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Welcome back one and all! It is another Wednesday, my dudes, and while I still have one more article to publish after this in 2019, with the year coming to a close I wanted to discuss some of the biggest mistakes in card design that have taken place this year. What better way to end the year than taking a look back at all the nonsense we've dealt with!
I actually hadn't realized there were so many of them until I began writing this list, to be honest, and I just kept finding more and more cards to add. So join me, reminisce, and let's revisit some recent monsters in no particular order!
Veil of Summer
Punishment: Banned in Standard and Pioneer
Boy, talk about cards that should have never been printed. This card just gives Green access to something it shouldn't have. That's kind of the bottom line. Cards like this and Oko we've talked about at length, what with their bannings in both Standard and Pioneer. While the card is still legal in Modern (wow, what a victory), that format is also doing a lot more degenerate things, so we kind of have other things to worry about there. Cryptic Command at 4 mana is often too strong for formats like Standard, and even Pioneer. Printing it at 1 mana is just a mistake.
Oko, Thief of Crowns
Punishment: Banned in Standard, Brawl, and Pioneer
Banned in only one format (well, okay, two now after the Pioneer banning announcement), but miserable in far more, unfortunately. I actually played against this guy earlier this week in the Magic Online Vintage Cube, and as soon as my opponent cast him, the entire chat let out a collective groan. It just doesn't feel like a planeswalker; it feels more like an enchantment that you can't Disenchant. Oko just gets too high, too quickly, and has multiple tools to prevent you from doing any serious damage to it. It was a bad design, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it banned in other formats in the future. (Spoiler: I was not surprised to see it banned in Pioneer.)
Teferi, Time Raveler
Punishment: None!
Oh, this card. This is the card that, when Oko was banned, everyone feared would rear his ugly head and rise to the top of the metagame again. While that didn't exactly happen, this card just isn't fun. It shuts off a good portion of one of Magic's three major archetypes (control), and it shuts off the versatility of an entire card type (instants).
The main comparison people seem to make when this card is present is that it turns Magic into Hearthstone; not in any derogatory way, just in that it removes a player's ability to play anything on turns other than their own. It's kind of a ridiculous ability, on a three-mana planeswalker, that you don't even have to activate to use. I'm not sure what they were thinking when they designed this card, but it isn't enjoyable, and it feels more akin to a card like Blood Moon or Ensnaring Bridge - cards that you need answers for, lest they invalidate your deck - than something from this era of card design.
Narset, Parter of Veils
Punishment: Restricted in Vintage
I file Narset in the same category as Teferi: three-mana planeswalkers with static abilities that negatively impact basic game mechanics. While drawing cards isn't as ubiquitous of a game concept as instants are, drawing extra cards still happens in a very high percentage of games. The fact that the card is seeing Vintage play, and was subsequently restricted in the format, should tell you all you need to know. Think about some of the cards that are restricted in Vintage. Yeah, Narset is up there with them. The fact that she also happens to "draw" you two cards is just adding insult to injury really.
The past three cards on this list made Standard a format where you simply had to have an answer for a three-mana planeswalker, because even if some of them could no longer be activated, like in the case of Narset, they were still adversely affecting the game.
Wrenn and Six
Punishment: Banned in Legacy
This card doesn't even make sense. Not really. It just feels like an attempt to redeem Tibalt and prove there can be a good two-mana planeswalker. Well, they were right! Wrenn and Six is extremely powerful in any format with one-toughness creatures and fetch lands (or, god forbid, Wastelands). Thankfully Wrenn and Six can no longer Wasteland lock anyone in Legacy, as the card was recently banned. While Wrenn and Six wasn't the first card from the "pushed" Modern Horizons set to be banned in a format, I'm pretty certain it is unlikely to be the last.
Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
Punishment: Banned in Modern
I don't even know what they were thinking with this card. I guess it's at least legendary, so you can't overload the board with multiples? And I guess at least you can't spend mana to cast it? All those restrictions aside, this card was just putting too many cards into the graveyard with Altar of Dementia. The Hogaak era seemed like a lifetime ago now, so I'm actually wondering if this card would have been just fine if they didn't also randomly add Altar of Dementia to Modern Horizons. I mean, probably not, but it seems like you'd have a harder time getting those eight cards into the graveyard.
Hogaak made an already powerful player in the metagame (Dredge) nearly unbeatable, which is one of my biggest issues with Modern Horizons: the set's decision to make archetypes that are already powerful, even more so.
Arcum's Astrolabe
Punishment: Banned in Pauper
It's funny. This was the one card on the list I was going to mention hadn't been banned yet (other than Teferi, I suppose); but that's not true. It is banned. In Pauper. While still being legal in Modern, Arcum's Astrolabe is likely the least inherently powerful card on this list. It just does so much, without really doing anything (something else I talked about, actually). The best parts about it are that it draws you a card, it's an artifact, and it fixes your mana. You can tap it with Urza, Lord High Artificer. You can cast your colored spells. You can turn on metalcraft. You... okay, you get the point.
The thing about Astrolabe is that it helps us realize that we don't solely have to take into consideration what a card does, but what a card is. In this case, it's a cheap artifact that enables other cheap artifacts and strategies around those cheap artifacts.
Field of the Dead
Punishment: Banned in Standard and Pioneer
Another card banned in both Standard and Pioneer, this card that was printed for Commander players was just too good in formats with too few ways to deal with it. Now it looks like the card is bleeding into Modern, albeit in small numbers. This card was one of the more recent culprits, just like Oko and Veil of Summer, so I don't think I need to say too much about it. Just know that there are only a handful of cards on this list that were banned in multiple formats, and Field of the Dead is one of them.
Once Upon a Time
Punishment: Banned in Standard and Pioneer
Once Upon a Time is another one to be banned in multiple formats. I'm genuinely not sure how many times Wizards has to print free cards before they realize it's a bad idea. In all seriousness, when does it go right? Gitaxian Probe? Once Upon a Time? Palinchron? I'm sure there are more, but honestly, we all know free spells always end up being a mistake. Every time. The payoff rarely, if ever, justifies the risk. Even when you have a free ability, like cycling a Street Wraith, it ends up being incredibly powerful. Once Upon a Time was just making decks too consistent, and if there was a combo piece or accelerant that you may have needed to find? Yeesh!
Despite going over all these cards, I even wanted to include Nexus of Fate - which was JUST THIS WEEK BANNED IN PIONEER - before realizing it was actually printed last year. We'll give it an honorable mention considering how much misery it supplied in 2019, along with being banned. Realistically, I may have even missed some offenders, but I assume with a list this long and a year so tumultuous, you won't begrudge me overlooking something.
I'd love to hear what cards you might think were mistakes, so be sure to let me know in the comments below! As always, I love you guys and thank you so much for reading. Have an amazing holiday, use promo code FRANK5, and I'll catch you next week!
Frank Lepore
