Photo credit: Rosewatta Stone
Released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast, Magic: The Gathering was the first trading card game created and it continues to thrive, with approximately twenty million players as of 2015, and over twenty billion Magic cards produced in the period from 2008-2016. One thing players may notice is that the flavor text – the italicized text, but not in parentheses, on a card that serves to provide a mood or give background information on the game world without effecting gameplay – on Magic cards is mystical, so this Google Translate experiment has yielded some unusual results to say the least. Read more to see a few examples.
As Chastise will tell you, several prominent Renaissance artists were actually turtles. #GoogleTranslatesMTG pic.twitter.com/S21GY08Jci
— Don't mind me (@anotherofthese) February 1, 2019
Mr. Rybak, that is the strangest weather forecast I think I've ever seen. #GoogleTranslatesMTG
(original: https://t.co/Q9OL5r4lXQ) pic.twitter.com/3QCJKCouEs
— ππ Sutekh94 (@Sutekh94) February 1, 2019
*looks up "Sangua"*
Yeah, that's… That's something, alright. #GoogleTranslatesMTG
(original: https://t.co/phRPzcDy6h) pic.twitter.com/ZR0KNY4mYl
— ππ Sutekh94 (@Sutekh94) February 3, 2019
The experts may not remember there was a time when two black mana didn't add maps to anything, but Reverend Arizona… remembers!#MtG #GoogleTranslatesMtG #PriestOfForgottenGods #MTGRNA
Art by: @zack_stella pic.twitter.com/aJXgMyyfFw
— Ajani on-the-Spot (@GuyWhoWroteThis) February 3, 2019
Frilled Mystic #GoogleTranslatesMTG pic.twitter.com/GGGy8hJlQP
— Rosewatta Stone (@RosewattaStone) February 2, 2019
“Two players, Ajani and Sutekh94, have been putting cards through Google Translate manually since last year, using the hashtag #GoogleTranslatesMTG. Their methodology is generally ‘do it as many times as it takes to make it funny.’ Thereβs also the Twitter account RosewattaStone which is a bot built to do the same thing. Other players have started to get in on the fun as well,” reports Kotaku