Though many people take the game with deadly seriousness, Magic: The Gathering can be pretty funny, especially when it comes to its silver-bordered and acorn-stamped cards. Hailing from joke sets like Unhinged and Unstable, these cards let Wizards of the Coast show its goofy side, all while testing out interesting, often game-breaking mechanics.
You won't be able to play most of these cards in a competitive format, so if you're looking in that direction, they're pretty much just a novelty. But, if you and your friends are out to add some chaotic fun to your Magic games, these ridiculous cards are a great place to start.
10 Extremely Slow Zombie
It's been a while since most fictional zombies evolved from their shambling roots to the sprinting terror-fuel of The Last of Us and Left 4 Dead, but the Extremely Slow Zombie is here to set the record straight. Hearkening back to Dawn of the Dead, the ESZ has an ability called last strike, which is exactly what it sounds like: If it fights another creature, it goes last.
It's not the card itself that makes this card go from a funny pop culture reference to a genuine gut buster, though. There are four different versions of the Extremely Slow Zombie, each one in a slightly different pose, and a different season. In Summer, there's a robin nesting in its mouth. In Winter, someone gave him a Santa hat. Cute!
9 Cheap Ass
There are a lot of asses in the Unhinged set, and by that, we mean there are a ton of donkey townsfolk that Wizards decided to include for some cheap laughs. Most of them are hit or miss, but the Cheap Ass' bargain basement vibes puts it over the top.
While its name and grandmotherly attire might make for a good initial gag, it's the special effect that makes you chuckle. Half a mana, eh? The last time we checked, that was good for literally nothing. It's like that time your grandma, forgetting about inflation, gave you fifty cents towards a new Lego set that cost twenty-five dollars. Thanks, Gram! Fifty more of these and I'll build that X-Wing in no time.
8 OMRSTPLRLCNSWMTCTHTALCNEE
Magic: The Gathering isn't all swords and sorcery. Sometimes, it's more like corporate politics. Especially in the Un-Sets, Wizards of the Coast peels back the cover to reveal the magic of what goes into Magic and it seems, just like any other job, there's a lot of petty squabbling.
Our Market Research Shows That Players Like Really Long Card Names So We Made this Card to Have the Absolute Longest Card Name Ever Elemental, also known as the OMRSTPLRLCNSWMTCTHTALCNEE for short, is the pinnacle of interdepartmental shenanigans. You bet Greg never told the R&D department what to do again after this one!
7 Very Cryptic Command
If you don't play Magic, overhearing a conversation between two players is like stumbling across a group of lawyers speaking in a foreign language. Convoking three creatures so that your undead Hellhound has fateful hour? And you're going to kick it twice before attacking? Leave that dog alone, please.
Wizards knows that its cards can get a little obtuse, though, and this Unstable parody of Cryptic Command is a perfect example of that self-awareness. There are several versions of the card, each of which lets you choose from several unrelated effects, like flipping one of your opponent's cards over. Some could be useful, but most effects just end up being confusing.
6 AWOL
Anyone who plays Magic knows that your graveyard isn't the end. Some decks even use the graveyard to your advantage, letting you play powerful cards out of it after they've been discarded. It's the exile zone that's the real graveyard. Except for certain instances, anything going into the Exile zone isn't coming out. It's out of the game. Period.
Not really. As time goes by and Wizards releases new sets, more cards get released that screw around with the Exile mechanic, making imprisonment less than permanent. Instead of introducing a balancing mechanic, AWOL creates a third tier of removal, “the absolutely-removed-from-the-freaking-game-forever zone.” Let's be honest, though. They'll change that too.
5 Slaying Mantis
Though not everyone takes it this way, Pro Wrestling is inherently funny. It's a soap opera full of big beefy dudes being big and beefy, a self-parody that mocks toxic masculinity while perpetuating it. And if one of the wrestlers happens to be a giant mantis in a Luchador mask? So much the better.
While it's fun to take the card's rules seriously and throw it from a distance of at least three feet, it's even funnier to imagine it elbow-dropping a parade of your opponent's powerful cards. Just don't try to remove its mask, or you're in for a world of pain.
4 Strategy, Schmategy
Sure, you could spend your time meticulously crafting a Magic deck, spending hundreds of hours and dollars to create an intricate masterpiece, but that's boring. You've got things to do, like talking to other people and not making Magic decks. Why not just throw some chaos in there and be done with it?
If you're into that kind of play style Strategy, Schmategy is right up your alley. As an agent of absolute chaos, it turns any round into a crap shoot, destroying artifacts, lands, or hands in the process. This isn't a card to play to win. Instead, it's there for anyone who wants to revel in unmitigated destruction while others are trying to play seriously.
3 Ambiguity
Like Very Cryptic Command, Ambiguity makes fun of the twisted terminology that Magic: The Gathering players have to deal with regularly. Unlike Very Cryptic Command, it's actually very difficult to decipher.
According to our sources, what Ambiguity as a spell probably means: if anyone counters a spell or plays a spell that comes into play with a counter on it, there are two possible effects. The caster can either counter another spell or place an additional counter on another card. And even that's confusing. It may be difficult to wrap your head around, but it's pretty hilarious thinking about a rules lawyer arguing over this card's semantics like a theologian writing an exegesis on the book of Job.
2 Mine, Mine, Mine!
Playing Magic is all about using the rules to your advantage. If you're able to make a deck where the cards work together well, you're going to do much better than someone who organizes one around a theme. And, while each new set adds new rules that shake up deck viability, rarely, a card comes along that changes the rules entirely.
Enter Mine, Mine, Mine! A card from Unglued that forgoes conventional rules and forces you and your opponent to play with your entire library in your hand. It also makes it so that you can only play one spell per turn. The card is less funny by itself than some others, but it's hilarious to play, as it takes any strategy your opponent might have had, looks it up and down, and says “Nah.”
1 Alexander Clamilton
If you missed the smash hit hip-hop musical loosely based on the life of one of the US founding fathers, don't worry. You can replicate it in Magic: The Gathering. Except here, instead of being a gifted wordsmith who never throws away his shot, he's a gifted wordsmith who is also a clam.
Aside from being a pretty spot-on pun, Alexander Clamilton's special abilities also pay tribute to Lin-Manuel Maranda's boundary-breaking play. Against an opponent with a lot of rules text, aka one who can spin some sick beats, Clamilton does well. Against someone who can't spit flows, though, Clamilton cannot compete. You win this round, Aaron Burrvalve.