Play Boosters

Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel card art

Last month, Wizards announced another change to Magic booster packs. Starting in 2024, with the Murders at Karlov Manor set, "play boosters" will become the new norm.

Two years ago, I wrote about the different kinds of boosters. There were four at the time. That dropped to three (they stopped theme packs), and with this latest announcement, they will be going to two. Draft and set boosters are being consolidated into play boosters.

The linked article explains the concept, so I won't repeat that here. As expected, it is a middle path: 14 cards (vs. 15 or 12, respectively), and a mix of rarities that blends the two approaches. Aside from the annoyance and confusion of frequent change, it is the rarities that intrigue me most.

With the change in packs comes a change in design. From his blog, Magic designer Mark Rosewater notes:

I’m going to get into the majority of the nitty gritty when I write my preview article for Murders at Karlov Manor. The big example I’ve been using today is we moved from 101 commons/80 uncommons to 81 commons/100 uncommons.

Interesting.

When Magic began and life was simple (meaning one type of booster and few, if any, other products), the distribution in a 15-card pack was 1 rare, 3 uncommon, and 11 common cards. Thus it stayed (though some packs contained a mythic rare instead of rare when those rarities were introduced in 2008). The rarity label was accurate; common cards were the most plentiful, uncommon less, and so on. It made sense.

When Magic started introducing all sorts of products—different kinds of boosters, preconstructed decks, and other options—the rarity labels stayed, but could be misleading. Rares placed in preconstructed decks were widely available (and generally cheap). Collector boosters featured a rarity distribution that skewed everything and was not balanced by a 'counterweight': there were no pauper packs made, for example, to ensure that the overall number of common cards printed really were the most plentiful. (Of course, commons were still the most plentiful, but the proportions were off.) In short, the rarity labels become a touch misleading.

I assume the forthcoming shift in set rarities reflects the imbalance. A few thoughts:

- Now, technically, uncommons will be the most common . . . sort of. (If you are collecting exactly one copy of each card in a set, you will end up with more uncommons than commons.) Of course, packs will contain more commons than anything else . . . I think . . . but there will be fewer unique commons, meaning (I assume) that you will get a slew of bulk (meaning more than 4 copies of a common card). I'm not sure that's a good thing. 

- Card rarity is supposed to reflect power level, so I believe that means Magic packs will be getting "more powerful." I wonder how this will affect the power creep that's been a slow but steady march for years now. 

- I wonder if/how this will affect rarity shifts. If they change the rarity makeup of a set but then shift rarity of individual reprinted cards, we might not even notice a change in gameplay—though it will be confusing.

As with any change, we'll see how it goes. My initial reaction to the rarity shift is unfavorable, but I am happy to see them going back to a single "normal" pack (collector's boosters are still out there, for those with expendable income).