It's the economy, stupid

Yesterday, the guys at Magic: The Gathering gave us a “heads-up” about the number of changes one can expect come September, when the new block Shards of Alara comes out. Seems that the block is going to be the lightest block they’ve had since the early days, with about 100 cards less in the entire block, but it’s only going to feature “super rares,” with one in every eight packs in place of a regular rare.

It’s a cost-cutting effort, there’s no mistake about it. They need to make less somehow, while also tricking people into buying more. No matter how much Mark Rosewater talks about the state of the game and making it easier for new people to join (read: get a bigger audience), it still seems like an attempt to save some cash.

Which, frankly, is perfectly fine. In case you haven’t heard; shit sucks right now. A lot of people are at risk of going under just because things cost a lot more, and it takes a lot of more work just to get to the same place. Anything they need to do to get by right now to stay afloat is allowed, because frankly, I’d be really disappointed if Wizards tanked because of forces beyond their control. Luckily they have 4th Edition hitting soon (damn lucky for my hobby shopist too), but who knows how long this’ll last.

And we should be thankful that they’re only cutting 100 cards and start pulling some of those damn tricks that Yu-Gi-Oh pulls. They are still producing quality products, they are still grabbing the best artists in the business, they are still making sure everything falls in place, and things remain interesting. Also, these changes have killed the crappy-ass novel line in favor of novels centered around planeswalkers and fancy artbooks, which is a good thing. I’ll buy an artbook, but they’ll never get me to even touch another one of their horrible place-setting novels. The Lorwyn novel killed all the characters I’d met through the legend cards for me, making them as retarded and irrational as possible.

So sure, go for it. Do what you need to, guys. While I’m a little peeved that my favorite kinds of cards are being made even more rare (thanks a lot, jackasses), if this change will get them where they need to be to stay around, let them. If it sucks, they’ll reverse it in two years. We’ll just have to wait and see.