Well, in Magic: The Gathering, the Alpha and Beta editions contained some pretty powerful singles but also the average level has not gone down since. We're often talking about the power creep and that is to say new and pretty powerful stuff gets printed in new editions compared to the old. Powerful old cards get new nerf-ed cousins...etc. The balance is not quite maintained, yet the bicycle keeps zig-zagging onwards.
What proved to be a good strategy was coming out with new editions...on a regular basis, almost since the start. Four official tournament playable editions a year, more than one hundred cards each one of them. The number needs not be that high, but the other aspect might be quite important to the masses. Yeah, the print runs also got much larger. That could kind of adjust to the masses, though.
Bearing in mind leveling here requires many copies of the same card...that was a very successful strategy at the beginning. Still is, I suppose. But I am not sure there will be mass 10k USD spenders...unless you get to steal that M:TG audience which does some serious spending, indeed.