TL;DR: Wizards of the Coast is releasing Mood Swings on June 1, 2026, a standalone card game Mark Rosewater has been designing behind the scenes since 1998. Sold exclusively on MagicSecretLair.com, it's the first true non-Magic game published under the Secret Lair banner, designed for 5-to-10-minute games with no deckbuilding and no mana.
So what exactly is Mood Swings?
Mood Swings is a card game for 2 players (expandable to 3-4 players with a dedicated card), designed as a pure pick-up-and-play. A game lasts 5 to 10 minutes. No deckbuilding, no mana cost, no life total: shuffle the cards, deal, play. The first to win 3 rounds wins.
Each card represents an emotion, and these emotions are aligned with the five traditional colors of Magic — without the game using Magic's rules. It's a standalone that borrows the brand's imagery, not a new format or a set playable in Commander, Modern, or Standard.
The 1st Edition box contains 45 cards drawn at random from a pool of 133, split between 23 commons, 14 uncommons, 6 rares, and 2 mythics. Also included are a Hurt Feelings card to activate multiplayer mode, a double-sided rules card, and a die. Everything ships ready to play right out of the box.
Mood Swings is a fast, fun card game about emotions, designed by Mark Rosewater and aligned with the five colors of Magic.
Wizards of the Coast, official announcement 2026
1998-2026: 28 years behind the scenes at Wizards
Mark Rosewater, Magic's longtime head designer, started working on Mood Swings in early 1998. The first public playtest session took place at Ropecon, the Finnish gaming convention, in August 1998. By that point, the concept was already clear: capture human emotions in a fast, accessible game playable in a few minutes.
The project didn't sit in a drawer: Rosewater kept iterating on it. Before 2005, he had already taken the game through about fifteen major revisions, bringing it to conventions, testing it with colleagues, tweaking rules and the card pool. But he never found the right editorial vehicle to release it officially.
The breakthrough came in 2024. Mark Heggen, who leads the Secret Lair team, remembered a game of Mood Swings he had played with Rosewater eight years earlier. He revived the project and proposed publishing it under the Secret Lair banner. Two years of finalization later, the game is officially out.
Why a Secret Lair release (and not a proper Magic set)?
The choice of Secret Lair isn't trivial: Mood Swings becomes the first standalone (non-Magic) game released under the banner, which until now was reserved for cosmetic drops of Magic cards. It's a quiet but notable shift in Wizards' product strategy.
Why not a full-fledged Magic product? Because Mood Swings doesn't work like Magic. No mana, no combat, no deck structure. Pushing it through the usual channels (sets, precons, specialty stores) would have muddled its identity. Secret Lair, sold direct-to-consumer on MagicSecretLair.com, allows targeted distribution to already-converted fans without dragging the game into standard-set logistics.
The 1st Edition box is announced at $24.99 on the official product page. A 134th card, Love, is the set's only foil: illustrated and hand-signed by Rosewater himself, it is reportedly limited to just 500 signed, non-serialized copies — a detail to confirm on the official page at the time of purchase.
What this means for English-speaking players
In the short term: nothing for Commander, Modern, or Standard tables. Mood Swings is not a set, a supplement, or a format. Players looking for their next precon or next Magic booster can skip it. The game is aimed instead at fans who want a short format to break out at a party or between tournament rounds, without building a deck.
On the availability side, the release is announced exclusively on MagicSecretLair.com, which ships internationally. No euro pricing or France-specific availability date has been communicated at this stage. French buyers will have to go through the official site and budget for shipping fees plus possible customs charges depending on the order's status.
For collectors, the heritage interest is real: it's the first edition of a game signed by Rosewater, and the signed foil Love card concentrates all the signature value. If you plan to keep your box sealed, also plan how you'll protect it properly.
Key takeaways
Mood Swings is less a Magic release than an editorial object: a 28-year side-project that finally finds its place via Secret Lair. The game is short, simple, self-contained, and fits in a box. It remains to be seen whether Wizards treats this as a one-off or the start of a real line of standalone games under the Magic brand. The 2nd edition, if it comes, will say a lot.
Sources: The History of Mood Swings (Mark Rosewater, Making Magic), Introducing Mood Swings (Wizards of the Coast), Mood Swings 1st Edition (Secret Lair), EDHREC
