Footprints in the Sand 
New Set Continues Alarming Rare Trend
Early reports from Zendikar PTQs confirm analysts’ worst fears that rares are now more important than ever for sealed deck play.
Rares, or “sick variance” as they are sometimes called, appear less frequently in packs compared to other cards. Additionally, there are mythic rares that appear less frequently than other rares.
“I mean, it’s just a bomb-heavy format,” local player Matt Kim said. Matt has been playing since Prophecy and has noticed a trend towards more powerful rares that have fewer effective counters.
“They have this one card, it lets you set your life to 20. EVERY TURN. And it’s an artifact too, I can’t play a bunch of shatters maindeck.”
Meanwhile, the spells to stop those threats have not scaled accordingly.
“They started the burn out at three damage, and over 15 years later now they only do four damage, and for way too much mana.”
Matt finished with a 4-3 record at his PTQ, in 35th in the standings. He attributed his losses to “too many bombs”.
“I’m amazed I won even as much as I did,” Matt said. “It’s lucky I notice the synergy between Ob Nixilis, the Fallen and Emeria Angel.”
Even players that had done well agreed with Matt’s sentiment. Derrick Scordia advanced to the top 8 playoffs before losing, but still griped about the epidemic.
“With these rares, any old player can win. Before you needed skill, now they just pass out golden tickets in these packs,” said Derrick.
“It’s like, no one plays this game to get randomly rewarded. If that’s what I wanted I’d just play poker.”
Also like Matt, Derrick had a complaint about a particular card, in this case the green rare Predatory Urge.
“Like this card. It’s soooo broken,” Derrick said as he held it up. “Before they would never have made a card this card.
Asked if he was aware of Contested Cliffs, a functionally similar card from Onslaught, Derrick replied, “I don’t play EDH”.
Developers from Wizards of the Coast were unavailable for comment, but did issue a terse prepared statement regarding the situation.
“You people are vultures. If you must open your mouths, at least fill them with Jones Soda, now available in five Magical flavors.”
