This all comes back to an issue that nearly killed Yu-Gi-Oh at one point: putting too many bad cards in high-rarity slots. Every Riftbound set has an insane number of Epic Rares that are completely unplayable, and I think people are overlooking how damaging that can be to the game’s economy. It’s easy to look at the top end chase cards and think, “WOW, RIFTBOUND IS CRAZY!!!” But I’m looking at this from the perspective of my business, not a player, and sealed product is incredibly important to the health of local game stores. Vendetta boxes are $150. You get 6–7 Epics per box, and the median Epic is worth just $0.68. Excluding Astral Heron, the average Epic is only $1.36. The problem isn’t that desirable Epic cards are or could be too expensive. It’s that opening sealed product has terrible value outside of hitting a chase card. If your average consumer is spending $150 on a box (IN THIS ECONOMY?!) and walks away with $10–$20 worth of cards, that’s insane. Obviously, not every box needs to be profitable, but players shouldn’t feel like they just lit their money on fire. And this isn’t just about the people buying boxes. Sets need to have enough value that LGS owners actually WANT to open product to stock singles for the players who don’t want to buy boxes. There’s absolutely no way in hell I’d be cracking Vendetta boxes for singles for my players right now. The economics just don’t make sense. There’s also another problem people seem to overlook when talking about affordability. As new sets release and older sets become harder to find, we’re seeing Epic Rares increase in price. Not because those cards have suddenly become infinitely better, but because fewer people are opening those sets and fewer copies are entering the market. Cards that were cheap at release can become significantly more expensive months later, even when their competitive viability may have only slightly changed. 1 year later, Thousand Tail Watcher is a $20 rare still. It’s not because it’s a meta defining card. It’s because it’s a good card from a set that’s difficult to get your hands on. That’s a supply problem, not a rarity problem. The solution is better product availability, sufficient print runs, and reprints when necessary. Not making an entire rarity less desirable. You can have affordable singles, desirable Epic cards, and sealed product that’s actually worth opening. These things shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.