Button Shy - Mysticana: Wild Magic

The wild magical energy permeating the world calls to each spellcaster differently, inspiring countless unique branches of arcane tradition. Each style's adherents seek to prove their chosen methods superior both for casting ability and for managing the unpredictable surges of magical power.

Wild Magic is an expansion to the Mysticana deck for 1-2 players. The players compete to have the strongest collection of magical energy, denoted by cards they’ve captured from the shared Aether. Each turn, the active player adds one card from their hand to the Aether. This determines which cards they may capture. Newly added cards capture anything of the same rank as well as anything which is the same element and exactly one rank lower. A 7 also captures the lowest card of the weaker element. At the end of play, each player checks for any Backfires: if a player has exactly 2 cards of the same rank, the weaker element is flipped down and provides a penalty. Next, the two players compare their total score across each of the 3 elements; the player with the higher total rank in each element wins that element, and the player who scores the most elements wins the game. Optional Discipline cards add strategy-shaping special abilities for each player.


Mysticana is a Foundation Deck: an 18-card deck that includes multiple core games using just the base cards with even more games added through small expansions. The deck features cards with 6 ranks across 3 suits (elements) which have a “rock-paper-scissors” hierarchy. While each game might make use of the deck’s design in different ways, the flexible foundation enables new games to fit in seamlessly alongside previous entries.