#weird rules

The poll is over! Let’s go through all the different options and see where they appear on cards, what purpose they serve and some more context! I’ll put most of that under a read more to avoid filling up timelines, but for the first one we’ll let it slide.

Search target player's library for twenty cards (24.9%)

The correct solution was the most popular, there are no effects that search someone's library for twenty cards. Sadistic Sacrament does come close when kicked with exiling FIFTEEN cards from a deck, but there are many subtle differences. It doesn't point to the targeted player in that bit of text because it already referenced them before the kicker, and it searches for UP TO fifteen cards, which is important because the search doesn't specify any criteria. Wouldn't want to exile some bad cards once you run out of good cards to remove from the opponent's deck, after all!

Any time you could mulligan (18.4%)

You'd think no cards would be able to mess with mulligans, before people have even decided their hands, but there is ONE card (well, one tournament-legal card) that affects the game that far back. It's a card that occasionally sees play in weird combo decks to up the consistency of whatever thing they're trying to do, and surprisingly it isn't even from Future Sight.

If the player guessed wrong (0.8%)

While most people were able to correctly identify that this effect exists in magic, and while there's a few guessing cards, there is actually a single one with this specific wording, others use "they" or "that player" to refer to the guesser.

Exchange the text boxes of those creatures (5.7%)

I tried to stay away from un-sets for these, even the tournament-legal cards, this one is too unique and I eventually had to include it. It's just a really, really weird effect to exist and be legal, and it sure does strange things that aren't necessarily intuitive in practice.

Zombie God creature token (8.1%)

Vecna may be from D&D, but he appears on a magic card alright... Or at least as a token, which is technically not a card. The full description would have given it away of course, but this one is pretty rare to see in practice.

Initially, for that slot I wanted to put in God Horror for the Atropal created at the end of the Tomb of Annihilation, because technically dungeons are cards unlike emblems and tokens, but that felt mean.

Nonexistent mana costs can't be paid (13.6%)

This one is weird, since it's an oracle-updated reminder text that appears on one, and only one, of the costless cards in the game, and that doesn't actually appear on the cards. It was mostly there to try to catch people trying to "um, actually" this vote while the rules right above the poll do specify reminder text is included. If we're gonna be technical...

Creature spells you cast have offspring (1.9%)

A recent and prominent one, this rules text just reads very weird out of context so I had to include it. It's the one that led to me making this third poll after all!

Roll a d20. Draw cards equal to the result (3.8%)

This is a ridiculous effect to be on a magic card, nevertheless, it is! Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate had a cycle of Ancient Metallic Dragons that had effects on combat damage that scaled to a D20 roll. Blue, of course, got card draw, which is insane when the average roll is at 10.5 cards. So it got costed appropriately. Still, a very fun thing to see around.

Restart the game. (4.1%)

Technically my punctuation was off on this one, so if that's why you clicked it, you get a point! Otherwise, discover the first planeswalker card Karn got, with an utterly unique Ultimate that is unfit for polite commander games. Not that Karn sees much Commander play. Generally if you stick a Karn out long enough to have access to the Ult, you've already won this game and don't need to restart it.

Creatures you control but don't own are Mercenaries (2.4%)

This is not just a very flavorful line of text on Laughing Jasper Flint, but also a functional one, buffing his own effect thanks to all those extra Outlaws!

Reorder your graveyard as you choose. (13.8%)

In the old old days of magic, the order cards were put in the graveyard in actually mattered, with effects that grabbed the top creature of your graveyard, or the bottom card, or various other placements. They quickly realized the design space for this was not worth the nightmare that was keeping a graveyard in order, and stopped doing that, in 1998.

What's notable about this card is not so much that it messes with the order of cards in your graveyard, but more that it was printed to be compatible with those effects, allowing you to easily select a card at random by shuffling your graveyard, then leave it like that. It was printed to be compatible with those effects TEN YEARS AFTER THE LAST ONE WAS PRINTED, in 2008. It doesn't even need that text to be functional with graveyard order, it's just more convenient if you happen to be playing one of the handful of 10+ year old cards that care about graveyard order while also having Fossil Find in your deck. This is ridiculous, and fantastic.

Flip a coin. If you win the flip, take an extra turn (2.4%)