For a game built around limited formats (like drafting or sealed deck play), it makes sense / is a necessity for the format to work. It definitely sucks for constructed formats, though.
Some games also use the rarity system to funnel mechanically simpler cards into more common rarities, which works well in a draft environment, since those are often the cards you want to have come up more. Which is really the point of the system, ideally it would be a system to support draft environments that work well, without artificial scarcity that hurts constructed players.
But you can also make a constructed format that only allows “simpler” cards that have been printed at common, which is neat. Or one that only allows higher rarities.
For example, Penny Dreadful is a fun fan-organized Magic the Gathering constructed format, played exclusively on MtG Online, wherein legality is determined by cards that were worth $0.02 or less during the previous 3-month ‘season’, making decks inherently very affordable.
It has a neat self-regulating effect since enough people play the format that if a card is particularly strong in a given season, the demand created by the format will typically drive the price up above $0.02, and cause it to be illegal in the next season.
It seems like this would create a format with only very bad cards, but card prices are a bit wild in MtGO, such that there’s actually over 14,000 legal cards currently including many rare and mythic rarity cards.
For a game built around limited formats (like drafting or sealed deck play), it makes sense / is a necessity for the format to work. It definitely sucks for constructed formats, though.
Some games also use the rarity system to funnel mechanically simpler cards into more common rarities, which works well in a draft environment, since those are often the cards you want to have come up more. Which is really the point of the system, ideally it would be a system to support draft environments that work well, without artificial scarcity that hurts constructed players.
But you can also make a constructed format that only allows “simpler” cards that have been printed at common, which is neat. Or one that only allows higher rarities.
For example, Penny Dreadful is a fun fan-organized Magic the Gathering constructed format, played exclusively on MtG Online, wherein legality is determined by cards that were worth $0.02 or less during the previous 3-month ‘season’, making decks inherently very affordable.
It has a neat self-regulating effect since enough people play the format that if a card is particularly strong in a given season, the demand created by the format will typically drive the price up above $0.02, and cause it to be illegal in the next season.
It seems like this would create a format with only very bad cards, but card prices are a bit wild in MtGO, such that there’s actually over 14,000 legal cards currently including many rare and mythic rarity cards.