Don’t copy that floppy!
I think the generational shift was mostly that the previous generation just didn’t have or use computers at home, and suddenly they were everywhere. Most households just didn’t have a computer until the late 90s or early 00s. By then, floppies were on their way out, and burning CDs was all the rage.
The problem is that wotc really didn’t want to raise prices past $3.99. Pack prices hit $3.99 in 2006, and stayed there for nearly 20 years. They raised distributor prices in 2015 without changing MSRP, and then got rid of MSRP (and raised prices again) in 2019.
A pack of Alpha, a pack of Urza’s Saga, and a pack of Khans of Tarkir all have roughly the same inflation adjusted retail price: ~$5.50 in 2025 dollars, which is conveniently the current MSRP for Magic IP sets.
For whatever reason, they’ve found all sorts of excuses for the price increases (all of which they actually control) but never blamed inflation, even though that’s actually a reasonable explanation.
I think you fundamentally misunderstand what Amazon is removing. From your linked article:
Once this feature goes away, you’ll still be able to manually copy ebook files and other documents to Kindles over USB using Amazon’s apps or third-party solutions like Calibre. You just won’t be able to download copies of your purchased books to a computer.
The only thing Amazon is removing is the ability to save books that you purchased from them. No more personal backups of legally purchased material, but piracy is still fair game.
What makes the Kindle more annoying? I’ve only owned a single Kindle, but I’ve never had any problem dropping pirated content on it using Calibre.
My next eReader probably won’t be a Kindle, but not for reasons related to piracy.
If you’re talking about the “Value” booster, your LGS probably won’t (and shouldn’t) stock those. That’s for grandmas to buy at dollar stores and Walmart checkout aisles. It’s an absolutely scummy product, but it shouldn’t cause SKU issues at your LGS.
MKM was less bomb-heavy than OTJ, so at least drafts seemed better. I missed the prerelease, so I don’t know how swingy it was in limited. I suspect quite a lot anyway - prereleases have always been swingy, and as long as rares are more powerful than commons, more rares in a pack will always make it swingier.
The good:
The bad:
Sometimes there just isn’t a pick 1 in your colors in packs 2 and 3 (on Arena). This is especially obvious in MH3 with the colorless theme, but it’s also possible in normal sets. I don’t know if this is different in arena vs. in paper.
Everything costs more. I’m in Canada, so draft prices were going up well before the switch, but this made it even more expensive.
Sealed is swingier. With a chance at opening up to 4 rares in a pack, those that do will have more bombs and more powerful cards in general. OTJ was very bomb heavy, so sealed was even more lopsided. This also affects drafts somewhat, but I think that can be fixed with design balancing once they get used to the changes. I don’t think sealed can be fixed with card design.
Ultimately, I think this is worse for players and better for businesses and way better for WotC. They can fix most of the problems, but price isn’t something they’re interested in fixing (and, to be fair, the price of a booster has stayed well below inflation). Unfortunately, this means that some people just can’t draft anymore or as often.
CBC didn’t offer all the events in previous years. They may have had everything that had Canadian participants, but for the smaller sports, coverage was hit or miss.
Ultimately, if you don’t have a legal copy to compare it to, this is just a risk you take when pirating.
Some sources are more trustworthy than others. There probably aren’t that many fake ebooks out there, but it’s always possible I guess.
I am the zodiac killer. I am DB Cooper. I shot Tupac. Jimmy Hoffa is buried in my backyard.
Come get me.
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Sorry for the double post, but I thought you might be interested to see this.
MaRo has posted the odds. So looks like 8.88 packs per draft will have 2 rares, 0.96 packs per draft will have 3 rares, and <0.24 packs per draft will have 4 rares, for resulting in roughly (8.88 + 0.96*2 + 0.24*3 =) 11.52 extra rares per draft.
I think it’s more reasonable to assume chances are equal to the percentage of rares in a given set, which can vary dramatically, but I believe it’s usually about 33%.
Why would they not adjust for rarity in this slot? They do it in all the other slots - it seems like a big leap to think that any specific common that can appear in this slot is equally as likely as any specific mythic.
I think it’s just 8 extra rares/mythics per pod.
Assuming all the special guests are r/m, The List slot has 3.12% chance of being a rare.
About 1/7 (14.3%) foils is r/m.
We don’t know the distribution of rarity in the wildcard slot, but I’ll use the same distribution as the foils for a reasonable estimate.
That makes (3.12+14.3+14.3 ~=) 32 extra rares per 100 packs, or just under 8 per 24 packs.
It’s actually not a huge change. Four common slots from the current draft booster are turning into three slots:
So for draft, not much is changing in the average pack.
Meld cards all have the restriction of “own and control”, so while your scenario sounds fun, it’s unfortunately not possible (yet).
It’s text on the card, rather than a built in restriction, so in theory it could be possible in the future.