Most Magic: The Gathering enthusiasts are well-acquainted with foil cards’ notorious inability to lay flat. Regrettably, a novel foiling technique has introduced another quirk—cards that are never quite sideways when tapped.
“Is this truly surprising?” asked avid MTG player Sophia Martinez. “The real shock is that it caught everyone off guard. Foils once held a special allure. Now, they’re as prevalent as dick pics in my DMs whenever I inadvertently disclose my gender on a Reddit post. The cringe is real every time I draw a foil card I hope it never becomes essential for competitive play. The infuriating reality is, even if it manages to lay flat enough to be considered unmarked, it’s never going to lay quite sideways. Either way the player loses.”
The MTG community swiftly reacted to this new foil conundrum.
“This is undoubtedly a strategy to boost card sales,” asserted Redditor u/MysticMemeMaster. “They understand that a majority of players crave consistency. Have you ever played against someone with different art for every one of their cards, including basics? It’s unsettling. Wizards of the Coast are well aware that players desire uniformity in everything, including how cards turn sideways. They know this change will increase demand for foil cards.”
Contrary to pringled foils, these never-quite-sideways cards are an intentional feature, as Wizards of the Coast game designer Alex Rivera elucidated.
“We’ve been dabbling with minor alterations to the game,” shared Rivera. “While mostly whimsical, we’re branding these new foils as a stylistic choice. We believe perfectly sideways cards are for squares, so these new cards allow players to express their individuality at the table, akin to our illegible Lord of the Rings ‘poster’ cards. It introduces an element of mystery as well. The secret behind their inability to stay sideways? We’ll just say it’s ‘Magic’. See the pun there? The game shares the name, and… well, you get it…”
Whispers are circulating about the next wave of Magic: The Gathering cards, suggesting the introduction of cards that, for some inexplicable reason, don’t really fit into an inner sleeve.