Phyrexian Language Cards Proving To Be "A Mistake" For ONE Draft

Draft Boosters are designed specifically for players to draft with and are balanced in a number of ways to ensure fun games of limited. However, in an attempt to ensure drafters "still have access to the cool variants,” WOTC included "Phryrexain Language" cards (which are written completely in the fantasy language) in regular draft boosters.

While the thought of giving players something spicy to open up even in the simplest of ONE packs is nice, the plan seems to have backfired as having cards that players can't easily read in a draft setting has proven problematic. Mark Rosewater has agreed with fans/critics that another variation of card(s) should have been added to draft boosters and that language cards are best saved for elsewhere.

Here's some of the conversation from Rosewater's blog.

While having to stop in the middle of drafting and google a card might not be the end of the world, it certainly slows gameplay down and makes drafting your deck harder. Even if you recognize the card to some degree, you're not likely to know every ability of a new planeswalker like the back of your hand.

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So, they had good intentions but adding unreadable cards to standard Draft Boosters is a pretty big oversight. While I can't find the exact blog section where he replied, Mark Rosewater is reported to have said "Putting the Phyrexian language cards in draft boosters was probably a mistake. We’ve gotten plenty of complaints about it.” when asked about it on his blog.

Here's a look at a few of the cards people are referring to if you haven't seen them.

Examples

 They do look sweet, but they are also very much not in English, or any other readable language for that matter. Much in line with some of the people from the blog, I think they are exciting cards that are very bad for Draft Boosters specifically.

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Conclusion

Overall, I don't think these cards are making or breaking anyone's draft experience, I can certainly imagine they confuse some players and slow the draft down while players figure things out. I doubt these are showing up at a super high rate but still - If you're going to go draft ONE, it might be a good idea to take a glance at what the Phyrexian text cards are/do and take a few screenshots. Until next time, get out there and play some MTG.