In a recent poll on his Tumblr blog, Magic: The Gathering lead designer Mark Rosewater asked his followers if kithkin, the white-aligned little humanoids from Lorwyn, should become Halflings going forward. While the answer was an overwhelming “no”, with 69% of the 1,346 respondents asking for no change, I have a sneaking suspicion Wizards might have made the switch already.
After all, the next MTG set on Lorwyn comes out in early 2026, and the only reason it’s not part of the 2025 MTG release schedule appears to be that a currently unannounced Universes Beyond tie-in squeezed it out.
Since sets take about two years to make, that means Lorwyn must already be a fair way through the process. It may be that the kithkin/halfling question is something Wizards is discussing internally right now, but it could also be the case that the decision has already been made.
Whether this would be a case of Magic erasing an important part of its identity or a sensible simplification of terms will depend on your outlook. On the one hand, it does smell of Magic filing off its interesting rough edges and idiosyncrasies to better appeal to a broad audience. On the other hand, kithkin are so close to halflings that perhaps the switch would be insignificant – they were once going to be called hobbits, after all.
There are obvious gameplay reasons to turn kithkin back into halflings. It helps to have creature types that span multiple sets because it enables more interesting deck-building. It’s good for EDH, making tribal decks more viable (you could build a halfling deck with Lord of the Rings and Lorwyn cards, for instance). And it’s good for Standard too, enabling more synergistic decks than just the soupy midrange builds that have long dominated (and are likely to become increasingly problematic thanks to the increasing number of sets in Standard).
The other way to achieve this would be to put Kithkin on another MTG plane, but (even though they originally came from Dominaria) this risks eroding what makes Lorwyn special.
Earlier this year, Wizards turned Cephalids into octopuses, Naga into snakes, and Viashino into lizards. While these were all humanoids that resembled animals, and the change fit the way other humanoid animals like leonin are treated, the switch was presumably made for similar reasons: to be simpler for less enfranchised players and better for gameplay.
Some people were upset then, and they’d be upset now. However, it’s worth noting that the people responding to Mark Rosewater’s blog are likely to be the most dedicated fans, representing a small subset of the total playerbase. If the average Magic: The Gathering player doesn’t know what a planeswalker is (an old adage from Rosewater himself) then it’s fair to say it’s a very unusual type of player that follows the game’s designer on social media.
The most enfranchised players would certainly be sad to lose the kithkin creature type, but I would imagine a lot less than 70% of the total MTG playerbase would even care about the issue. When Lorwyn first came out, Kithkin were unpopular – considered ugly. They were the closest thing to a human stand-in on the plane, and their reception led Wizards to avoid sets without humans for a long time.
Recent decisions show that Wizards is prioritizing broad appeal over the desires of some of its most ardent fans. The fact it literally squeezed out Lorwyn from next year in favor of a Universes Beyond set is telling.
Ultimately, there’s a tradeoff between the practicality of having creature types that span multiple sets and the flavorfulness of having a unique race in Magic. Kithkin might look like halflings, and the creative inspiration for them might be the same. But in in-universe terms they’re not, anymore than a snake is an eel.
And if we take the gameplay argument to its logical conclusion, it all gets a bit silly. Should Magic lose all its plane-specific races to further tribal synergies? Vedalken can be elves. Kor can be dwarves. You could extend that to any unique creature types too. Duskmourn created Glimmers, but they could have just as easily been spirits or avatars.
However, ultimately losing the kithkin creature type would not mean losing kithkin. Magic: The Gathering has shown time and time again that the same creature types can have unique lore and flavor on different planes. Zendikar’s vampires, for instance, or nothing like Innistrad’s.
You can even have creature types remain consistent across multiple settings, but call the creatures something different on separate planes. For instance, on Kamigawa the uniquely reptilian goblins are called Akki, but there is no akki creature type. On Lorwyn, they’re called boggarts.
Ultimately, gameplay shouldn’t be beholden to lore, and while my knee-jerk response to Rosewater’s question was a big fat ‘No’, I’m now not sure it’s the problem I thought it was.
For more great content, check out our guides to the best MTG Arena decks and MTG commanders.
Source: Wargamer
