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I don't think rare lands are a problem anywhere other than Arena. Having desirable rare lands actually helps flatten the cost of Standard a bunch, because it brings the cost of other cards down and also gives you easily-tradable fodder to trade into the cards that you want. Making the lands uncommons would just mean that the other staple rares would become more expensive.
Because otherwise the chase cards in the set would be way way way higher than they are now in most sets. It flattens card prices. There's a real difference in price levels between a large set w/ no lands and w/ lands when it comes to the priciest cards. It's why I picked up flip Bolases at 28.
Can you also come up with a reason for this completely unsubstantiated effect? Makes no sense why the presence of rare lands magically reduces the prices of other cards. Only determinent is supply and demand and rare lands reduce the supply of other rares so all else equal prices would be higher. Only possible explanation would be that the rare lands increase box openings so much that this even overcompensates for the taken rare slot but tbh that seems like a stretch to me. Even then it stands to argue whether the net effect is even positive considering the more expensive lands when they are rare.
Basically, each average booster box has a set amount of equity. For simplicity's sake, let's say $100. Let's say there's 5 chase cards in the set and everything else is bulk. Those five cards would end up eating the vast majority of the equity and therefore have to be more expensive to account for booster boxes opened that don't have any copies of those cards. If say say that, on average, you get 2 chase cards in a box, that means each one will settle around $50.
It's not "completely unsubstantiated" unless you don't understand pack economics at all. If it feels like a "stretch" it's because you don't know what you are talking about.
Yup, they had to introduce "standard showdown" boosters because regular boosters were complete trash and no one wanted them as prizes. BFZ was literally Gideon, Masterpiece, or bust.
You had low barrier of entry in BFZ/Kaladesh. Decks were incredibly cheap.
It was Dragon's Maze, not Gatecrash.
Rare lands are fine for limited. In sealed, there's not really much difference between an uncommon land and a rare land. Sure, you could potentially have that rare slot for something more exciting, but that slot could just as easily be something like Isolate. At least the rare land has some value and potentially helps you splash.
I think fetches would probably be in the $10 to $15 range if they'd been uncommon, but again, if they reprinted them in standard, their prices would crater even at rare. The shocks and the onslaught fetches were in the $7~$12 range while they were last in Standard. They'd go back up eventually once the set they're printed in rotates, but even then they'll still be a lot lower than they are now. The most expensive Khans fetch is almost half the price of the least expensive Zendikar fetch even though the former sees significantly more play.
I'll be honest- I thought that 4 mana was a "safe" number to print Hexproof at. At this point, they either really need to drop the keyword for power level reasons, or restrict it only to 7+ mana creatures and various non-attacking creature things that need it (ie, Combat tricks, walls, etc)
