTC should fix this. One option would be to put a cap on how much a card can go for on the secondary market before WoTC authorizes its release in some sort of premium deck or hands them out on the street like tiny cardboard hotcakes. Wizards hates to get involved in the secondary market, but they probably also hate losing customers. Another option could be to slash the RARITY of mythics in half, putting one in every four packs. This would level slash the cost gap between regular Rares and Mythics down to something agreeable and lower the cost barrier of competitive play. Seems pretty reasonable to me, and WoTC gets to keep their precious BURNY ORANGE symbols.
