Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1352: All the Mood Swings Cards, Part 4

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

This episode is part four of a five-part series. In it, I go through every single Mood Swings card, in collectible number order, and talk about how they were designed, including many of the changes they went through and some strategic tips on how to play them. Note: This is a bonus episode for this week.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for their drive to work. Okay, so I've been doing a series of podcast where I talk about all the mood swings cards. And last we talked, I talked about pity. So we are up to rejection. So rejection is a rare. Black, these aren't black.

It's a black rare. What rejection says is you may choose two cards that share a color or two cards that share a value and then put both of them into the discard pile. They don't have to be the same players. One of them could be yours. Both of them could be yours, although normally you

wouldn't do that. This parallels. There's a card called Denial in Blue that does the same thing but bounces and puts them into hand. This puts them into the discard pile. Like with denial,

this was originally Two Feck two effects. They were too close to each other, and so I combined them into one thing to just make it more useful more of the time. Next is sadness. Sadness is a mythic, black mythic. So it has a value of zero,

but a rejection also had a value of zero. I don't know if I said that. Sadness is worth two for every card in the discard pile. This card used to be rare, but it can get very swinging, especially in three and four. player game, so I moved it up to Mythic.

So it is one of the cards that has the potential to have a really high value, because you can get a lot of cards into the discard file, especially if, like, late game, you wrath or something. So, anyway, yeah, sadness is a... Sometimes I put the more complicated things at Mythic, like Malice, for example. But this one is pretty straightforward. It just has the ability to get pretty high, so I put it at Mythic. Next is self-loathing.

Self-loathing is a common value of six. In order to play this, you must put one or more of your moods into the discard pile. So this is sort of a companion to neurosis that makes you bounce the card. Mostly, this card goes way back. Originally, this card had a value of five, and then Corey convinced me that it could be worth six. Getting rid of a card was a big deal. I do let you get rid as many cards as you want. Sometimes, let's say you have sadness in play or something.

Sometimes there are cards that you want to get more things in the discard pile. So I let you do that of self-loathing. If you want to self-loathing, more cards you can. Self-loathing, like, destroying things. Next up is spite. So spite is a common. Basically what it says is you can pick up to two players. One of those players can be you.

And then you put cards with an even value into the discard pile, the cards that you've chosen. And this was, if parallels, what's the one in blue? Blue is anxiety. That blue bounces an odd card and black gets rid of an even card. I actually in the larger file had both versions of Bounce, odd, bounced, even, destroyer, even get rid of odd. And then when I ended up, I didn't have enough space for all four of them. So I picked odd for blue and I picked even for black.

Maybe someday if I make more cards, maybe I'll eventually make. those cards. This is one of six cards that lets you pick up to two players that is optimized, so it plays better in two-player. I'm sorry, it plays better in three and four-player, like it plays in two-player. Okay, next up is superiority. This is one of my favorite comments. Superiority is a black common. It's worth three. It's a value of three. But if you have more cards in play than any other player, it's worth seven. So this is a very dynamic. card. I like the idea that there's a lot of back and forth and there's a lot of interesting decisions you make. For example, sometimes with this card, getting to play an additional card

can increase this, you know, the card's value by four. So there's some fun things to do. It's a good card on turn one, a charity and two. But anyway, it is a neat card, and I really do appreciate the amount of interesting plays that come from this card. It's a common. At one point I had it uncommon. I just like how much it played. So I decided I wanted some common cards that had that sort of bounced back and forth depending on game play. And I just like superiority a lot, so I ended up making a comment. Next is suspicion.

So suspicion is a common worth three, and it makes an opponent discard a card. I don't actually have a lot of discard. I have paranoia and I have suspicion that's only too, discard. The only thing is that cards as a value are pretty important. I do have compulsion and that makes you give me a card. So that's kind of discarding.

So those are the three that make your opponent lose a card, essentially. Oh, outside, there's intimidation that makes you give me a card. So there's a few cards that make me give a card. It's not a lot. The ASFAN, as fan, meaning when you, how often it appears is pretty low. But I do like the idea of suspicion, paranoia, that the discard cards are all about you worrying about your opponent, like you're thinking they're up to something. I thought that was fun.

