I like to consider myself a modern renaissance man, which is pretty much code for “I’m a huge nerd that happens to love sports, and those worlds are often at odds.” So, when I saw an unboxing for the new Magic: The Gathering Secret Lair and feasted my eyes on “Touchdown!” I knew there had to be some investigation done.
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“If this spell was cast from your hand and you’ve cast another spell named Touchdown! this game, you win the game. Otherwise, put Touchdown! into its owner’s library seventh from the top and you gain 7 life.”
“Touchdown!” is part of the Secret Lair series of releases, which are re-skinned cards from MtG using art from various places. This time it’s Blood Bowl, a football-themed skirmish miniatures game from Games Workshop, who are responsible for Warhammer.
This is new art and a new name for “Approach of the Second Sun,” which is kind of a weird card to explain — but people love it because it’s an “alternate win card.” That means that instead of reducing an opponent’s life total to zero, you just have to meet the conditions on the card. Alternate win cards are always popular, even if they’re rarely that good.
For a while there was a semi-popular deck called “Blue-White Approach,” which was a control deck designed to stop your opponent from casting spells while you could grind out the game and eventually cast Approach of the Second Sun twice, thereby winning. Now it’s relegated to older, eternal formats where it’s a niche card, at best.
Still, now that it’s named “Touchdown!” it’s sports. More importantly it establishes inside MtG that two touchdowns automatically wins the game.
Now, it would be really easy (and lazy) to just give you a list of teams who gave up two touchdowns this season and be done — but I’m far too discerning for that. In my head-canon not only does “Touchdown!” need to be cast twice, but it can’t be counterspelled either, because we need “Touchdown!” back in the deck to be cast again, not in the graveyard.*
In football an interception is the equivalent of a counterspell. So I decided to see how many teams threw two touchdowns (casting from hand), without giving up an interception in between. This will tell us how many teams in 2022 would have lost to this Magic: The Gathering card.
Every 2022 NFL team that would have lost to the Magic: The Gathering card “Touchdown!”
- Week 1: Denver Broncos, Arizona Cardinals, Las Vegas Raiders, New York Giants, Green Bay Packers, Philadelphia Eagles, Indianapolis Colts
- Week 2: Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets, Washington Commanders, Indianapolis Colts, Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons, Seattle Seahawks, Cincinnati Bengals, Arizona Cardinals, Chicago Bears, Tennessee Titans, Minnesota Vikings
- Week 3: Pittsburgh Steelers, Indianapolis Colts, Miami Dolphins, Minnesota Vikings, Baltimore Ravens, New York Jets, Las Vegas Raiders, Washington Commanders, Los Angeles Chargers, Arizona Cardinals, Seattle Seahawks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New York Giants
- Week 4: Miami Dolphins, Minnesota Vikings, Atlanta Falcons, Indianapolis Colts, Washington Commanders, Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, Chicago Bears, Jacksonville Jaguars, New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, Green Bay Packers, Las Vegas Raiders, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Los Angeles Rams
In total 29 different teams would have lost at least one game to Touchdown! this season. The only three teams who would not have lost at least one game are the Saints, Patriots, and Browns.
The Colts stand alone as the only team in the NFL who would have lost every game this season if they played against the card instead of football teams.
Finally, the card against the entire NFL would have a record of 48-17, proving that a single Magic: The Gathering spell is overwhelmingly powerful against professional football players. Thank you for your time.
* If you’re a MtG player I don’t need you to be pedantic about the fact Blue-White Approach ran 2-3 copies of the card for redundancy. Don’t try to cast Stifle on my fun.