March of the Machine Prerelease weekend has officially started! As of the writing of this article, most U.S. players haven’t entirely kicked their celebrations off yet, but that isn’t the case for some of the many areas of the world that are a bit ahead in terms of time zones. Many players across the globe have taken to opening their prerelease packs, only to notice that there are a lot of bizarre translation errors in their kits and other products! Here are some of the most bizarre things being opened!
Language Errors
The above card, hinted by its full-art nature, comes from a German Collector Booster pack. Redditor DaveMash took the initiative to share this on the platform with the simple caption “This card has been clearly not reviewed.”
This humorous statement refers to the circled word in red. English readers may notice that this word is written alongside a bunch of German text. For reference, there are no instances of the word ‘Reviewed’ in Sandsteppe War Raiders’ English text.
A Series of Errors
As pointed out by various Redditors, this isn’t the first time that quality control got the best of some foreign MTG cards:
“Portuguese [[Brimaz, Blight of Oreskos]] comes with a mistranslation straight from the box.
Instead of the original text, it reads “Whenever you cast a creature, or a Phyrexian artifact creature spell, Incubate X, where X is that spell’s mana value.”
cardsrealm
This is a rather unfortunate translation error. For reference, Brimaz, Blight of Oreskos, is supposed to trigger on both Phyrexian creatures and Phyrexian artifact spells. The lack of an ‘or’ between the artifact and creature words mean that when taken word-for-word, Brimaz will only trigger on Phyrexian artifact creature spells.
Ironically, this isn’t the worst of it. Brimaz, Blight of Oreskos is only supposed to trigger on the cast of Phyrexian creature and artifact spells. The incorrect translation of this card reads that it triggers on the cast of any creature spell, making the card way more potent than intended. Fortunately, astute readers may notice that both of Brimaz’s triggers occur for the same thing. Creature spells already includes the elusive Phyrexian artifact creature – so this clause makes no sense in the translated ability. This may lead to some second-guessing which, hopefully, eventually leads to some Oracle text.
Tiny Text
This continues on to a series of unfortunate translations. Omnath, Locus of All has an incredibly long name in the German language, which leads to its text being comically tiny:
“Have you seen the German MOM Buy A Box promo? They translated [[Omnath, Locus of All]] as “Omnath, der Sammelpunkt der Vollkommenheit”.
DerBlarch
They printed his name in something like 6pt.”
When using some Google Translate to see what this (roughly) translates to in English, instead of Omnath, Locus of All, Omnath, the gathering point of perfection, was received, which is honestly a pretty cool name for a Magic card.
As some Reddit users point out, this isn’t out-of-the-ordinary for how Omnath’s previous cards have been translated. ‘The Gathering Point’ has always been how Locus was translated in German – at least for Omnath’s purposes.
This is hardly the first time that MTG translations have had unintended results. One of the most famous examples of a botched translation job stems from the Portuguese version of Stoic Rebuttal. As pointed out in a previous article, this card, unfortunately, lost its effect in translation – meaning it was an instant-speed spell that didn’t do anything!
Read More: MTG Players Delighted by New Surprise Story Content
Early Orders
There have also been various reports of players getting their ordered March of the Machine product well ahead of time. While this isn’t a bad thing for players, many wonder if they are supposed to be receiving the product:
“Seems some stores are confusing the prerelease date with the release date. Technically they’re allowed to sell them in stores on the prerelease, but I guess some are shipping them anyway.”
SoneEv
As mentioned in the above quote, today is, generally, the earliest that these products should be shipped out to players. Instead, many players reported receiving their products earlier than expected:
“Yep mine and my friends orders all shipped yesterday well ahead of Fridays prerelease date. Usually the store we order from ships on prerelease day.”
Deadwindrising-
There is a lot of back-and-forth regarding whether this is appropriate behavior (some players state that WPN stores may be allowed to ship early), but it’s hardly a big deal. Since stores are allowed to sell all of their merch during Prerelease weekend anyway, it’s the same as going out to your LGS and buying them anyway.
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