Okay, the final black card today is Vanity. Vanity is a mythic. So Vanity says it's worth zero. His value is zero, but it says it's worth one more for every card you have in play. But if you have no cards in hand, it's worth three for every card in play. So originally, Vanity just did the latter part. It just was worth three for every card in play, every card you have in play, but you have to have an empty hand. And it just was so, it was so hard to make.

work that I added in the rider one for every card. So now you sometimes will play it. Like, sometimes it has value. The card is still much, much stronger if you can get rid of your hand. And so there's the dream there. But I do like the idea that it sort of has some value up until the point where maybe you can get rid of your hand. Get rid of your hand actually can be pretty hard. Okay, that brings us to Red. Okay, so Redd's first card is anger. Anger's an uncommon. it has a value of zero, and it lets you put any number of cards into the discard pile

whose total value adds up to five or less. I was one of the things that when I went to five colors from three colors, I decided that I wanted red to capture a little bit what red does in magic, which is it's good at getting rid of small things, but not as quite a good at getting rid of big things.

I mean, it does have wrath that destroys everything, but as far as pinpoint, it's a little bit better. So it has things that do a little bit better with getting rid of smaller things, which I thought was fun. Also, the other thing about anger is, remember, if you have suppressed cards,

those have a value of zero. You can destroy as many suppressed cards as you wish with anger in addition to whatever else you're destroying because they have a value of zero. So if you've suppressed something and then you get anger, you can get rid of the suppress cards.

Because often the suppress cards, if you get rid of the things suppressing them, they get unsuppressed. So getting rid of them anger is good. Next is animosity. It's an uncommon worth three. If any player has three or more cards in their hand, it is worth five. This is one of the last cards I made.

This card bunches around a lot. In fact, this card used to get a bonus if any player played more than one card. But that was before I made hurt feelings. And once I made hurt feelings, I'm like, well, with hurt feelings in the game, in a three-and-four-person game, the animosity would always happen every time because it hurt feelings, so I had to change it. I will admit it's the card that probably if I could... fiddle with more. I'd fiddle with it a little bit more, but I mean, it works fine.

It's definitely one of those cards that's good early and bad lane, but if you want some of those cards, it's usually five on turn one, which there's not a lot of cards that don't have larger consequences on turn one. I mean, given this will drop with time. Okay, next up is arrogance. Arrogance is an uncommon. It is worth two, value of two. And what it says is your opponent can choose any white or blue card they have in play and they have to give it to you. And then you, as long as arrogance is in play, you get to keep the card on your side.

But if arrogance ever goes away, they get the card back. This is part, we have a color hoser. So, for example, black gets rid of a card that's enemy's card green or white. And blue bounces, red or green, its colors, and white suppresses its color. So I decided for red. Blue and red are the two colors that steal things.

Red usually steals them more temporarily in magic, where blue steals them permanently. I decided this effect where there's some temporality to it that you can destroy the card and get it back. So I decided to put that in red. It's definitely, like I said, I try to match magic as much as I can, but there's some flexibility where I need to differentiate things.

And so I decided that blue is going to steal things permanently and red is going to steal things temporarily, but be a little loose about what temporarily means. Also, I needed to get something trying to get different effects that affected the epic enemy. You'll see when I get to green. There wasn't even a good green effect that sort of negatively hurt the opponent as much as just rewarded you for them having something. Okay, so that is arrogance. Next is boredom. Bordom is the vanilla creature, or a creature, vanilla card, meaning it's worth four and it doesn't do anything. I like the idea that, like I said, we spent a lot of time, or I spent a lot of time,

working through which of the vanilla cards was which name. I like boredom. Boredom has a sense of like, oh, I'm so, I'm feeling strong things because I can't do anything. Oh, I'm so bored. You know, it felt the most active of doing nothing. Okay, bravado. Barado's a common. It is worth three.

