Mythic rares in Magic: The Gathering have a tricky line to walk in terms of power level. If they’re too good, they tend to become unreasonably expensive due to their scarcity. If they’re too bad, then players will actively hope not to open them in their packs, creating another undesirable experience. Perhaps the best example of the latter genre of MTG mythic is
Archangel’s Light
Archangel’s Light
You gain 2 life for each card in your graveyard, then shuffle your graveyard into your library.
, a serious stinker from Dark Ascension. It wasn’t always such a dud, however, as Mark Rosewater revealed this week.
The Original Design for MTG Archangel’s Light
Offering two very low-impact effects for a whopping eight mana, it’s not hard to see why Archangel’s Light has been the butt of many a joke since its original printing. You could probably cut its cost in half, and make it instant speed, and it would still barely see play, even in Commander. In fact, it still comes up in conversations today as a strong candidate for “Worst Mythic of all time,” even 14 years after its release.
While bad mythics in MTG are hardly novel, what really annoyed players about Archangel’s Light was that it wasn’t originally meant to be so terrible. As Mark Rosewater noted at the time, the card’s design was changed last-minute, with the more powerful original being kept back to potentially be used later. Since there was so little time left for testing, Wizards opted for an ultra-safe design “on the lower side of power,” to avoid a situation like we saw with
Skullclamp
Skullclamp
Equipped creature gets +1/-1.
Whenever equipped creature dies, draw two cards.
Equip {1}
and
Umezawa’s Jitte
Umezawa’s Jitte
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage, put two charge counters on Umezawa's Jitte.
Remove a charge counter from Umezawa's Jitte: Choose one —
• Equipped creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
• Target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn.
• You gain 2 life.
Equip {2}
prior.
For 14 years, players have speculated as to what the abandoned version of Archangel’s Light did, and even asked Rosewater about it directly, but to no avail. This week, however, the mystery was finally solved as Rosewater revealed the original design via Blogatog:
– Wellspring of Healing
– Mana Value: 5W
– Card Type: Enchantment
– Rarity: Mythic Rare
– Card Text: If you would gain life, you gain three times that much life instead.
According to an article from Rosewater back in 2012, this design was scrapped late in development because “Playtesting showed the card might be problematic.” These days, the idea of a six-mana do-nothing enchantment being anywhere close to a problem is laughable, but 2012 was a different time. For Limited in particular, a design like this certainly has the potential to warp environments in an unhealthy way, and with
Griselbrand
Griselbrand
Flying, lifelink
Pay 7 life: Draw seven cards.
on the horizon it could’ve seen use in constructed, too.
Triple Threat?
While the card not making the cut in Dark Ascension does make some kind of sense, what’s interesting is that we’ve never seen an equivalent effect since. As Rosewater noted in the reveal post, this was Wizards’ first attempt at a tripling effect: an idea which wouldn’t be truly realized until triple damage enchantment
Fiery Emancipation
Fiery Emancipation
If a source you control would deal damage to a permanent or player, it deals triple that damage to that permanent or player instead.
eight years later.
Since then we’ve seen various other takes on this effect, including triple tokens on
Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation
Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation
Vigilance
If one or more creature tokens would be created under your control, three times that many of those tokens are created instead.
When Ojer Taq dies, return it to the battlefield tapped and transformed under its owner's control.
, and triple creature stats with
Tifa’s Limit Break
Tifa’s Limit Break
Tiered (Choose one additional cost.)
• Somersault — {0} — Target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
• Meteor Strikes — {2} — Double target creature's power and toughness until end of turn.
• Final Heaven — {6}{G} — Triple target creature's power and toughness until end of turn.
. We’re yet to see a triple lifegain card, however, be it at the same mana cost of Wellspring of Healing or otherwise.
In terms of potential impact, it’s hard to say how such a card would do if printed nowadays. It would almost certainly be a solid Commander player, turning Lifegain Commanders like
Hope Estheim
Hope Estheim
Lifelink
At the beginning of your end step, each opponent mills X cards, where X is the amount of life you gained this turn.
, and the new Niv-Mizzet, Ghost Counsel, into much more serious threats. Given that these decks tend to be played exclusively in lower brackets, however, it’s unlikely that this would disrupt competitive balance much.
This goes double for constructed, where an effect like Wellspring of Healing would likely struggle even at a much lower mana cost. While it feels like something current Four-Color Control decks might be interested in, thanks to
Jeskai Revelation
Jeskai Revelation
Return target spell or permanent to its owner's hand. Jeskai Revelation deals 4 damage to any target. Create two 1/1 white Monk creature tokens with prowess. Draw two cards. You gain 4 life.
et al, it still has the “do-nothing enchantment” problem to overcome.
In light of this, hopefully Rosewater’s reveal of this design means we’ll finally see it printed at some point in the future. In the current game, it feels like the perfect balance between a card that’s great fun for some, and not oppressive for anyone.
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