The Nonsense Files: Designing Mystery Booster 2 for Draft

We return to you with the next piece of The Nonsense Files! Eric Engelhard has chronicled the strange and fascinating process that was the creation of Mystery Booster 2. Fans have gotten to experience the mystery in their own hands with Festival in a Box: Las Vegas 2024 and at MagicCon: Las Vegas. You, too, can check out Mystery Booster 2 at upcoming Magic events like MagicCon: Chicago on February 21–23, 2025. Badges go on sale on December 9, 2024, so get ready to experience the excitement of Mystery Booster 2 and more!

Looking for more information about this set? You can explore the Mystery Booster 2 Card Image Gallery and prepare for MagicCon: Chicago at MTGFestivals.com. For now, enjoy this glimpse into the creation of one of Magic's strangest sets.

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"I need you to pick 1,700 cards from throughout Magic's history to reprint. Make them as weird and unexpected as possible while also fitting into a realistic mana curve, keeping a reasonable creature and removal count, and everything else a Limited format could need. Do you think you could have an initial list ready in a month or so?"
—Gavin Verhey, September 1, 2022

That was the daunting task Gavin had laid in front of me. Imagine being given the literal keys to the Magic kingdom, free to reprint almost any Magic card in existence for the chaos draft experience of Mystery Booster 2. What would you do with that amazing chance? Well, we can't wait to share with you what we did with it.

As I mentioned last time, I've been playing Magic since 1993. I believe I've drafted every official Draft format Magic has ever had, starting with triple Mirage. My experience with the entire 30-year history of Magic was going to be my secret weapon for making Mystery Booster 2 work!

How did we approach this enormous task? Gavin set up the structure, and then together, we set some goals. Each booster would have fourteen slots that I was primarily responsible for, each with its own 121-card sheet to fill.

First, ten monocolor slots, with two slots for a common or uncommon in each of the five colors. We decided not to differentiate between commons and uncommons.

Adam Prosak, fellow senior designer, maintains the "Limited Set Grid," which is a guide to starting a new Limited environment's design. Here's what the white section looks like in the version we used:

Common – 15 Total	Example Card	Uncommon – 16 Total	Example Card
Creature – 1 MV	Cliffside Lookout	Creature – 1 MV	Elite Vanguard
Creature – 2 MV	Concordia Pegasus	Creature – 2 MV	Fencing Ace
Creature – 2 MV	Mesa Unicorn	Creature – 2 MV	Ajani's Pridemate
Creature – 2 MV	Raise the Alarm	Creature – 2 MV	Resolute Reinforcements
Creature – 2 or 3 MV	Alpine Watchdog	Creature – 3 MV	Mischievous Pup
Creature – 3 MV	Makeshift Battalion	Creature – 3 MV	Aerial Responder
Creature – 3 MV	Master of Diversion	Creature – 3 MV	Mouse Trapper
Creature – 4 MV	Assault Griffin	Creature – 4 MV	Master Splicer
Creature – 4 MV	Gavony Silversmith	Creature – 4 MV	Falconer Adept
Creature – 5 or 6 MV	Soaring Sandwing	Creature – 5 MV	Serra Angel
Noncreature – Small Removal	Gideon's Reproach	Creature – 6 MV	Sentinel of the Eternal Watch
Noncreature – Catch-all Removal	Banishing Light	Noncreature	Helping Hand
Noncreature – Combat Trick, +2/+2 or less	Mighty Leap	Noncreature, Removal	Ossification
Noncreature – Positive Aura or Equipment	Dub	Noncreature	Dauntless Onslaught
Noncreature – Destroy artifact/enchantment or lifegain	Disenchant	Noncreature	Repel Calamity
		Noncreature, Buff	Plate Armor

This was my guide in trying to create a chaos draft environment with everything players needed. However, the standard Limited Set Grid is designed for a much smaller, less chaotic set, meaning we would need to make some adjustments. For example, we needed 242 white commons and uncommons for Mystery Booster 2. Since this set grid assumes 31 cards, we needed about eight times what was listed here.

