There are so many problems with Brad Mish's plan that Wizards would never do it.
First of all, it is illegal for Wizards to buy or sell individual cards. That would be setting a secondary market value for them, which they legally cannot do. (I'm not sure about that, but continue - The Ferrett)
Second, there are a large number of cards that Wizards will not reprint that we don't want to see. Do you want Blaze of Glory? How about a Kudzu? Maybe Goblin Flotilla? Altar of Bone? Winter's Night? Gosta Dirk (go ahead - click and see the crap)? I didn't think so. For every cool card on the list, there are ten you don't want. If I pulled Carnival of Souls instead of a playable rare, I would be pretty ticked off.
Thirdly, even if Wizards were to decide to implement the policy, they would lose money in the process. Lets say that Wizards makes $1 net profit per pack. (This is reasonable, since there are all the development costs, plus the fact that wholesale prices are cheaper than the suggested $3.29 sticker price) Then, they buy a Time walk from Joe Vet for $125. That means that they will need to sell a hundred and twenty-five more packs to cover the costs, just for that card. Buying back the reprinted cards would cut into the profits that Wizards makes - so much so that even if more people bought packs, even five times as much, it probably wouldn't cover their costs.
Are you really that much more likely to buy a pack because you could open a foil Call of the Herd? You have a one in forty chance that a given pack will have a foil rare. You have a one in 110 chance of that rare being a Call. If you are more likely to buy a pack in search of a card that you have 1 to 4,400 chances to find, just buy the damn single. Star City has it for $39. If you figure similar odds for the power cards of old, you can pick up an Ancestral for $160, a walk for $150, or a Twister for $110 - or you can open 4,400 packs. It's up to you.
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