The folks over at Wizards made a pretty interesting announcement recently that discussed changes that are going to be coming in the next major set Shards of Alara. They make it sound like some major changes, but really it's not that big of a deal. A summary of the changes includes:

• New rarity category "Mythic Rare"
• Booster Packs will now be having at least one land card in it, replacing one of the commons
• Fat Packs will no longer come with a novel about the set, but instead a snippet of the current publishing mumbo-jumbo
• Fat Packs will now have eight booster packs instead of six
• Theme Decks will be replaced by "Intro Packs"
• Fewer number of cards in any given set

The only things that really affect me in this are the new rare type, and the land in boosters.

The new rare type I think is kind of cool, I'm a fan of change, and this seems like a good one, some may say is unnecessary, but I like it, couldn't tell you why, but I do. They reason out the change as being the "Industry Standard" as most other CCGs have 4 rarities. Since I’ve only ever played Magic, I have no idea if this is true or not, but really why do they think they need to give a reason for it. It's their game, we love the game, and adding the new rarity won't change the game at all, so as much as anybody dislikes the change, it's not going to cause them to stop playing. If the change makes it feel more familiar to new players, then by all means have at it, new players are always good.

Wizards marketing people know what they are doing, while people may complain a little about having to buy more cards to get what they want, or have to re-invest in a new set of books for the upcoming release of 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons, they still buy what they need to and continue playing.

The booster pack changes on the other hand make me sad inside. Why?! WHY!? why do they need to remove one of my commons to give me a random land?! It's so stupid.. It was bad enough to get a land as one of your foil cards in a booster currently. Now when I open a pack, I know I’m going to see at least one land... now I have the possibility to get TWO! My one guaranteed land AND the possible foil land grr...

Another change in the booster pack has to do with the new rarity. As of right now, about one out of every eight boosters will have a mythic rare in it, but it replaces the standard rare. This is okay, but not the best solution. Brandon Sanderson made a very good point saying that the mythic rare should replace the land instead of the normal rare. Which I think is a WAY better solution for everybody. New players get a chance for their random land (like one land helps) and existing players get their chance for a mythic, and nobody is out a rare. Win-Win

The other changes I don't really care about, more boosters in a fatpack is cool, but they will most likely up the price of the fat pack to $40 instead of the current $35 to compensate for the increase in cards. If they don't then that’s awesome.

All in all, I think the upcoming changes for Magic: The Gathering will be positive ones, and I hope it brings many new players as well as some players that have since left the game, vowing to never return.