It says, in order to play this card, or you may, not an order, I think it says you may put another card into the discard pile, and if you do, you can play an additional card. So this is Reds. A common, there's a cycle of cards that let you play an additional card. Reds requires you to sacrifice a card to do it. Like, Black makes you discard a card to do it. So, anyway, Reds makes you sacrifice a card.

the, it's worth three though. It's the only one of the common cycle that's worth three. Just because sacrificing, putting a card into the discard pile, sorry, I'm using magic terminology. Putting a card into the discard pile is, it's more of a cost. Okay, next, chaos. Oh, chaos is the mythic.

Chaos is one of my favorite cards, which I expect to be a very controversial card. It's purposely meant to be really big, wild, that some players will love and some players will hate. But that's what trading card games are all about. Make lots of cool, different things. So what Chaos says, it's worth six, value six, and it says, pick up all the cards and shuffle them,

and then starting with you, deal them out. Now, this doesn't make enters effects when you play effects happen again. It just redistributes who has what card. The advantage you have playing chaos is that you deal to yourself first. So that means in a two-player game, if there's an odd number of cards, you'll end up with more cards than your opponent. If it is a three or four-person game,

you'll have more cards than other players usually, but not everybody necessarily. But the idea is this is really good when you're way behind, when it's like, I'm going to lose and I don't know what else to do. Technically, by the way, you can play chaos in turn one, if you're meaning as a first-term play that you play first. The reason you might want to do that is you will shuffle the cards and you start with you

meaning it will go to you. So if you play it on an empty board and you go first, it is worth six. That's not the fun way to play it and it's really, really good at helping you win things that you can't, like when you're behind, you can't possibly win. So I'm not a big fan of playing a turn one.

It is playable. Originally, Chaos, did not have a value of six. It did a value of zero. And then Corey suggested, he's like, well, you're going to change it around anyway. And you have a slightly better chance of getting it only because you're going to draw more cards on average, given if there's an even number of cards,

you have a 50-50 chance in a two-player. But the point is, some amount of the time, you know, more than half the time, I guess half the time in two-player, and more than half the time in three-and-four player, you will be up-card. So we end up making it were six just for a little more drama. And it, in some level, didn't matter.

you're randomly picking card. So anyway, that is chaos. Next is compulsion. Compulsion is common. It is worth three. And the opponent has to give you one of their cards. This, by the way, is pretty strong. I think, in retrospect, I wonder,

it's one of the cards that, after I locked down my things, I was like, oh, should compulsion have cost two and not three? It's very powerful. Or maybe should compulsion have been uncommon and not common? I mean, black, for example, has suspicion. The reason, yeah, black has suspicion. Maybe compulsion should have been two because suspicion is three. Black makes you discard a card, right, for three.

So red makes you kind of discard a card, but you get it, which seems better. So I think compulsion, it's one of the cards that, after the fact, I'm like, oh, did that cost this wrong? Maybe compulsion should have been two. But it's not, I mean, the one good thing about the game is you're playing off a shared deck. So cards don't have to be an equal power level. But I did try to cost them so that they don't look strictly worse versus one another. And compulsion looks a little bit better than that suspicion.

Okay, next is embarrassment. Embarrassment is a red common. It is worth three, but if you discard a card worth four, five, or five or six, it is worth five. It's three or five. This is a companion card to dignity. White makes you discard a card that is zero, one, two, or three. And so this is four, five, or six.

So the idea is small card, larger card. And it's just, I kind of like having some three into five discard cards that discard about half the cards. And so this fell into that camp. Okay, next is excitement. So excitement is Red's common ally color card for the ally cycle. It is worth three. If you have Red's allies, which is green and black, two or more black or green cards, it's worth six. So it's part of that.

The idea is red is excited. by its allies. Next is Exhilaration. Exilaration is one of our mythics. So, exhilaration says as an additional cost to play this card, in order to play this card, you have to put one of your cards in play,

one of your moods, into the discard pile. I used to have a lot more cards that require an additional cost of, I'll say sacrificing, but putting a card into the discard pile. I ended up getting rid of most of them. This one's pretty powerful, so it stayed. So with this car,

card says is it's cause zero. You have to put another card in play into the discart file. And then, well, this card's in play, you score all your cards twice. This is the first card I did that scored cards more than once. I later would change when I get to passion and to enthusiasm. I'll talk about those there. But I later use the technology of scoring something again. And then I later made there's a card in green called Bliss that came later. Okay, exhilaration, by the way, is a lot of fun. It's high, high reward because every time your opponent gets rid of something of yours, it's a much bigger swing because your cards have much more value.

