Summary
Who doesn’t love a little chaos in theirMagic: The Gatheringgames? With the Mystery Booster 2 set, you can take the concept of chaos drafts to whole new worlds. Much of the appeal of using Mystery Booster 2 packs with your draft is that there are some absolutely wild cards in the packs.
Many of the playtest cards push the boundaries of what is possible with Magic’s mechanics, either by adapting established mechanics or introducing brand new ones. Some of these playtest cards push the limits of Magic’s rules, while still being confined by them. We took a peek into these unique cards to see which ones are the most game breaking.
10Don’t Worry About It
Just A Little Card Trick
Auras have done some goofy things in Magic over the years. You can enchant graveyard, players, decks, and even the world. The playtest card Don’t Worry About It lets you enchant a card in your hand, though tracking that type of enchantment seems like a bit of a pain.
Either way, that enchanted card costs one generic less to cast and when you do cast it, you get a copy of it. If that enchanted card becomes cast or leaves your hand for whatever reason, you have to put Don’t Worry About It into your graveyard.
9Essence Of Ajani
A Card Lasts Forever
Here’s the thing about Essesce of Ajani, it doesn’t necessarily do anything on its own that is particularly interesting. Anytime you cast a spell you get to draw one life, which is good, since most spells like it have restrictions like spells of a certain color.
The neat part of the card is that it is the first time we an emblem on an actual card. Emblems exists in the command zone, outside of a normal game that is neither in exile, the graveyard, battlefield, or anywhere else. Things in the command zone are untouchable to your opponents so being able to cast a card that your opponents cannot interact with in any, shape, or form, makes for an interesting design choice.
8The Heron Moon
A Dark Depths By Anyother Name
Ever since 2016’s Eldritch Moon, players have wondered exactly what Magic has cooking up with sticking Emrakul,the last surviving Eldrazi Titan, in Innistrad’s silver moon, and now we know. The Heron Moon is a legendary land that can take your opponent’s cards from the bottom of their deck and exile it.
Anytime one or more cards of your opponent’s is put into exile, you get to add a release counter to The Heron Moon. Once you reach 13 counters, you get a copy of Emrakul, the Promised End, cast trigger and all. Sure, your opponent could counter it since it is being cast, but that doesn’t stop you from taking their turn.
7Wrath Of Leknif
A Test Card With History
Untapping lands when you cast spells is something that became popular with spells from Urza’s Saga, and has since rarely been brough back given how oppressively powerful it is. So a board wipe that prevents regeneration and then also untaps four lands, letting you keep your mana open for more spells or even counter spells for the nex thing your opponent would want to do, it a bit much.
This card isn’t exactly an original one though, as the Wrath of Leknif gives you a hint to its origins. Leknif is Finkel backwards, referencing John Finkel, the 2000 Magic Invitational winner. Being the winner, Finkel was given the ability to design his own Magic card, which would go on to be Shadowmage Infiltrator. However, his first idea was this Wrath effect, which still seems pretty darn good nowadays, while Shadowmage Infiltrator has all but been forgotten.
6Alberix, The Trade Planet
Different From A Plane
World is a silly supertype that was around during the early days of Magic. Only one World permanent can be on the battlefield at a given time, so if you play one, and then your opponent plays another, yours gets kicked out. There are only 26 World enchantments in Magic, and the supertype hasn’t been seen since Visions.
Alberix, the Trade Planet has you exiling the top five cards of your deck when it comes into play, tucking them away until your first main phase, where you may then either exile the top card to add to your resources pile, the cards exiled with it, or to discard a card to grab two of the exiled cards into your hand. Discarding your worst card to get two new ones is pretty darn good.
5Wrenn And One
A Fetchable Planeswalker
Here’s the thing about Wrenn and One, it doesn’t look that powerful on paper but with the addition of a few specific ramp spells, you have yourself a planeswalker you can tutor up in a fascinating way. Wrenn and One is a land planeswalker, though they don’t have a basic land type.
You need to get a bit more specific with your land tutors, but with cards likeSylvan Scrying, Crop Rotation, or even an Expedition Map, you’re able to turn those ramp spells into planeswalker tutors. Even though you lose that land drop, Wrenn and One can activate their first ability to give them the ability to tap for one green mana, effectively making them a Forest for the turn.
Can’t Break That Contract
The combination of an enchantment that turns into a planeswalker is already wildly impressive. Enchantment removal is already pretty low for most decks, so getting rid of it is a pain for your opponents, plus it gives you three cards at the cost of just three life when it enters the battlefield.
Then, if you were to lose the game,you get to instead flip Liliana’s Other Contract into a planeswalker, one that makes you into one. With Liliana’s Undead Minion, you then can’t lose the game as a static ability, can make each opponent lose one life turn after turn, and then blow up a creature. While not the most impressive abilities, being able to never lose the game with it out more than makes up for it.
3Runed Terror
A Rules Nightmare
This one is a little less of a broken ability for being too strong, and more broken for what a nightmare it would be to work through. Runed Terror makes it so instead of taking turns like players normally do, each player takes each phase sequentially, kind of making it like everyone gets one big, slow, turn.
So if you’re the active player, and you cast this creature, it would then move from your first main phase, to your opponent’s main phase, making them the active player. Assuming it is just two players, you would move to your combat once your opponent finishes their first main phase. You would do combat however you want, and once you finish, your opponent then gets to move to combat. This would go on forever.
2Snap Judgement
Done In A Snap
Most of Magic’s games are done in a best two-out-of-three match system. The first player who wins two out of the three possible games takes the whole match. Generally, this gives you one game to win, a second to sideboard in or out cards to make your match up better, and a third game to win incase your second one went sideways.
Snap Judgement instead throws that out the window and says the person who wins this game takes the whole match. The cavat to this is that your opponent can concede, or quit, a game at anytime, and if they do so before the spell resolves, then you still have to do to game two. You either have to be confident about winning this game, or think you may bluff your opponent well enough to cast this spell.
1Kozilek, Compleated
Finally, Compleation
Could you imagine, a Phyrexianized Eldrazi? While this nightmare being might only exist in the hypothetical when it comes to Magic’s overarching plot, it doesn’t exist outside the realm of possibility for a playtest card.
For ten mana, eight regular and two phyrexian, you get this 12/12 monstrosity that gives each opponent two poison counters then they have to also discard most of their hand. Plus there’s the incredible keyword of annihinfect, a mash up of annihilator and infect, which forces your opponents to sacrifice permanents for each poison coutner they have. While it starts off as annhilator 2, it quickly ramps up the more posion counters they get.
