The most frequently broken playtest cards in Mystery Booster 2

Who doesn’t love a little chaos in their Magic: The Gathering games? The Mystery Booster 2 set lets you take the concept of chaos drafts to whole new worlds. Much of the appeal of using Mystery Booster 2 packs in your draft is that the packs contain some absolutely wild cards.

Many of the test cards push the boundaries of what’s possible with Magic’s game mechanics, either by adapting established game mechanics or introducing entirely new ones. Some of these test cards push the boundaries of Magic’s rules, but are still limited by them. We’ve taken a look at these unique cards to find out which ones are the most game-breaking.

10 Do not worry

Just a little card trick

Auras have done some crazy things in Magic over the years. You can enchant graveyards, players, decks, and even the world. The test card Don’t Worry About It lets you enchant a card in your hand, though it’s a bit of a pain to track this type of enchantment.

Either way, this enchanted card costs one less generic card to cast, and when you cast it, you get a copy of it. When this enchanted card is cast or leaves your hand for any reason, you must put Don’t Worry About It into your graveyard.

9 Essence of Ajani

A card lasts forever

That’s the thing about Essesce of Ajani, it doesn’t necessarily do anything that’s particularly interesting. Every time you cast a spell, you get to draw a life, which is good since most spells of this type have restrictions, like spells of a certain color.

The beauty of the card is that for the first time, we have an emblem on a real card. Emblems exist in the command zone, outside of a normal game that isn’t in exile, the graveyard, the battlefield, or anywhere else. Things in the command zone are untouchable to your opponents, so being able to play a card that your opponents can’t interact with in any way is an interesting design decision.

8 The Heron Moon

Dark depths, whatever you call them

Since Eldritch Moon 2016, players have been wondering exactly what Magic was planning to do with putting Emrakul, the last surviving Eldrazi Titan, into Innistrad’s Silvermoon, and now we know. Heron Moon is a legendary land that can take your opponent’s cards from the bottom of their deck and exile them.

Whenever one or more of your opponent’s cards are exiled, you can add a release counter to Heron Moon. Once you reach 13 counters, you get a copy of Emrakul, the Promised End, spell trigger and all. Of course, your opponent could counter it since it’s cast, but that doesn’t stop you from making your turn.

7 Wrath of Leknif

A test card with gradient

Untapping lands when casting spells is something that became popular with spells from Urza’s Saga and has rarely been reintroduced since because it’s so overwhelmingly powerful. So a board wipe that prevents regeneration and then also untaps four lands, freeing up your mana for more spells or even counterspells for the next thing your opponent wants to do is a bit much.

This card isn’t exactly original, however, as the Wrath of Leknif gives a clue to its origins. Leknif is Finkel backwards and refers to John Finkel, the winner of the 2000 Magic Invitational. As the winner, Finkel was given the opportunity to design his own Magic card, which would later become Shadowmage Infiltrator. His first idea, however, was this Wrath effect, which still works pretty well today, while Shadowmage Infiltrator has almost been forgotten.

6 Alberix, The Trading Planet

Unlike an airplane

World is a silly supertype that existed in the early days of Magic. There can only be one permanent world on the battlefield at a time, so if you play one and then your opponent plays another, your card gets thrown out. There are only 26 world enchantments in Magic, and the supertype hasn’t been seen since Visions.

With Alberix, the Trade Planet, you banish the top five cards of your deck when it comes into play and tuck them away until your first main phase. There you can then either banish the top card to add it to your resource pile, the cards banished with it, or discard a card to put two of the banished cards into your hand. Discarding your worst card to get two new ones is pretty damn good.

5 Wrenn and one

A retrievable Planeswalker

Here’s the thing about Wrenn and One: it doesn’t look that powerful on paper, but with a few special ramp spells, you have a planeswalker that you can train in fascinating ways. Wrenn and One is a land planeswalker, even though they don’t have a basic land type.

You’ll have to be a little more specific with your land tutors, but with cards like Sylvan Scrying, Crop Rotation, or even an Expedition Map, you can turn those ramp spells into planeswalker tutors. Even if you lose that land drop, Wrenn and One can activate their first ability to give them the opportunity to tap for one green mana, effectively making them a forest for the turn.

4 Liliana’s Other Contract / Liliana’s Undead Servant

The contract cannot be broken

The combination of an enchantment turning into a planeswalker is already incredibly impressive. Enchantment removal is already pretty low in most decks, so getting rid of them is a pain for your opponents. Plus, putting them onto the battlefield gives you three cards for just three life.

Then, when you lose the game, you can instead turn Liliana’s other contract into a planeswalker, making you one. With Liliana’s Undead Servant, you can then not lose the game as a static ability, can make every opponent lose a life turn after turn, and then blow up a creature. While these aren’t the most impressive abilities, the ability to never lose the game without using them more than makes up for it.

3 Rune-encrusted terror

A rule nightmare

This is less of a broken ability because it’s too strong, and more of a broken ability because it would be a nightmare to play through. Runed Terror ensures that players don’t take turns, as they normally do, but instead each player plays through each phase in turn, so it’s like everyone gets one big, slow turn.

So if you are the active player and cast this creature, it would transition from your first main phase into your opponent’s main phase, making them the active player. Assuming there are only two players, you would transition into your combat as soon as your opponent finished their first main phase. You would fight however you want, and when you’re done, your opponent can transition into combat. This would go on forever.

2 Quick judgment

Done in no time

Most games of Magic are played using a best player of three game format. The first player to win two of the three possible games wins the whole game. Generally, you have one game to win, a second game to swap in or out cards to improve your match, and a third game to win if your second game went wrong.

Snap Judgement instead throws that out the window and says that the person who wins this game wins the whole match. The caveat to this is that your opponent can concede or quit a game at any time, and if they do that before the spell resolves, you still have to play the second game. You either have to be confident of winning this game or believe you can bluff your opponent well enough to cast this spell.

1 Kozilek, Completed

Finally Conclusion

Can you imagine a Phyrexian Eldrazi? Even though this nightmare creature is only hypothetical in terms of Magic’s overarching storyline, it’s not outside the realm of possibility for a playtest card.

For ten mana, eight normals, and two Phyrexians, you get this 12/12 monstrosity that gives each opponent two poison counters and then forces them to discard most of their hand. There’s also the incredible “Annihinfect” keyword, a hybrid of “Annihilator” and “Infect” that forces your opponents to sacrifice permanents for each poison counter they have. While it starts as Annihilator 2, it quickly ramps up the more poison counters they get.