In any game with as many individual card printings as Magic the Gathering, there are bound to be mistakes in design that slip through the cracks. This doesn’t just mean errors in evaluating a card’s power level. Sometimes, typos and mistranslations happen that aren’t caught until the cards are in circulation.
Interestingly, in a recent Blogatog response, head designer Mark Rosewater stated that he could “count… on one hand” the number of times mistakes have made it to print. Yet, when factoring in basic typos on card stats, cards being miswritten in other languages, necessary errata to cards to make them function as intended, and even issues related to a card’s incorrect artwork or watermark, there are plenty of weird examples to go around.
With this in mind, we thought it would be interesting to share some of the most amusing examples of print errors. Let’s talk about some intriguing card errors from throughout MTG’s history.
Typo in Stats
One of the most prominent examples of a rather unusual misprint actually came just a few years ago with the release of Core Set 2020. The mistake came on a very simple uncommon: Corpse Knight. Corpse Knight is just a 2/2 creature that forces each opponent to lose life whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control. So, what’s the problem?
Well, during prerelease time, players realized that copies of Corpse Knight opened in prerelease kits were printed as 2/3s, as shown above. This caused a great deal of confusion at the events themselves. After all, the difference between a 2/2 and a 2/3 in a Limited setting is huge.
I distinctly remember that judges at the prerelease events I went to made the announcement ahead of time for us to treat Corpse Knight as if it were a 2/2 to stay consistent. Today, you can easily purchase the 2/3 version on TCGPlayer and the like if that’s what your heart desires.
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Mistranslations
A relatively common example of mistakes in card printings are when a card in another language does not translate correctly into English. In many cases, these are likely general oversights by the translators themselves.
Take Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, for example. As you can clearly tell by the English printing above, the -X ability exiles each permanent with converted mana cost X or less that’s one or more colors. However, this is not how the German version of the card is worded. This variant’s -X ability states that you exile each permanent with converted mana cost X or MORE, which would be significantly more broken.
Sometimes, though, the mistranslations make the card much worse. Stoic Rebuttal, for instance, typically gives you the opportunity to counter a spell for three mana, or for only two mana if you have Metalcraft. Supposedly, the “counter target spell” wording was somehow lost in the Portuguese translation, making the card essentially do absolutely nothing! Of course, this isn’t how the card works in practice, as the Oracle text is the final law of the land. Nonetheless, mistranslations can be amusing.
My personal favorite mistranslation comes on the French version of the card Descend Upon the Sinful. Due to a spelling error, the title of the card actually reads “Descend Upon the Fisherman” in French. This is absolutely incredible, and sure made a lot of players laugh at the time.
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Necessary Errata
In unique cases, sometimes even the English version of a card will make it through print, but the text on the card requires an erratum to function as intended. A classic example of this lies with Hostage Taker. When Hostage Taker originally debuted in Ixalan, the wording of its ability allowed Hostage Taker to exile itself. This would immediately allow you to get infinite enters-the-battlefield triggers when paired with other cards.
As such, the Oracle text on Hostage Taker has since been changed to say exile ANOTHER target creature until Hostage Taker leaves the battlefield. Unsurprisingly, this is how the card was supposed to work in the first place.
Likewise, the recent release of MH3 created a strange scenario with the printing of Wheel of Potential. While the card may seem straightforward as written at first glance, the fact is, the card’s initial wording technically allows you to not pay any Energy, but still draw as many cards as you want. This is because the card’s rules text never deliberately specified that you needed to pay the Energy cost to get the draw effect.
Once again, this was not intended and is more just a technicality than anything else. Now, the Oracle text has been updated to say “Each player may exile their hand and draw cards equal to the amount of Energy paid this way,” which is different than “Each player may exile their hand and draw X cards.” For more information on why this erratum was necessary, you can take a look here.
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Artistic Mistakes
The last, wacky example of a card printing “mistake,” if you want to call it that, comes from artist Mark Poole’s illustrations of Birds of Paradise and Island Sanctuary for Alpha. Apparently, the artwork for both of these cards were originally designed by Mark Poole to appear on basic Islands. However, he would later be told that the artwork on the basic Islands weren’t supposed to feature creatures on them.
Yet, Richard Garfield liked these illustrations so much that he insisted on designing cards to utilize them. Hence, the emergence of Birds of Paradise and Island Sanctuary making use of Mark Poole’s gorgeous artwork.
All of these mishaps showcase that even for a game that is as refined as MTG, errors are bound to slip through the cracks every once and a while. It’s always a good idea to be on the lookout for any new mistakes that arise.
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