First, we combined the quantities of commons and uncommons, so we needed two times eight, or about sixteen one-drop creatures. Then, we did a search for all mono-white common and uncommon one-drops, of which there were around 200. I scrolled through the list, thought about each one in Limited, and chose the coolest ones, with a special preference for retro frame cards. The set ended up with about nineteen mono-white one-drops. Note that, in design, we count anything that makes a creature token or can activate to become one as a creature. Then, on to the white two-drops, of which we wanted about 50. We also needed like fifteen Pacifism or Oblivion Ring effects! Plus, fifteen or twenty white combat tricks! There's a wide variance in what you'll actually see, but we assure you, answers for everything and threats at every spot on the curve are in the set … somewhere!

After going through giant card searches like these several times and creating the initial list, we kept iterating to hit other goals and address feedback. We always kept the Limited mana curve in mind and swapped cards for other cards of the same mana value when possible. We did continual tests to weed out less functional cards and checked every common and uncommon not in the set to see if we missed anything fun or interesting, especially retro frame cards. More on that later!

Next, there was one multicolor, artifact, or land slot. We jammed all of these commons and uncommons onto one sheet. Our artifacts and lands lean heavily into mana fixing as we wanted players to play with as many weird cards as possible. Each two-color pair got five cards and a two-color land, each from a different cycle. There are also five tri-lands that we didn't print in the original Mystery Booster (MB1).

Then, the first rare or mythic rare slot. This contains a rare or mythic rare card from Magic 2015 or later. This was because we introduced a holofoil stamp at the bottom of all rares and mythic rares in Magic 2015. Mixing cards with and without those stamps isn't practical, so all the cards in this slot are more recent. But don't worry, there's still plenty of real oddballs to be found here. Conspiracies, anyone?

These first twelve slots were printed as "pickup" sheets, where each card would be printed exactly as each card was originally produced, though we found some interesting edge cases, as you'll see.

Now, the real weirdness starts with the one white-border slot. This let us reprint white-border cards in a booster product for the first time in nineteen years! We were a bit unsure of white-border cards' appeal, but it was a great fit for this product and the feelings we wanted players to experience. To make sure these cards would have their fans, we ended up aiming for a lot of different categories:

• Meme cards
• "Tilt" cards
• Sideboard and one-of tutor target cards
• A few lands that see play in Legacy and Vintage, to match those white-border dual lands
• Mono-white cards, which look good with the border. We balanced this out by having less mono-white on the Future Sight sheet.
• Staple effects that may have been printed in a white-border core set if they had continued
• Rares and mythic rares we liked from before 2015

We also had one special rule for this slot: "No cards with an existing white-border printing." We might only ever get to do this once and didn't want to waste space.

Then, we had one Future Sight–frame slot. This let us reprint cards in the Future Sight frame! Many players were fond of this frame that we'd premiered way back in 2007. No other Magic frame says "expect the unexpected" like this frame does. We decided this would be our most collectible sheet where we put some of the coolest reprints with some of our favorite artwork. For this sheet, and this sheet only, there was also a traditional foil version of the sheet, though not every card got a traditional foil version. Here were some of our priorities, in no particular order:

• Cool art that had rarely or never been printed
• Cards that were difficult to reprint in other products for various reasons
• Cards with circular artwork that complements the frame
• Staple cards that players would enjoy in this frame
• Cards that had never been available in foil before
• Cards that were unique or at least the first in their kind of effect
• Rares or mythic rares we liked from before 2015

This slot also had some additional restrictions—the Future Sight frame couldn't handle planeswalkers, level up cards, cards with an Adventure, and more. Basically, anything that had its own special frame wouldn't work here.

