[article] i hate this place

I hadn't really thought about the cost of Type 1 issue recently, but you make a good point. Looking back, I have had to do a fair amount of hunting down rares from Mirrodin block. As I go through the cards I have set aside from my trade stuff as Type 1 playables, I see things like Chalice, Gilded Lotus, Glimmervoid, Sundering Titans, Mindslaver, Trinisphere, and possibly a few others I can't remember because I lied when I said I was actually going through them.

Still, it's also worth noting that those rares are noticeably different from the rares Type 2 players are hunting down from the same block. Ravagers, Tooth and Nail, Solemn Simulacrum, etc. are not really seeing heavy Type 1 use. Glimmervoid is really the only seriously played card in both formats at the moment. True, Ravager has found a deck in Type 1, but it's generally regarded as inconsistent and probably not likely to be a major force. The result is that the demand for the cards Type 1 players want is entirely determined by Type 1 players, and as evidenced by the fact that even Gilded Lotus is only around $6, this demand isn't very high (Ravager is at least twice that much).

Another point worth noting is that even thought there are a lot of rares in Mirrodin block Type 1 players may find worth picking up, the best deck doesn't use any of them. As I go over my Hulk list, I can only see 2 Mirrodin block cards. An Oxidize in the sideboard and a foil Mark Tedin Island. Oxidizes and Islands aren't particularly difficult to obtain, so someone who was dedicated entirely to playing Hulk in Type 1 would have had to make almost no investment in this block to stay competetive.

So what's my point? I don't think we can quite yet dismiss the old cost paradigm. True, Mirrodin block has given us a relatively large number of playable rares, but they aren't necessary to compete at the top of the format, and they don't really intersect with the Type 2 chase rares, keeping their prices relatively low. However, this has been a largely artifact block. It is possible that Kamigawa will bring us rares good for decks that don't have Mishra's Workshops in them, and we haven't even seen all of what Fifth Dawn has in store yet. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.