Magic: The Gathering Head Designer Claims Recent Mistakes Are Cards Designed At Pandemic's Start
Magic players might have noticed something a little off in recent Magic: The Gathering expansions. It used to be that card errors were extremely rare (and often resulted in that card becoming extremely valuable), but now it seems like mistakes are becoming increasingly common.
As noted by wildcardgamez in an email to head Magic designer Mark Rosewater, there’s been a lot of errors in recent Magic sets. Sheoldred and Jin-Gitaxias are both missing their Phyrexian watermarks, Karn is missing his token, some lands have the wrong nameplate, Ajani’s Phyrexian text has the wrong font for its numbers, and there have been various artists mistakenly credited on cards.
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"I can understand some issues with cards not being centered but it kind of feels like it's being rushed through design," wrote wildcardgamez.
Rosewater responded on his Tumblr that all these errors are thanks to these recent sets being designed during the pandemic, with quality control being hit as Wizards of the Coast swapped to work-from-home.
"We’re starting to see the effects of the pandemic," Rosewater said. "Everyone having to all of a sudden work at home caused lots and lots of new challenges."
Not every company has been able to embrace remote work. Obviously, Wizards of the Coast has experienced some problems, but other game developers like Bungie and BioWare have been able to make work-from-home the new normal. It might just take Wizards of the Coast a little longer to fully adapt if they haven't already. So far, fans haven't noticed any issues in the recently revealed Warhammer 40K Commander decks, so we'll take that as a good sign.
In other Magic news, Commander's Advisory
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