But anyway, it is, I do enjoy, I do enjoy exhalerations. It's one of my favorite myth and wearers. Okay, frustration. Frustration. Frustration is common red as part of the envy cycle. It's worth six, value of six. if you have two or more reds in common enemies in play, white or blue,

if there are two more whiter blue moods in play, then this card's worth three rather than six. So once again, the allies go up and the enemies go down. You like your allies, you don't like your enemies. Next, Fury. So Fury is an uncommon card worth four. It's one of the few non-vanilla fours. And what it says is you must,

every player must put their highest scoring mood into the discard pile. If it's a tie, choose which one you want. So Fury is interesting. Fury is one of the few cards that can destroy itself. Most cards that have you get rid of something that include you getting rid of something normally tell you that it doesn't get rid of the thing that gets rid of things.

Fury is an exception to that. Sometimes you play Fury. It's like I play it, I lose Fury and lose your biggest card. Like if I'm ahead of you and the only reason you're ahead of me is you just played a bigger card, I can get rid of that bigger card of the cost of losing Fury. Sometimes you play Fury and get rid of another card. Fury is one of those

cards that I go back and forth on. I think Fury is a little on the weak side. One of the challenges is things have to cost, you know, an even number, a whole number. And so this card's like, ah, kind of four and a half, but I don't get it's put four and a half, so it ended up getting four.

Next is Glee. So Glee. So Glee is worth zero, value of It's a red common, but it's worth six the turn you play it. This is sort of a mirror with patience, although originally patience was 5-1 the turn you play it, and this was 1-5 the turn you play it. Because I had in the original larger file, I had both 0-660 and 1-5-1. And I put both the 5-1s in, and then Corey made me realize that just 6-0 is kind of a 0 that for the first turn is 6 is more play, and so I switched it over to that.

They're mirrored, but they're not exact. It gets you more points, but less long term. Where patience gets you something short term, but less long term. I don't know whether patients, I should have made patience to zero six, so they mirro directly. I could have done that. I ended up liking them. I sort of, my assumption is, I don't know if I'm ever making any more mood swings. Let's just make the best version of it.

I thought patience was slightly better for that. I thought, really was a little better. So I went with those cards. Maybe one day I make the other ones, but that's why I end up with that. Glutney is a red card uncommon worth two

it says you may play an extra card after this additional card but after scoring you put that additional card into the discard file there's a blue card

called insecurity that does the same thing it puts it back in your hand that's because it's the interesting thing by the way is black and red both sort of put things

into the discard pile and so sometimes the mirror. Blue is the really the only color that bounces things. So some of my bounce, destroy mirrors are blue black and some of them are blue red. This one's a blue. But I like the idea of extra cards, but you only temporarily get it, but it seems pretty cool. The card, the card plays fun. Um, next is hostility. So hostility is a part of the ally color cycle. Um, so the way hostility works is worth three. And it says, you may put one of reds allies, a black or green card into the discard pile.

If you do, you may then put up to two cards with a value of three or less into the discard pile. No, you don't add those up. You can't destroy one card worth six. You can destroy up to two cards, but each card can only have a value of three or less.

