Leading into the release of Unfinity, there were already trepidations about how problematic production errors might be for the set. For starters, Unfinity featured yet another new foiling technique, something which we’ve seen can cause cards to be arriving ruined. Alongside this glaring issue, Unfinity also featured MTG’s first Acorn cards and a new way of denoting a card’s legality. Out are the bold silver borders of old, and in are the new black borders and minuscule Acorn security seal. While these new black-bordered designs help to combat the stigma around silver-bordered cards, they’ve unfortunately introduced serious legality concerns. This is thanks to the common MTG issue of misprints, which are, unsurprisingly, already being found in Unfinity.
A Predicted Problem Realized
In the early stages of Unfinity’s spoiler season, many MTG players were concerned over the possibility of Acorn card misprints. With only the diminutive security seal denoting a card’s legality, this single point of failure had many players concerned about its integrity. Unfortunately, these problems were quickly realized during Mark Rosewater’s Comic-Con panel on Unfinity. During this presentation, Mark Rosewater revealed Magar of the Magic Strings with both an Acorn and regular security seal. This quickly caused immense confusion within the MTG community, as there was no telling the actual legality of this card.
Thankfully, Mark Rosewater quickly came to the rescue on Blogatog, confirming that “It’s an eternal card. The image of the booster fun version is in error.” This clarification cleared up any immediate confusion. However, the ramifications of this mistake weren’t so easily dismissed. As we noted ourselves, “what if this misprint was to happen on the physical Unfinity cards,” was a genuine concern. During the rest of Unfinity’s spoiler season, this problem didn’t reappear. However, the issue wasn’t fixed entirely. Come Unfinity’s launch on the 7th of October; security seal misprints would return in a big, problematic way.
Myra the Magnificent
As showcased by u/Capable_Hope_7878 on the MagicTCG subreddit, Myra, the Magnificent, has been found with both regular and Acorn security seals. This confirms that many players’ greatest fears about Unfinity and the new Acorn cards weren’t entirely unfounded. To clear up the confusion this misprint has caused, Myra, the Magnificent is an Eternal legal card. This means they and their Attraction based antics are playable in Commander, Legacy, and Vintage formats.
Thankfully, it isn’t all too complicated for MTG players to find out the legality of this card for themselves. On both Gatherer and Scryfall, Myra, the Magnificent is correctly displayed with the standard, Eternal legal security seal. Unfortunately, however, this backup isn’t ideally what players should have to rely on. After all, having to meticulously check Gatherer for the legality of every single Unfinity card is an unnecessarily tall order. Disappointingly, thanks to Myra, the Magnificent’s misprint, that’s precisely what MTG players may have to do to ensure rules compliance.
Sadly for players and Wizards of the Coast alike, this security seal misprinting issue isn’t an isolated incident. Across social media, MTG players complain about misprints discovered in their Unfinity packs or Collector Boosters. Reddit user u/Harry_Smutter, for instance, claims, “I got one CB and have stamp issues in it.” Similarly, Tumblr user Blaze-1013 brought the issue to the attention of Mark Rosewater, claiming they’ve seen issues with “Space Jace and Myra.” In response, Mark Rosewater merely stated that “I’m going to look into it tomorrow.” Hopefully, this means we should have some more information and clarification later today.
Community Consensus
Thankfully, according to the MTG community, it appears that, while notable, these MTG Unfinity misprints aren’t hugely prevalent within the set. It’s also currently unclear if Eternal legal cards are the only ones being mislabeled with the wrong security seal. Nevertheless, while the issue may not be widespread, many MTG players are still concerned about the existence of this misprint. Subsequently, many players have reiterated the calls that “the whole set shoulda been silver bordered.” While initially considered a knee-jerk reaction to the black-bordered change, this request would have mitigated much of the legality confusion.
Alongside requesting a mismatched set that’s both silver-bordered and black-bordered, MTG players had other solutions for Wizards to heed in the future. “There were so many easier ways to go about it than putting the symbol in the holo stamp,” u/dIoIIoIb notes. “Put an Acorn in the name like Alchemy cards on Arena. Give them their unique set symbol like they already do with Commander cards in regular boosters. Put ‘Not a legal card’ in the text or the black space over the artist’s name. Regular text on the card has almost never these issues.”
Ultimately, it seems like this misprint confusion has caused the Acorn stamp to become an unreliable indicator of legality. This has exposed the Acorn security seal to all manner of criticisms. As u/Justnobodyfqwl notes on Reddit, “the Acorn stamp sucks butts and is both harder to understand and has more quality concern issues than a silver border.” This issue has even turned supporters of the new security seal into skeptics. Alongside stating that “I think folks make a bigger deal than it is,” u/Truss36 commented that “the quality concerns like this, however, do show that it’s perhaps not the best idea for other reasons.”