Overall Goals

1) As much as possible, we avoided reprinting cards from original Mystery Booster, even the Mystery Booster retail edition foil sheet. We wanted Mystery Booster 2 to feel like a completely different experience. We ended up with less than 50 reprints from the first Mystery Booster, and almost all of them are on the white border or Future Sight sheets, and every single one looks different than its MB1 version.

2) We wanted as many retro frame cards as possible in each pack. Unlike in the first Mystery Booster, we weren't limited to one retro frame card per pack, so we took full advantage of that! Retro frame cards played into players' nostalgia for past Limited formats, and they really stood out next to modern cards. At one point, we hit an average of four retro frame cards per pack, but as we trimmed some weaker ones, it dropped to about three and a half. We decided that still accomplished the goal.

3) We tried to get as many different set symbols as possible in Mystery Booster 2. Like, every possible one Magic has ever done in paper, along with a few that were previously exclusive to digital! Assembling the list of every set symbol Magic had ever done in every obscure product was quite the task by itself. We are close to 200 different set symbols in this set. See if you can count them all!

4) No cycles. This is one where Gavin's experience was really helpful. Early on, we explored having 100 Slivers in the set, or a few other loose, large themes, but Gavin steered us away. The essence of chaos is important here, and there shouldn't be "a deck" anyone can reliably draft. The only "cycle" we included was all five Snow-Covered basic lands, as it seemed fitting to finally have them all in white border.

As an aside, this does lead to one of my only regrets for the set. Late in the product's development, we added Snow-Covered Wastes, and I got to choose which artwork. The full-art one looked wackier and we thought it fit Mystery Booster 2's theme. But, after seeing the other Snow-Covered lands laid out in the white border, with the cool snowy mana symbol, as a collector, I kind of wish we'd gone the other way.

5) Magic's Eternal formats—Legacy, Vintage, and Pauper—were given special consideration here. Magic's premier sets do a great job of covering other formats, but these three Eternal formats don't often get the spotlight. As an occasional player of these formats (as well as judging the Legacy and Vintage Championships from 2004 to 2008), I wanted to make sure we had some of the format staples covered. Also, Vintage and Legacy are the formats where you're most likely to find existing white-border cards being played, so we added some more! Gavin gave me a list of Pauper cards to try and work in, and we think we got all of them except Dust to Dust. In a set where only a third of one slot is artifacts, it was too much of a blank.

6) We aimed for two rares per pack on average, like our Double Masters sets. One came from the rare or mythic rare sheet, and the other was split between the white-border and Future Sight sheets. The white-border sheet has 70 commons or uncommons as well as 51 rares or mythic rares, and the Future Sight sheet has the opposite, with 51 commons or uncommons and 70 rares or mythic rares. We decided that, generally, we would use the original rarity in which cards were printed. This let us keep a handful of cards at uncommon that we would print at rare under modern sensibilities. Every non-foil card in Mystery Booster 2 is equally rare, so it was more of an aesthetic choice, and Wasteland at uncommon felt wackier, and we always made the wackier choice when we could.

There were some exceptions to "print at original rarity." If a card was only printed at rare and mythic rare, we generally let it be a mythic rare. If a card was only printed at common and uncommon, we let it be common to make Pauper legality easier.

The Art of Mystery Booster 2

You may notice that, unlike most Magic sets where we commission hundreds of art pieces, we only had new artwork for Gavin's playtest cards and a few others. Part of Mystery Booster's appeal was the nostalgia factor, and we wanted to preserve that … for the first thirteen sheets. For the Future Sight sheet, we wanted to surprise players with something they'd never seen before. This would amplify the chaos draft feel, so we went looking.

Our first source of new artwork was Magic Online and MTG Arena. Both had a solid amount of artwork that had never been printed in paper, and after going through all of it, we ended up with about fifteen pieces where we liked both the art and the cards.

