Every year, Wizards of the Coast manages to get a few new creature types into Magic: The Gathering. Whether real, mythological, or created just for the game, new ones do pop up. And the game's newest set, Phyrexia: All Will Be One, introduces the new Mite creature type.

But is it really all that new?

Technically, no.

For the first mite we have to go all the way back to...2022. Ok, so it wasn't that long ago.

In the The Brother's War expansion there is the card Haywire Mite. Despite its name, though, WotC did printed it with the insect creature type. While Magic does have a long history of retconning cards, Haywire Mite brings up a bit of an issue.

Not only is the toxic keyword a huge divider as all of the official mite creatures thus far having Toxic 1, Haywire Mite also was named before the other mites were decided upon.

According to Mark Rosewater, "The name for Mites was not locked down when the names for Brothers’ War were."

Despite only a four month divide, it was a long enough time to not make them all the same.

So, it's really just somewhat of a technicality. You know, kind of how a killer whale isn't actually a whale. That said, it's one of those weird things where it could potentially cause a problem some time down the road.

Any future cards that apply to all mites could have some players rope Haywire Mite in there, meaning a lot of judges will need to make some calls on it in the future. However, the new mite tends to swarm and pop up quickly, so annoyances are going to be a lot more than that.

Nevertheless, Phyrexia: All Will Be One formally brings the mighty mite into the game, even if it has that odd distinction of (technically) having existed before.