If you’ve been around blogatog for a while, there’s a non-zero chance you’ve heard of Mood Swings. This pet project by MTG Head Designer Mark Rosewater has been in development for 28 years without ever seeing the light of day. In June, however, that all changes, as Mood Swings is finally officially launching via Secret Lair.
Mood Swings Is Finally Real
Officially announced today, Mood Swings is a brand new Trading Card Game from Wizards of the Coast. Aimed at being a significantly easier and quicker card game than MTG, Mood Swings flips the card game formula on its head. Not only do all players use the same deck, but even the trading part of this trading card game is somewhat unusual.
If you just want to play Mood Swings, you’ll only need to buy the product once, when it launches on June 1st. Within the product, you’ll get 45 random cards that function as a deck right out of the box. Should you want to upgrade or modify this deck, there are 133 cards to collect in total, spread across four rarities.
Through an MTG lens, this makes Mood Swings somewhat similar to a cube, as it’s a self-contained play experience that players can modify. Currently, it’s unclear how much Mood Swings will cost, or if the cards inside will have any secondary market value. While this might put off some players, from a flavor perspective, Mood Swings has plenty to enjoy.
Even though Mood Swings ditches Magic’s fantasy setting for one based around emotions, all of the art is from MTG. More specifically, the “art on the cards are all sketches from published Magic art,” which is really neat. If nothing else, this could make Mood Swings a compelling collectible, but obviously, it should be tons of fun too.
A Blissfully Simple TCG
Unlike Magic: The Gathering, Mood Swings thankfully doesn’t require complex tutorials or predetermined handholding games. In fact, the rules of the game can be simply explained by a single double-faced rules card, included with the deck. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s even a website with additional rules and a how-to-play Mood Swings video.
As a quick explainer, each player starts with five cards in their hand and can only play one card per turn. There are no mana costs to worry about; however, each Mood Swings card does have a value to consider. These values are how you win a game, as the winner of each round, or turn rotation by Magic’s terms, is determined by whoever has the most value on the board when the turn ends.
Much like Magic: The Gathering, many cards in Mood Swings have an ability, which is thankfully accompanied by rules text. Some of these can cause you to draw, discard, or copy cards, while others can modify the value of a card. Thankfully, while there are many more abilities and quite a few mechanics, each one is explained on the game’s extended rules website.
After someone wins a round, each losing player draws a card from the collective deck. As this isn’t enough of a leg up, the winner always has to go first, allowing everyone else to react to their play. In 3-to-4-player games, there is a small additional feature that allows the player with the fewest points in the previous round to play an extra card. Finally, an overall winner is determined once a player has won three times, as tracked by counters.
Coming Soon Via Secret Lair
If you like the sounds of Mood Swings, the good news is that there’s not long to wait until its release. That said, while the game officially launches on June 1st, it’s being sold via Secret Lair. Depending on how many copies Wizards have pre-printed, this could be as much of a curse as it is a blessing.
Currently, it’s unclear if Mood Swings will get a second printing, set, or wider release in time. For now, we imagine all these details will be determined by the game’s post-launch success and popularity. Looking at the early reactions online, it certainly seems like would-be players are excited, but who knows how long that will last.
Ultimately, there’s still a lot we don’t know about Mood Swings for the time being. The full card list, not to mention the product’s price, is all under wraps currently. This, however, may well change soon, as Mark Rosewater will talk more about Mood Swings at MagicCon: Las Vegas. Conserving this starts tomorrow; hopefully, all our questions will be answered shortly.
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