The second source of new artwork was super exciting to me personally. For decades, I'd heard of the legendary "slush art" file that has been growing since the early 1990s. This is a collection of several hundred pieces of Magic art that, for one reason or another, ended up not being used in the set they were commissioned for. These pieces were no longer associated with a specific card. Not only were we given the ability to reprint almost any card, but if we could find a good slush art piece, there were even more! Here's what we ended up with:

• Arena, Tsabo's Web – These artworks were commissioned for these specific cards, but never used for various reasons. The cards were weird and cool, so they were easy inclusions.

• Reset – I have played too much Reset/High Tide in Legacy, so I really wanted to find a piece of art for this. We settled on this whirlpool art that was originally for a bounce spell. We think it tells the story of "resetting" pretty well and makes way more sense than the original art!

• Demonic Consultation – Another classic card I'd played with a bunch. The moment we saw this demonic bunny being summoned, we knew we'd hit the jackpot for this card. It was originally an Unearth-style effect, but it seemed perfectly suited to use here.

• Eater of the Dead – This was not a card we were actively looking to reprint, but I saw this artwork in the slush file and did a double take. It shares a lot of characteristics with the original art that had made a big impression on me 27 years ago. It had wings without flying, forward-facing horns, an open mouth of teeth, protruding spikes, and everything. It was even set in a crypt! It wasn't commissioned for this but looks like it was, which was perfect.

• Mind Twist – Unlike Eater of the Dead, Mind Twist was on the reprint list. This piece sure looked like you were twisting someone's mind. While it isn't the most fun card in Limited, Mystery Booster 2 gets a few of those because each card only shows up once every five drafts. I do feel for those who have to face it with X equaling three or four, much like we did all the time back in 1993.

• Nalathni Dragon – Magic's original promo card. This bizarro card set Magic on the path of making promo cards be reprints. If not for the uproar over its limited availability when released only to convention attendees, Magic might have had a lot more unique promos scattered throughout its lifetime. We looked through every art of a dragon available and settled on this as it is less "terrifying volcano dragon" and more "Eh, I could see us hanging out and forming a band together." Personally, I just pretend the barely visible animal in its mouth is toy sized.

• Manabond – This was definitely the oldest piece we used, as it was commissioned eighteen years ago for a long-forgotten blue spell from Lorwyn.

• Urza's Bauble – Gavin asked if we could find a spot for this card. We scoured the slush art file but couldn't find anything fitting. We revisited it a few months later and stumbled upon some recent token artwork that had been added to slush. Originally commissioned to be a Powerstone token for The Brothers' War, this artwork was already Urza related and bauble-ish!

• There are several other cards we tried to find new art for but didn't find anything fitting. We saved those cards for future sets where, if we do find a spot to reprint them, they can get all-new artwork.

While all of these Future Sight cards are close to our hearts, there is one card that may be particularly befuddling to everyone but me. That card is Lifetap.

Why did we put it there? Was it a nod to Magic's first bonus sheet back in Time Spiral block (Future Sight's home turf) putting a Squire-like card onto the sheet? Was it an attempt to find a crazy, color pie–breaking card to reprint? Was it an attempt to get a printing out there with the proper rules text? Was it because it has amazing art from one of the original artists of my favorite comic?

It was for all of those reasons, but in the end, it just brought a smile to my face to do so. If you had the power to reprint any Magic card, I bet you would do the same.

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Anyway, those are some of the many stories from making Mystery Booster 2. There's more! But it's probably time to get back to my regular job: making Magic cards.

I want to offer my thanks to the Mystery Booster 2 team: partner-in-crime Gavin Verhey, architect Zakeel, fearless editor Michael Z (we put him through a lot), always-open-to-nonsense archivist Jefferson, and many more in and out of the studio who contributed in all sorts of ways.

Here was our philosophy while making Mystery Booster 2: every pack has a memory—every pack has something surprising. It's a celebration of the entire 30-year history of Magic, and I hope you get that feeling while playing it. See you at MagicCon: Chicago!