Dribbling Additions

This may be a bit of an expensive exercise, but I continue to work through 401games singles online and all sets to pick up any cards that fit my collection, that are in stock, and less than a dollar (most being 50 cents or so). They seem to have picked up enough older stock in the last few months to make this a more worthwhile exercise as I use to do this once a year and not really find much of anything. Not sure if they are just churning through more older cards/collections, but either way, it's a nice way to add cards...while also showing me the number of more expensive cards I don't have and how expensive finishing "sets" is going to be.

A bunch of different Commander sets really the focus of today, and with colourless mana producing lands being a relatively new addition to my collection focus, a solid number of pickups here. As you can see, some lands get repeated in different sets, so I technically do have more than four copies of them if you span across my collection, but I do want one from each set at least - just can't have more than four in a deck if I ever put a deck together again.

Temple of the False Gods is an interest add for a land with the two for one ability if you have enough lands out already. A decent ramp card, but would be too good if it could also just be for one colourless mana as an alternative as well.

The lands do, in some ways, allow a little colour into my collection with some being able to tap for specific colour mana as well, and that being shown in the card like Battlefield Forge.

Speaking of mana, a number of artifact cards actually work on mana production too, and these tend to be for cheap pick up value wise, so here we have cards like the Signets and Ingots.

I haven't checked, but I wonder if Burnished Hart is the artifact card I have from the most different sets. I could just swear I see it so many times, but maybe it's just heavy in repacks I pick up.

As you can see from the symbols, just because a card is a rare (or even a mythic), doesn't mean it is valuable. Bulk rares is definitely a thing in Magic, just like any other CCG. I do wonder if a "bulk rare" means a "fail" by the game producer. I mean, shouldn't all rare cards be good for play in the game? Isn't the point, you would want those cards and be chasing them? Imagine what it would be like for a set if the actual playability of the rares were better than the uncommons, which in turn were better than the commons. It would probably align best for getting people to buy and chase the rare cards (though they do this in droves even when only 10% of those rare cards are good). Maybe it would actually work against Wizards of the Coast as it would make it much harder for players to put together a good deck if the commons and uncommons were drastically below the playability of the rare cards.

I think we are safe though because I think, with all the different formats for playing, it would be impossible for a set to be made which so clearly fit the mold of rarity equals better playability.