Basically, you're doing two shots, which we'll get to in a sec. But anyway, this is part of the cycle where you can... Originally, I had the cards that you were forced to do it. And it turned out that it just got stuck in your hand too much.

changed it. So look, it's just a three. You can just play it as a three. But here's extra bonus if you're able to do it. And I like having cards that have value that you can play, but there's a little extra play in them if you can find ways to do them. And that cycles it uncommon. Next, infatuation at Rare. So this is a card worth, I think it's three. But when you play it, you may put up to two, you may put two cards into the discard file. If you do, it's worth nine. So love is worth the most, it's naturally on the card. There's some cards like sad

and things that can be worth more, but love has a natural 12 if you have all the colors in play. And this card is the highest scoring other than that, which is nine. I decided that no another love got two digits, but I like that

there's misery and happiness that are eight. There are a whole bunch of sevens. Those are two eights. There's one, nine, and there's a 12. In fact, I liked infatuation, so love gets you 12. Infatuation, you know, not quite the same as love. I did, so originally I had a lot more cards that sacrificed, that put a card, a mood that you have in play into the discard pile. And I ended up having just one card left that put two cards in, and one card that bonds two cards, and one card that discarded two cards. Those are all high

rarity cards. But they have big effects. The idea is, okay well if I'm getting into two cards are those two cards worth less than six because I'm going up in value and especially when those cards are like zeros and ones you can get a lot of value out of infatuation okay next is instability

instability is a rare it's worth two value of two you choose two cars controlled by one player so you pick two cards of another players they pick one of them and give it to you and then you must give them one of your cards it could be instability it doesn't have to be

So the idea is, I sort of steal one of your cards, although I don't have complete control over it, and I have to trade you something for it, because taking a card is very powerful. Blue, for example, is Gai, which is a mythic. You have to discard two cards to steal a card. So it's not easy to do, and this one, because it's red, you've less control over what's happening. So essentially you're trading cards with them, but there originally was you just traded two cards of your choice, and then it ended up being kind of better than Gile. So I changed it so you're kind of getting their second best card

because the opponent will not give you the best card. Okay, next is Passion. Passion is an uncommon. Passion says, score your enemy's highest score. When you do your score, score your enemy's highest scoring card. They still score it.

But essentially, this card is worth the same as your opponent's highest score. For a while, this card was zero. This card has a value equal to your opponent's highest scoring, and it was making some loop-ins. issues. It was making it so that the game, part of the way the game has to work is the game has to look at other cards for resolve effects, and it was causing problems.

So by having you score their card, it didn't become that value. So it fixed our problem. The one thing I realized about is the idea that you're scoring the card and they're scoring their card. Obviously, when you score your card twice, you scored and you scored again. So it does mirror how that works, but we had to write it on the card, but sure people didn't get confused by it. But essentially what it does is it gives you a card that's roughly worth what your point is highest income cards for.

Now, given it's worth zero, you can destroy with anger and stuff, the passion just lets you score their card. It doesn't make it. It score doesn't go up. Next, rage. So rage isn't uncommon with a value of two. Rage says put all other cards with a value of three or less into the discard pile. Note that Rage does not destroy itself. as all other.

With a few exceptions like Fury, cards basically don't destroy themselves. So anyway, rage allows you to get rid of all the small cards. Again, remember, suppressed cards there were zero, so they'd get rid of all suppress cards. Red is king of getting rid of small stuff. Trying to give it a little bit of magic flavor there. And I like that rage just sort of like...

Because a lot of times small things... The cards that have ongoing effects tend to be cheaper, and the cards that have effects that do things to cards that stay in play tend to be smaller. So you get rid of suppressed cards. You get rid of stuff like arrogance. You get rid of a lot of the troublesome cards like Hope or Melancholy and stuff like that. So Rage is a pretty good card for answering problems. It doesn't get rid of high-scoring cards,

but it does get rid of things that are hoping to win the game for reasons other than score. Next is Rebellion. Rebellion also an uncommon. card. It has a value of two. So Rebellion is a little bit of a tweak on rage. Rebellion says pick 0, 1, 2, or 3, destroy all other cards. So again, Rebellion can't destroy itself if you pick two. Destroy all cards in that pinpoint. So where rage just destroys everything, rage isn't very controlled. It's rage. The rebellion's a little more control that you can pick what you want. So there's a little more fine-tuning. It's not as good at rage than that it

doesn't destroy all of them. It can only destroy one of them. But it's more pinpoint. So it's more it allows you to be more actor in what you're doing. Next is recklessness. Recklessness is a rare. It's worth zero. It says, take one of your opponent's moods, or take and an opponent's mood, and put it on your side,

and then after scoring, give it back. So it'll let you temporarily steal something. I said. Red is about temporary stealing things. Then after scoring, not only to give it back, but you also put recklessness on the bottom of the deck and draw a new card. The reason for that was it was kind of hard to cost this card.

