Unbalanced Cycles in MtG
General forum
Posted on Nov. 23, 2025, 5:56 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
The majority of cycles of cards in this games are at least somewhat balanced, but there are some cycles that are rather unbalanced, where one or two cards are noticeably (and often hilariously) over- or underpowered compared to the other cards, so I would like to discuss some of those cycles, in this thread.
One of the very first cycles in the game, the original boon cycle, was hilariously unbalanced, with Ancestral Recall being significantly more powerful than were the other cards in that cycle, Healing Salve being easily the weakest, and the other three members being between them in terms of power; Lightning Bolt remains a staple to this day, but Giant Growth and Dark Ritual
are much more niche cards, today, due to power creep. Since that cycle was one of the first cycles in the game, I believe that players can forgive WotC for not being able to balance the cards in it.
Another unbalanced cycle is the avatar cycle from Prophecy, in which Avatar of Woe is clearly the most powerful, while Avatar of Will is the weakest, with the other three being between them in power.
Another great example is that the majority of the "rhystic" cards are fairly weak, but Rhystic Study is extremely powerful, so I wonder what the designers were thinking when they made those cards.
One of my personal favorites is how the lieges from Eventide (i.e., Balefire Liege, Deathbringer Liege, and so forth) are blatantly superior to the lieges from Shadowmoor (i.e., Ashenmoor Liege, Boartusk Liege, and so forth), and I am very displeased at the disparity between the allied-colored and enemy-colored lieges.
What does everyone else say, about this? What are some of your favorite examples of unbalanced cycles in Magic: the Gathering? I certainly am eager to hear your thoughts, on this matter!
jethstriker says... #3
The original boon cycle was designed by Richard Garfield himself, and he was aware that Ancestral Recall was significantly more powerful than the rest. That's why he put it at rare while the rest are at common. So right from the beginning the creator of the game himself already set the tone that cycles aren't meant to be created equal. What I don't like in cycles is almost always red gets the short end:
The color-aligned legendary lands of Urza's Saga. Tolarian Academy is broken, followed by powerhouses Gaea's Cradle and Serra's Sanctum, followed far down the line is the decent Phyrexian Tower, then at the very bottom is Shivan Gorge.
In more recent times they created another "force" cycle in Modern Horizons. Again blue is on top with Force of Negation, followed by Force of Vigor and Force of Despair. Then once again red is at the bottom with white with Force of Rage and Force of Virtue.
The worst I can remember is they omitted red entirely in a cycle. In Mirage they printed 3 tutors: Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor, and Worldly Tutor. The following set came Vampiric Tutor. Then Weatherlight came and there was no red tutor on it. I just personally imagine that Gamble is the unofficial red member of the tutor cycle to clear my mind on this.
wallisface says... #2
Wotc is under no requirement to make cycles like these balanced. They need to make cards with constructed archetypes in mind, as well as drafting potential, and giving a certain small percentage of cards viability in the non-rotating formats.
There’s soo many more factors at play for a set than whether one particular cycle balances-out (which, it never will across all formats anyway), i imagine trying to balance these is mot even a consideration for Wotc - they’ll be investing all their testing effort into trying to roughly balance the set archtypes, set power, and colours overall.
November 23, 2025 6:06 p.m.