They said it couldn't be done. They said it would lead to a breakdown in Magic's identity.

Mark Rosewater has discussed at length the resistance he faced when initially introducing the concept of the double faced card.

Then it happened. Innistrad introduced the first tournament-legal cards that flipped over, meaning they didn't have a traditional Magic back. The world did not end.

The History of Magic's Double-Faced Cards

In fact, my understanding is these transforming double-faced cards were a major hit! They must have been, because Wizards of the Coast has since released numerous variations on this theme. From Zendikar Rising to Modern Horizons 3, we've seen many variations and takes on the double-faced card.

One recent set introduced not only new double-faced cards, but also a new card type: battles! Let's take a look at how transforming double-faced cards shaped the March of the Machine set in many ways more than one.

Some Definitions

Before going any further, let's take a brief pause to cover some technical definitions because the terms can become quite confusing.

Magic contains a number of double-faced cards, and they don't always function the same way. For example, Transforming double-faced cards represent some sort of transformation--you play one side of the card by default, and need to satisfy specific criterion in order to transform the card to its other side. In Cloistered Youth pictured above, the criterion was pretty basic. You merely needed to wait until your next upkeep, and then decide that you want to transform the creature.

It's often more difficult to transform these cards. Sometimes you need to pay some mana and other times you need someone to play no spells during a turn (this is the Day/Night mechanic). Regardless of the mechanism, the card starts on one side every time and then flips to the other. This defines a transforming double-face card.

There's also a variation called modal double-faced cards, where you choose which side you want to play and there's no transformation to the other side. These versions were not in March of the Machine so I won't dwell on them here.

Let's Battle

March of the Machine brought us different card types that leveraged the double-faced technology. As mentioned above, Battles were a brand new introduction in the set that all used the double-faced frame. Let's look at an example:

Invasion of Fiora is a Battle -- when you cast it, you place it in front of an opponent, who must now protect the battle. If you can do enough damage to the battle via attacking or key damage spells, then the battle flips over and you can cast the other side for free. In the case of Invasion of Fiora, it flips into Marchesa, Resolute Monarch.

Notice how both sides of the card have unique names, so they function as wholly separate cards. Every pack of March of the Machine contained one Battle, named after a plane from somewhere in Magic's history. Many of them transformed into creatures, but not all of them. For example, Invasion of Gobakhan is a Battle that, when defeated, transforms into Lightshield Array, a powerful Enchantment that pumps your team and can be sacrificed to give them hexproof and indestructible until end of turn.

A Battle doesn't even have to transform into another permanent! The rules on Battles were written in such a way as to enable any kind of spell being on the other side. This is allowed because technically after you destroy the Battle, you transform it, exile it, and then have the option to cast it without paying its mana cost. Therefore, a Battle can even flip into a Sorcery, such as in Invasion of Alara.

Everyone has their own opinions about Battles, but personally I found them to add an interesting component to Limited play. I don't think they have much impact on 60-card formats, but they definitely influenced how the Draft environment played out, and I hope to see more Battles at some point in the future.

A More Traditional Transformation

Battles weren't the only transforming double-faced cards in March of the Machine. In fact, when you cracked open a booster pack, you were guaranteed two transforming double-faced cards in the pack. One was your Battle, and the other was a more traditional transforming card. In this case, you had a creature you could cast on one side, and then an activation cost that you could pay to transform it at sorcery speed.

Here's an example: Pyretic Prankster.

You start off with Pyretic Prankster. Then, for three generic mana and one Black Phyrexian mana, you can transform Pyretic Prankster into Glistening Goremonger, a more powerful card with a bonus effect.

I consider these transforming double-faced cards as more straight forward because they use traditional card types. Many of the cards from March of the Machine in this category are creatures that transform into other creatures. These were also a nice addition to Limited. Not all of them were a hit, but the fact that these creatures were plentiful and gave you mana sinks to use later in a match led to interesting gameplay.

Not all creatures transformed into other creatures, however. There was a cycle of Praetors in this set that transformed into something quite unexpected...

They transformed into Sagas, like Elesh Norn! You cast Elesh Norn as a legendary creature to begin with. Elesh Norn has its own effect while in play, but for three mana and three sacrificed creatures, you can transform it at sorcery speed and it becomes The Argent Etchings.

But wait, it gets even more interesting! With these Praetor-transforming double-faced cards, after you hit chapter three of the Saga, they do something powerful and then transform back into their creature form again! In that way, these are similar to the Day/Night mechanic because they can flip back and forth and back again, as long as you're willing to pay the cost each time.

Let's look at one more of these powerful creatures:

Perhaps the most popular transforming praetor from March of the Machine is Urabrask. It starts as an aggressively built 4/4 creature with first strike for four mana. You can transform it once you've played three or more instant and/or sorcery spells in a turn for one red mana, and it flips into The Great Work. The Great Work ticks through each chapter and then ends with the same text as The Argent Etchings--it exiles, and then returns as Urabrask again.

A Transformational Token

Before wrapping up, there's one more noteworthy transforming card in March of the Machine: the Incubate Token!

These tokens are the first official, transforming double-faced tokens. They are generated via the Incubate mechanic, which gives you a non-creature artifact token with some number of +1/+1 counters on it. Then for two mana, at instant speed, you can transform the token into a 0/0 Phyrexian artifact creature token.

This token sets the stage for other creative transforming double-faced tokens in the future. I can't predict what they'll look like, but I'm fairly confident Wizards of the Coast will make a new one at some point in the future. Until then, the Incubator token remains the only transforming token of its kind in Magic.

Wrapping It Up

Wizards of the Coast has leveraged the transforming card for many years. Even all the way back in Champions of Kamigawa block, there were "flip cards" that transformed by rotating 180 degrees. Functionally, these performed similarly to the double-faced cards of March of the Machine, but once Wizards got over the hump of printing double-faced cards, they haven't stopped innovating in this space.

March of the Machine brought us a ton of new transforming double-faced cards, both in the form of traditional creatures and a new card type called Battles. Both introduced an interesting dynamic in Limited play, though I don't know if they've done much for 60 card constructed formats. Not every mechanic has to be tournament playable, and I still think these were a positive addition to the set.

There were also enough variations in these cards to keep things interesting. Sometimes you transformed a Battle into a creature, other times you transformed a creature into a Saga. Regardless of the direction, March of the Machine fully utilized the double-faced technology that Wizards of the Coast developed all the way back in original Innistrad block. I'm confident we'll see a new take on double-faced cards in the future as Wizards continues to leverage the double-faced space to bring new and interesting mechanics to the game.