It's good for winning you the turn, but it does very little to help you on future turns. So it often, like obviously if it's the last turn in the game, it'll win the game. But it was not a great play earlier in the turn, and so we wanted to make it a little bit better, so letting you trade in the card. When I was looking for cards that could trade in,

I was looking for things that were little on the weaker side, paranoia, bashful this and stuff. Okay, next is shock. So shock is worth... What is shock worth? I think shock is worth... I think they're two or three.

I think it is two. I think shock is two. It destroys one card with a value of three or less. And so, like I said, it's really good at getting rid of the passages, getting rid of the hope, getting rid of the cards that are either locking stuff down or the cards that are having effects

that are really going to help them win if you don't get rid of it. Next is... stubbornness. Stubberness is a rare worth three. Stubberness says at the beginning of your turn, if any opponent has more cards than you, you get to play an extra card this turn.

So the way this works, by the way, is before you start playing, you check at the very beginning of your turn. As long as they have more cards, that's all that matters, it goes yes, and now you can play stubbornness. Even if stubbornness gets destroyed,

let's say you play a card that destroys stubbornness. Um, as long as stubbornness was there at the beginning of the turn, it triggered, uh, triggered. That means magic term I'm not going to play an extra card. It just cares about at the beginning of the turn if that was so. Um, there are other cards that care about like pride cares about, you know, are there still more than you? That's not how this card works. Um, oh, so one of the funny things is a lot of the other cards that care about when you can play extra cards, don't check when stubbornness checks. Stubberness checks at a different time. It actually works differently than all the other cards like it.

And there's a period of time where I said, oh, do I want it just to work like every other card? And I decided, no, it was stubbornness. Stubborness shouldn't work like every other card. And so to kind of stay in flavor for stubbornness, I had it work in its own unique way that doesn't match anybody else. I thought that was, it's a very subtle touch,

but I enjoyed it. Next is Thrill. Thrill is a mythic. What Thrill says it's worth one. And it says, you may return any number of cards to your hand, other than thrill, although I think thrill can return another thrill.

You can return any number of cards to your hand, and then you may play that many additional cards. So at bare minimum, you can just bunch things that have after you play them, but you replay them. But there's a lot of shenanigans you can do with thrill. Thrills, another one of my favorite mythics. Two thrills, by the way,

if you have thrill and like creativity, for example, that can copy thrill. It is the only infinite loops that I know of in the game. You can loop with two thrills. But it's thrill. My editor, Michael and I talked about whether we wanted to get rid of that, and we decided to know. It's kind of fun content, especially in the game where there's no repeat cards. You really have to creativity into it. Thrill is the mythic, creativity is a rare.

So the chance of it happening a lot is not super high. I guess if you have both those cards in your deck, it will happen. And be aware that you can do that. Okay, next is triumph. Triumph is a common. It's worth three, but if you've gone first this turn, it's worth five.

It is the mirror of chivalry in white. That is three and five, but it's five of you, have you gone second, or sorry, five of you go on not first. So it turns out that in three and four player play, chivalry is better than triumph, because there really is no way,

in three and four player game you're more likely to go not first than you are likely to go first so it's a little bit stronger I'm fine by the way that cards have different values with different numbers of players that's added content to me

but anyway Triumph and Chevalry are mirrors in red and white are we doing on time here okay I will do I will do oh I have two cards left in red do I want to pick up here

okay maybe I'll stop I'm at work I'm gonna stop here So next time, we will do Velastity Red Cards and do the green cards. So I believe we have one more podcast. But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed. I'll look today through a little bit of black and a lot of red. It's been fun walking through the cards.

It's fun remembering where things are and how we made them. So anyway, guys, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. But I am at work, so we all know what that means. It means this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic or talking moot swings, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye. Thank you.