Magic’s Playtest cards, which are making their triumphant return in Mystery Booster 2, are one of the most fascinating things WotC has done in years. They provide a unique peek behind the curtain, showing us the comical ideas that never made it to print. In some cases, however, they actually serve as indicators of things to come. Looking at the original batch of Playtest cards, some of the ideas are now on real, playable cards. The same could very well be true for the Playtest mechanics of Mystery Booster 2.
Exact Replicas (Or Close Enough)
Since the original wave of Playtest cards was convention-exclusive, you’d be forgiven for not having seen most of them. Luckily, Reddit user SeducerOfTheInnocent put together a post detailing which cards have made it into the real game. Considering the comical nature of many playtest cards, this has happened a lot more than you might think.
Take Enchantmentize, for example. This was a funny Playtest card that turned a permanent into an enchantment, stripping it of all other types. In Theros: Beyond Death, this exact card was printed for real. The only difference was the name, which became ‘One with the Stars.’ Much more fitting, to be sure. This is the best example of Playtest cards transcending their origins since it’s actually a direct one-to-one printing. Turns out Enchantmentize was a reasonable enough design to print into Magic as-is.
In a similar vein, Frogkin Kidnapper is clearly the predecessor to Elite Spellbinder. Granted, Spellbinder didn’t actually keyword Ransom as a mechanic, but the two are functionally identical. Both come in, exile a card from the opponent’s hand, and make them pay extra to get it back. Kidnapper is much more powerful since it costs less and makes your opponent pay more. The spirit remains the same, however. Perhaps Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa was a big fan of Mystery Booster draft, and carried that energy over into the design of his World Champion card?
Other Playtest cards have received remarkably similar real-game translations, too. Graveyard Dig became Dig Up, both cards featuring the Cleave mechanic. In this case, it wasn’t keyworded until it became a real thing, however. Louvaq, the Aberrant also created and referenced the Modified keyword long before Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty did. Albeit in an, appropriately enough, slightly modified form.
Divine Inspiration
Other Mystery Booster Playtest cards made it into the game but in very different forms. Lantern of Undersight, for example, is a very strange card that suddenly made all of those ‘Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order’ effects much more interesting. This idea made it into the game in the form of River Song, a creature from the Doctor Who Commander decks. For fans of the show, this is a massive flavor win, but it’s also a big shift from its Playtest origins.
Pick Your Poison is an even more interesting case. A card with this exact name was printed in Murders at Karlov earlier this year. It even gave you a choice to make, just like the Playtest original. Seems like a cut-and-dry case of Playtest inspiration, right? Well, actually no.
The other big idea from the card, that of choosing different modes with a numerical value, was also recreated in Bloomburrow, on the new Season cards. These cards are all much closer to the original Pick Your Poison in terms of cost and effect. In this respect, given that it inspired a single card and a full cycle, Pick Your Poison may be the most influential Playtest card of them all.
These are just a few choice examples, but there were plenty more in the post and thread. Generated Horizons, for instance, inspired the use of land tokens on Awaken the Woods and subsequent cards. Recycla-Bird led to Flying counters, and other keyword counters, on cards like Avian Oddity. Though the influence can sometimes be subtle, the Mystery Booster Playtest cards have definitely had an impact on modern Magic design.
New Cards On The Block
But what of the Mystery Booster 2 Playtest mechanics? Will we see new versions of them show up in sets a few years down the line? Based on how things went down with the original wave of Playtest cards, I’d say it was very likely. There are some cracking new mechanics here, too, which look perfectly acceptable for mainline Magic play.
Take a look at Night of the Flying Merfolk above. This is a Saga with the Bedtime Story mechanic, which means it gains lore counters at the end of your turn rather than the start. It also doesn’t get a counter when it enters. This opens up a ton of interesting design space, shown here in chapters two and three abilities, which reward you for attacking on your turn.
The same is true for Shackle, a new mechanic on Equipment that lets you attach them to opposing creatures instead of your own. This appears on Avacyn’s Collar, the Symbol of Her Church, which is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the infamously bad flavor text on Ancient Grudge. The design itself is very much legit, however, and would make a ton of sense in a real set. The same is true for the Tax mechanic, pictured on Tax Taker above.
Basically, nestled among the far-out weirdness and broken cards that make up most of the Mystery Booster 2 Playtest cards are some genuine possibilities for Magic’s future mechanics. It’ll be interesting to look back in a few years and carry out this exercise again, seeing how many of these cards make it into the game for real.
Read More: $14 Uncommon Combo Engine Gets First Reprint in Mystery Booster 2
