Magic The Gathering Spin-Off Mood Swings Is A Much Deeper Game Than You Think

“This has never happened before, so it’s very exciting,” says Magic the Gathering head designer Mark Rosewater as we start a new round of his upcoming trading card game, Mood Swings. Despite the trading card game being designed to be easy to pick up--as well as Rosewater having played thousands matches over its nearly 30 years of development--he is about to pull off a very specific sequence of moves for the first time.

On its face, Mood Swings delivers on its promise of being incredibly straightforward. In its primary format, two players (although it can be played with more) each form a hand of five cards from a single 45-card deck. Each card is named after an emotion, has an associated value, and a unique effect, with only one-card-per-person played each round. After every participant completes their turns, whichever person has the highest total value of cards on the table wins the round, and winning three rounds secures victory. Cards in play carry over between rounds, with the winner of the previous round going first, and the loser drawing a new card (more often than not, going second is advantageous.)

It’s the final round, with myself and Rosewater tied at 2 rounds a piece. As he begins to explain the series of moves that he wants to pull off, he comes to realize that it’s not actually going to go the way he thought. You see, Rosewater already has Vanity in play, which has a starting value of zero, but increases by one for every card (mood) he has on the board, including itself. However, if his hand is empty, Vanity instead boosts itself by three for every mood he has in play.