So, rare cards are not supposed to be powerful, they are supposed to be "curiosities"? Well, dunno if there is someone that agree with you in this point. Even zanz should be wrong then, because things like Eternity and SoG are rares, and Damselfly is not. Im a bit new to the game, but even heard that Arctic Squid was once a common card, and it turned into a rare because was powerful. You know what creating weak rares does to people that do not have rares? Just makes harder to get a farm of the powerful rare they really need to their deck, and this time you should agree with me. Beyond that, why to create a card that will be almost not used, because it requires 1500 to do what a regular card can do?
And so, rares shouldnt have huge impact in the metagame, and you create one that gives permanent protection to all elements? Wow, thats a small impact, I bet. I think each element has a theme, and should have own strong and weak points. There are some monopolies, like time drawing cards (will you create a shard to solve this too?), not many, but even if we agree that monopolies are bad, the right way to break that monopoly is making it avaliable TO ALL? OMG, you are in fact removing one of the strong points of Earth, not breaking its monopoly. And in fact, I really think that 'Other' set of cards should be kept to a minimum, because it should never be stronger than an element. Just my opinion, you know.