The Mayan Calendar doomsday is real in MTG Lost Caverns of Ixalan

MTG is gently poking fun at doomsday predictions of the past and delivering a powerful, flavorful card in the process.

Leave it to MTG to make the end of the world fun. Magic: The Gathering has featured plenty of potentially apocalyptic events in recent years, from the War of the Spark to the Phyrexian invasion. But with the Lost Caverns of Ixalan, MTG has debuted a card possibly making reference to a real end-of-the-world event.

Looking all the way back to 2012, doomsday predictions began to occur based on the fact that the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar only ran up to 2012. The doomsaying was quickly refuted as misunderstanding Mayan history and culture, but that didn’t stop the calendar from gaining notoriety.

Now that The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is seeing a return to Magic’s Mesoamerican-inspired world, it seems as though the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar and the furor around it might have been gently ribbed by the card The Thousand Year Calendar.

MTG The Thousand Year Calendar and its effects

While The Thousand Year Calendar’s preview is only officially in German so far, the card has been faithfully translated by fans, and its effects are both thematically appropriate and hilarious.

With a casting cost of just 1 generic mana, The Thousand Year Calendar is a Legendary Artifact that does very little when first played. Whenever the game comes back around to your untap step, you put a number of time counters on The Thousand Year Calendar equal to the number of permanents you untap.

For a cost of two generic mana and tapping the card, you may double the number of counters on The Thousand Year Calendar. This is the crucial part, as The Thousand Year Calendar’s final effect requires 1000 time counters to activate! Outside of un-sets, this is the steepest cost MTG will ever ask you to pay. Thankfully, the payoff is more than worth it, as you can sacrifice The Thousand Year Calendar when it has 1000 or more counters to have each opponent lose 1000 life.

Unless your opponent is running a powerful lifegain deck and has been utterly toying with the table, there’s almost no possible way for any player to have 1000 life or more. This is one of the most absurd burn effects that Wizards has ever printed and promises a stylish victory if you get to pull it off.

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is already shaping up to be a fantastic set. With more specific references like this, it could be a real joy for players to dig into.