Despite having been around for almost 600 years, the printing press isn’t an entirely flawless process. Unfortunately for MTG players, this means that, occasionally, misprints sneak their way into product releases. Disappointingly, the ongoing misprint problem in MTG isn’t a new issue, as it’s been affecting players and sets for years. Thankfully, while many players don’t want their cards to arrive ruined, there is a silver lining to MTG’s misprint problem. Namely, misprints can often be worth a lot of money to the right collectors. Similarly, alternate language cards can often be held in higher regard, especially when they experience their own printing issues. Translation errors, for instance, can be quite the novelty, even when they do result in nerfed MTG cards!
Torre di Urza
Throughout recent sets, we’ve seen several MTG cards being botched by incorrect translations. Back in November, for instance, Mask of the Jadecrafter from The Brothers’ War baffled players with its mixed-up mana cost. Changing the Unearth cost from green to black, the Portuguese language variant of Mask of the Jadecrafter wasn’t necessarily worse. The same cannot be said, however, for a recent translation error from Jumpstart 2022. Highlighted on Reddit by u/bluetrebol, it appears that a mythic Jumpstart 2022 MTG pack has been accidentally nerfed in Italian.
Affecting the highly prized Urza’s packet from Jumpstart 2022, u/bluetrebol showcased that Urza’s Tower has accidentally been nerfed. In the Italian printing of the card, rather than generating three colorless mana when Urza’s Mine and Urza’s Power Plant are in play, the Torre di Urza card instead only produces two colorless mana. Due to the strength of the iconic Urzatron lands, this one mana reduction may not seem too major at first. In reality, however, many colorless cards are specifically costed with the Urzatron lands in mind. Karn Liberated, for instance, costs seven mana, as does Meteor Golem. Both these cards are found with the Urza’s packet from Jumpstart 2022.
Due to the prevalence of seven cost cards, Torre di Urza is quite the nerf to the Italian Urza’s packet. The MTG community quickly picked this up on Reddit, who were all too keen to run with the idea. Reddit user u/gamasco, for instance, joked that “they nerfed Italy,” while u/Digita1B0y followed up to say “by design. Otherwise, they would be too powerful!” Similarly, several players, such as u/Havosavo, mused that this is the “Leaning tower of Urza.”
Mistranslated, but at What Cost
Alongside the Reddit users joking that Torre di Urza is “Alchemy IRL,” other players expressed their interest in the card. This is despite Torre di Urza being strictly worse than Urza’s Tower in every way. Reddit user u/thinkforgetfull, for instance, commented, “sigh. Another card for me to source for my play as printed cube.” Additionally, u/bladewinger simply stated, “I want some of those misprints.” With an evident, albeit niche, demand established, MTG players took to debating the value of these translation errors. “Real talk how much for one of these lol,” u/Pvh1103 flatly asked.
Unfortunately for MTG players looking to make money from a prized misprint, Torre di Urza doesn’t appear to be rare. Following up on u/Pvh1103’s question, the worryingly named u/NostrilRapist confirmed that this translation error isn’t an isolated issue. “They’re all printed like that. Me and my friends found three Tron packs from J22, [so] I suppose they’re not worth that much.” Due to Urza’s packets in Jumpstart 2022 technically being mythic rarity, Torre di Urza may carry some premium. This, however, isn’t likely to be significantly more than the $0.77 market price for an Urza’s Tower.
With little value to write home about, Reddit users turned to debate WotC’s recent production issues. Reddit user u/AnomalousMachine, for instance, simply stated, “how did they manage to f*ck that up? Any [quality control] going on at all?” Pointing the finger of blame u/I_Hate_Reddit suggested that the “guy copy-pasting the translation missed the last character lol.” Since the full stop was included, however, u/_no7 mused that perhaps the “guy who made the Italian translation is just sick of playing against Tron decks.”
No Nerfs, Just Novelty
Thankfully, despite how Torre di Urza reads, Urza’s Tower hasn’t actually been nerfed in MTG. Instead, thanks to rule 108.1 within Magic’s Comprehensive Rules, Urza’s Tower is the same as it’s been. In case you’re not familiar with the entire 199-page rules document, rule 108.1 is as follows. “108.1. Use the Oracle™ card reference when determining a card’s wording. A card’s Oracle text can be found using the Gatherer card database at Gatherer.Wizards.com.” Thanks to this rule, misprints, mistranslations, and errata-ed cards are all still usable in MTG games, so don’t worry if you’ve got your hands on a Torre di Urza.
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