On mythics and money

Max McCall recently wrote an article about mythics here. His argument, as a whole, is sound, but I have a few points I want to add.

Firstly, cards are worth whatever people are willing to pay for them. This has always been, and always will be true. But, mythics mess with the standard dynamic.

We are all aware of the standard dynamic - a new set is released, certain cards get hyped, and thus their prices rise. Other cards are not perceived to be as strong and thus languish in dollar bins. Usually, in a couple months, the tournament scene plays itself out, and that assists in helping cards settle into more stable values. There have been examples of card that have held their value well (Umezawa's Jitte), sleeper hits (here's looking at you, Tarmogoyf), and over-hyped cards that ended up not doing much (sadly, Mr. Finkel, this applies to you).

The problem is mythics mess with the price fluctuations by artificially inflating demand. Consider the following scenario - your buddy and you crack a case of boosters. Let us further suppose the two of you open eight copies of a money rare and four copies of a money mythic between the two of you (the statistical 2:1 ratio of rares:mythics).

On women in Magic

Recently Lauren Lee and Lauren Rae Orsini wrote articles on the subject of why more women don't play Magic. Their posts are here and here respectively. I thought I'd weigh in on the subject.

Magic is, in many ways, the perfect storm of anti-womaness.