Junk Rare: Difference between revisions

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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' has a lot of these, usually [[Intentional Trope|on purpose]]. Mark Rosewater, the game's head designer, wrote a lengthy [[Justified Trope|Justification]] of the practice titled [http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom~~/daily/mr9~~ "Rare, but Well Done"], in which he discusses in great detail why this trope exists. In general, cards are rare when they really ''are'' [[Game Breaker|powerful enough]] to dominate games (especially sealed deck and draft games), when they're [[Cool but Inefficient|weird and wacky enough]] that only a small portion of the players would want to use them, or when they're [[Difficult but Awesome|complicated enough]] that they can overwhelm beginning players. When players complain about a rare being one of those last two types and insisting it should have been an uncommon, one of Rosewater's stock replies is "you hate it, so you want to see it in ''more'' of your packs?"

* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' has a lot of these, usually [[Intentional Trope|on purpose]]. Mark Rosewater, the game's head designer, wrote a lengthy [[Justified Trope|Justification]] of the practice titled [https://web.archive.org/web/20090602111149/http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom%2Fdaily%2Fmr9 "Rare, but Well Done"], in which he discusses in great detail why this trope exists. In general, cards are rare when they really ''are'' [[Game Breaker|powerful enough]] to dominate games (especially sealed deck and draft games), when they're [[Cool but Inefficient|weird and wacky enough]] that only a small portion of the players would want to use them, or when they're [[Difficult but Awesome|complicated enough]] that they can overwhelm beginning players. When players complain about a rare being one of those last two types and insisting it should have been an uncommon, one of Rosewater's stock replies is "you hate it, so you want to see it in ''more'' of your packs?"

** Of course, it's not unheard of for the quirkier ones to become [[Lethal Joke Character]]s later on—one infamous example is [http://magiccards.info/mr/en/272.html Lion's Eye Diamond], which was originally designed as a [[nerf]]ed [http://magiccards.info/un/en/233.html Black Lotus] so weak that nobody would ever play it.

* The ''[[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]]'' had Epic Events, which typically required not only that you use associated cards, but your ''opponent'' use associated cards; for instance, Attack Run depended on your opponent using the Death Star and you having Death Star: Trench and Proton Torpedoes. All were rare.