The 14 Cards With the Longest Names in Magic Ranked

Last updated on April 1, 2024

Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast

There’s enough talk about Magic’s art and how it can break its borders through extended and full art versions. But what happens when a Magic card’s text needs to break through its borders?

The design team at Wizard has done a pretty good job finding ways to fit some absurdly long names within the limited space on cards. This can be either through silver bordered cards that simply make the whole ordeal an absurd joke or by working around the limits of black bordered cards in original and imaginative ways.

I’ve set a base standard of 31 individual characters for the longest card names I could find. There are way too many 27, 28, 29, and even 30 individual-characters card names in this game to even list them. Keep in mind that we’re counting blank spaces, commas, and any other thing that takes up actual space in the name frame. That’s why we’ll start at 30 and work our way up from there. Just to paint a picture, Thalia and The Gitrog Monster looks like a name that barely fits within its frame; well, it “only” has 29 characters.

Let’s take a look at some of Magic’s longest card names of all time.

Silver Bordered Cards

Our Market Research Shows That Players Like Really Long Card Names So We Made this Card to Have the Absolute Longest Card Name Ever Elemental | Illustration by Greg Hildebrandt

I’ve split this list in two: silver bordered and black bordered cards. This is because silver bordered cards are essentially jokes (remember those? they should bring them back), which means designers are allowed to bend and break the card frame and design standards to fit as many ridiculous things as they want.

#7. Infernius Spawnington III, Esq. (31 characters)

We’re starting off this list with a card belonging to one of my favorite cycles from Un-sets: the Infernal Spawn of Evil family tree.

This card was originally going to be called “Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil” but they decided that making it fit would require messing up the frame of the card more than they wanted to. It’s also the only card with the grandchild creature type.

#6. Erase (Not the Urza’s Legacy One) (33 characters)

According to Mark Rosewater himself, he wanted to call Erase (Not the Urza's Legacy One) “Erase” to go along with the funny art on it. He’d completely forgotten that Erase was an actual card, which led to some internal jokes at the design table, finally ending up with the current name this card has.

The flavor text for Erase (Not the Urza's Legacy One) lists several synonyms for “erase” that were unused at the time of designing this card. However, if you look at the current oracle text for this card, Abrade and Frazzle are crossed out since they’ve since been used as card names.

#5. Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil (34 characters)

Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil is a continuation of the original Infernal Spawn of Evil, and its name had to be split into two separate lines to make it fit into the name frame.

The original Infernal Spawn of Evil was born out of artist Ron Spencer submitting a sketch of a small rat drinking hot cocoa as the art for a card that was supposed to be a demonic horror.

#4. Form of the Approach of the Second Sun (38 characters)

Un-sets are known for adding some meta-game mechanics and interactions. Whether it’s saying (or screaming) certain words (as seen in some of the previous entries) so that an ability triggers or can be activated or having to do some kind of physical interaction with your card, Un-sets are very fond of these kinds of mechanics.

I’m aware that this card technically has a black border, but Unfinity is, by all means, a silver bordered set and I refuse to treat it as anything else. These cards tend to break normal design rules and formatting, so it’d be cheating to place this in the black bordered list.

Form of the Approach of the Second Sun works in a way similar to Form of the Dragon, except this time you turn yourself into a card and get shuffled into your own library, forcing you to balance some cards on top of your head. But hey, it’s yet another alternate win condition!

#3. Burning Cinder Fury of Crimson Chaos Fire (41 characters)

If this card’s name didn’t make it clear, this is a very chaos-oriented card. Both of its effects are extremely reminiscent of old chaos cards like Risky Move or Wild Evocation.

Burning Cinder Fury of Crimson Chaos Fire’s name is essentially a collection of red-sounding words that only fit into this card for one simple reason: This is the first ever sideways card in Magic. Take that, battles!

#2. The Ultimate Nightmare of Wizards of the Coast® Customer Service (55 characters)

I believe this one is considerably self-explanatory. The Ultimate Nightmare of Wizards of the Coast® Customer Service’s name is so long it starts to break out into the sides of the card frame. It also sports three separate variable mana costs represented by X, Y, and Z. Oh, and don’t forget it’s a monored card with a blue card frame.

Luckily the card has a built-in way to solve any doubts you may have: The flavor text for it was the official Wizards of the Coast phone number. That phone has since been taken out of service, so the oracle text for this card now invites you to check Wizards’ official support website or their Twitter.

#1. Our Market Research Shows That Players Like Really Long Card Names So We Made this Card to Have the Absolute Longest Card Name Ever Elemental (141 characters)

That’s a mouthful.

