It also means that decks just have more rares in general, especially in Sealed. Nobody is really opening 12+ rares in sealed, but getting eight to 10 rares out of six packs is doable, and even in draft you more often play with and against rares.
There are a lot of effects that happen when the rare density goes up, and overall it’s certainly put a lot more emphasis on high-rarity cards. You should aggressively take sideboard answers in best of three, and make sure you have a good amount of removal in best of one.
Another obvious effect here is that you wheel cards less often, which means you can’t count on much coming back around. That’s a shame, since wheeling something good for you is a really fun part of draft (and a nice reward for being in the right colors). It’s not a huge deal, since it’s mostly just an outgrowth of the previous point, but it is something I miss.
I think these are all pretty big negatives. Especially with sealed, I haven’t played MKM sealed but I have been turned off from trying because of the new pack type. I really think they should have kept the Draft Booster and the Collector Booster, and got rid of the Set booster. Just put a random art card in the draft booster along with the list slot.
Yeah I wish we could go back to the era where we just had 1 booster, but Set Boosters were outselling Draft Boosters by such a large margin that stores were just not stocking Draft Boosters anymore.
I think it will probably improve a bit as they figure out design, this was their first attempt with the new style after all. Hopefully the increased number of rares encourages them to make less bomb-y rares.
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I’m an old-timer and haven’t played in a while. When did they stop being just boosters?
I’ve been wanting to go to my LGS and draft something new for a while, but at a glance it looks like everything is getting more and more convoluted.
I believe it was the Q3 set of 2020.
Agreed on all points. It’s weird seeing two of the same card in Arena packs as well.
