Set rotation is absolutely needed in games with frequent expansions, or one of two things happen.
1- there are so many cards existing that the newly released cards don't make any change in the top competitive decks.
2- to avoid 1, power creep is created so that new cards are used, and that is worst than set rotation
And this is not considering the barrier of entry for new players (it is very daunting to come into a game where you have to learn 10k cards, not so much if you have to learn 800 at max), and also the price. Does that mean it is needed in shadow era anytime soon, probably not because the expansion frequency is not high. It's arguably that it's needed in heartstone yet. But it isn't arguable that MTG wouldn't have worked for so long without it.
Bookmarks