MTG Head Designer: Phyrexian Language Cards In ONE Draft Boosters Were "Probably A Mistake"

thegamer.com:

Magic: The Gathering’s Phyrexia: All Will Be One included a huge number of alternate art treatments. One in particular caused some upset, though, as players have been complaining that the Phyrexian-language art style renders cards ‘unreadable’ when playing.

While there was some resistance at first, head designer Mark Rosewater has now described the inclusion of these Phyrexian cards in Draft booster packs as “probably a mistake”.

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Talking on his Blogatog blog, where he answers questions from the community, Rosewater says that he had received “plenty of complaints” about the cards, which replace all the text with the fictional Phyrexian language. He also describes them as “probably a mistake”, but points out that the inclusion of such styles in packs is “more of a gray topic than [he thinks] most players realize”.

While the Phyrexian-language cards have proved popular for collectors, their inclusion in Draft boosters has been criticised. This is because Draft packs are meant to be used to play ‘limited’ formats like Draft and Sealed. With no time to find the accurate translations, having unreadable cards pop up in Draft packs has slowed down many events and put those forced to take the cards are a disadvantage, as they simply can’t tell what they do.

Rosewater has previously defended the decision to include these Phyrexian cards in Draft boosters, saying that “some players only buy Draft boosters, and we want to make sure they still have access to the cool variants”. However, a number of the other art styles in All Will Be One are exclusive to Collectors’ boosters or the upcoming Compleat Edition bundle, such as Step-and-Compleat foils and the