If you want to play casually, you can do so at a reasonable price, but competitive decks can creep up into the thousands of dollars pretty easily
Treasure Cruise mirrors became races to see who could land an Ancestral Recall first and bury their opponent in an avalanche of cards, and Dig Through Time backed it up
This led to players preferring Beta prints over the Alpha ones, which can contribute to the large gap between the two printings
A lot of players wanted some sort of ability to sideboard, like in Magic, where between games you can swap in and out cards
Collecting cards is an activity that offers many benefits
Additionally, At the local level, Ravensburger will also debut a new type of in-store Organized Play event Set Championships starting in April 2024, after the release of the Into the Inklands set