MaRo has stated that he completely made up the fact stated in Our Market Research Shows That Players Like Really Long Card Names So We Made this Card to Have the Absolute Longest Card Name Ever Elemental when designing it. However, they eventually found out through online surveys that players did tend to prefer longer card names. Yet again, do with that information what you will.

Black Bordered Cards

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale | Illustration by Nicola Leonard

#7. Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion (31 characters)

The original fortress of the Boros Legion takes the prize of being the first of our black-bordered cards with more than 31 characters in its name.

Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion fits comfortably in its name frame thanks to it being a land, which means it doesn’t have a mana symbol to take up space.

#6. Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter (31 characters)

Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter depicts a character related to Chandra Nalaar’s family, since she used to hire them to smuggle aether for her. She’s a wise and dedicated artificer who’s taught many of the greatest lifecrafters of Kaladesh.

#5. Realmbreaker, the Invasion Tree (31 characters)

The newest card in our list. Realmbreaker, the Invasion Tree was a key part of the New Phyrexian invasion of the Multiverse, and it got itself a pretty long name too.

#4. The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (31 characters)

If you’re looking to build a joke Commander deck with a “longest names” theme, this list is probably gonna be a lot of help for that. Beware of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, the single most expensive card on this list.

Most of these cards go from cheap to a few dollars, but this is the most expensive entry here at around $3500. Not a card for most Magic players, like any of the other cards in the Reserved List.

#3. Circle of Protection: Artifacts (31 characters)      

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale may be the most expensive card in this list but it’s not the oldest. That prize goes to Circle of Protection: Artifacts.

This was the final piece to the “Circle of Protection” cycle of enchantments and was (very coherently) printed in Antiquities. This makes it older than the previous entry on this list by only a couple of months.

#2. Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar (31 characters)

Yeah, that’s right. The biggest boogeyman in Magic’s naming isn’t number one on this list. It isn’t even the only card sporting a whooping 31 characters in its name.

So why is Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar (or Asmorano, for friends) famous for its name length? Well this is the longest single word in any Magic name, and its characters are exclusively letters; no commas, spaces, apostrophes, nothing. Letters tend to take more space than other characters, and this particular name has quite a few letters that take a lot of space.

The only way in which this card’s name could ever fit into the name frame was by completely removing the mana symbol, which led to Asmorano having an alternate casting cost.

I’ll admit I have the utmost respect for the lengths Magic designers were willing to go to just to print a card for a niche character from the ‘90s that had a name that was obviously a joke. The entire design of this card is very Rakdos.

#1. Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers (33 characters)

And so we make it to the longest name in any black-bordered card: Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers.

It also takes the (dubious) honor of being the only card to mention “grandfathers” in its name. Build a Golgari deck and you can pair it up with Grandmother Sengir for a “go visit your grandparents every once in a while” themed deck.

Honorable Mentions

Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge (30 characters)

Even though this card didn’t make it onto the list by a single character, it does take the prize for being the longest planeswalker name yet. And considering we’re only gonna be getting a single planeswalker per set now, I doubt Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge will be losing its place at the top of the podium any time soon.

Archenemy Schemes

There are a handful of scheme cards from the archenemy format that sport names either as long or longer than some of the ones on this list. I chose to not include them since the formatting in schemes is so radically different from regular cards, but I do believe they deserve a special mention.

Translated Cards

This one goes for all of us who play Magic in languages other than English. Sometimes it’s really hard to translate some things without making names absurdly long. Realmbreaker, the Invasion Tree got translated as “Romperreinos, el Árbol de la Invasión” which has 38 characters – seven more than its original name.

But this also happens with cards that have short names in English. Godo, Bandit Warlord (20 characters) got translated into Spanish as “Godo, señor de la guerra de los bandidos (40 characters). Some of the issues with translating very specific words.

Wrap Up

Staff of the Letter Magus | Illustration by Daniel Ljunggren

So those are some of the longest card names in Magic. I spent quite a while counting letters and going through hundreds and hundreds of cards, so there’s a chance I may have missed some of the more obscure ones. Even though Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar can’t take the prize for the card name with the most characters, it still holds a place in my list of favorite cards in this game for the sheer silliness of it. It’s the joy of any Rakdos player that appreciates the more unconventional and chaotic aspects of this game.

But enough about what I think. Do you have a favorite card in this list? Do you know of any cards I missed? Are there any cards that have been translated into your language and suddenly doubled their name size? Leave a comment letting us know! And while you’re here, make sure to visit our Discord server to join an amazing community of MTG fans.

That’s all from me for now. Have a good one and I’ll see you next time!