Magic: The Gathering players were quick to notice a wording change on an upcoming card from Bloomburrow during Friday’s preview panel that offered first looks at four future sets.
Mabel, Heir to Cragflame trims the regularly used phrase “enters the battlefield” to simply “enters.”
Mark Rosewater, Head Designer for Magic, fielded a question on his blog, confirming that the templating change starts in Bloomburrow.
Rosewater notes that the change will be applied retroactively to cards in Oracle and “enters” will only be applied for when cards enter the battlefield (card’s won’t enter the graveyard or other zones). He also points out that “leaves the battlefield” will not be shortened to “leaves” because cards do regularly leave the graveyard.
While this change won’t take place until late Quarter 3 of 2024 with the release of Bloomburrow, the shortened form of “enters” has been used since the debut of sagas in Dominaria, dating back to 2018.
Sagas have continued using “enters” up through the latest saga — the back half of Huatli, Poet of Unity/Roar of the Fifth People from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. Notably, similarly formatted cards like cases from Murders at Karlov Manor and the sagas with read ahead from Dominaria United do not use “enters.”
Shortening “enters the battlefield” will allow for more space on cards for other words, particularly in the case where a text box will reference something entering the battlefield more than once. A previous example of trimming common phrases on cards occured when “shuffle your library” was changed to “shuffle” in Strixhaven: School of Mages.
