At this point, it’s no surprise that MTG head designer Mark Rosewater considers day/night to be one of MTG’s most flawed mechanics. He went as far as to have day/night listed as the sixth worst MTG mechanic of all time in his top 20 worst mechanics roundup.
If you’ve ever played versus some of the popular Human Werewolves from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, this won’t be shocking. Remembering to track whether it’s day or night long after your initial copy of Graveyard Trespasser dies is a huge pain.
Interestingly, though, this is not actually the aspect of the mechanic that Mark Rosewater finds the most fault with. Instead, he has a huge issue with the lack of consistency of Werewolves across the board. In fact, he was in favor of a major errata to old Werewolves before the day/night mechanic was introduced.
Old and New Werewolves Not in Sync
According to Mark Rosewater, the fact that all Werewolves don’t work the same is a major problem. For those unfamiliar, old Werewolves, such as Huntmaster of the Fells, specifically transformed if no spells were cast by either player during the last turn. From there, any player casting two spells in a turn would result in them transforming back into their original selves.
By contrast, day/night only cares about the active player casting spells. You’re also forced to continue tracking whether it’s day or night since any future cards you play with the mechanic could enter the battlefield already transformed if it’s night.
According to Mark Rosewater, when he handed off the Innistrad: Midnight Hunt set, the original Rules Manager promised that all older Werewolves would receive errata to use day/night. However, this Rules Manager left the position and was replaced by a new Rules Manager who disliked the change.
Supposedly, the original iteration of the day/night mechanic stated that all Werewolves, new or old, would transform in sync with each other. Unfortunately, this was deemed too wordy, and because the promise of errata never happened, players have to track old and new Werewolves differently. This can be a nightmare for anyone with a Werewolf Commander deck.
Any Future Changes?
It’s clear that Mark Rosewater feels very strongly about this major difference in Werewolf functionality. This caused some players to question why no errata has been made since Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow were released. After all, Innistrad Remastered is releasing very soon, which seemingly offers a decent opportunity to make a change.
Even still, the designer stated that using a Remastered set to push an errata is not something they look to do. While this does signal that no changes will be made in the near future, this doesn’t rule out the possibility of a change occurring at some point.
Perhaps Wizards is waiting for the right opportunity to make the errata. It’s a bit awkward that Mark Rosewater has given the day/night mechanic a 9 on the Storm Scale, suggesting the mechanic may never return in a premier set.
This may make it tough for Wizards to find a good window to announce the errata without it feeling completely random. For now, things remain the same with this problematic mechanic, but it’s worth keeping our eyes open for any announcements moving forward.