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.
I’ve found that if you’re in the right lane, you’ll get more rares passed to you in pack 3.
Its not play boosters themselves, but maybe the switch helped enable the greater number of build around uncommons in MKM than we’ve seen in some time.
I do miss that 14th card though. Can Wizards really not fit an extra common in the pack?
Agreed on all points. It’s weird seeing two of the same card in Arena packs as well.
