Automatic keywords and reminder text are part of Magic Set Editor’s appeal: type a keyword ability and the program can add the reminder text for you. So when reminder text stops appearing, appears twice, or behaves inconsistently between cards, it feels like your set file is broken. Usually it is not. Work through this framework instead of editing cards one by one.
What is documented: the 2.1.x line kept fixing keyword bugs
This is not guesswork. The author’s changelog for the 2.1.x releases shows keyword handling being repaired repeatedly — the entries reference keyword-related fixes tracked as issues #67, #70 and #20, among the changes that led to 2.1.2 in September 2020. In other words, keyword and reminder-text misbehaviour is a known, version-dependent category of problem in MSE, and which build you are running is the first fact to establish — before touching your set.
Step 1: Identify your exact build
Note whether you are running the SourceForge 2.0.0 installer from 2011, the author’s GitHub 2.1.2 from 2020, or a community 2.5.8 bundle from magicseteditor.boards.net. These are three different release lines, years apart. A keyword bug that exists in an older line may already be fixed in a later one, so advice written for one build does not automatically apply to another. Our version comparison lays out the three lines.
Step 2: Move to a current build before deep troubleshooting
If you are on an older build, the highest-value test is to open a copy of your set in 2.1.2, or in the community bundle, and see whether the keyword behaviour changes. Work on a copy, not your only set file, so the test costs nothing. If the problem disappears on the newer build, it was the documented bug category — and continuing to patch individual cards on the old build would have been wasted effort.
Step 3: Separate program behaviour from template behaviour
MSE renders cards through the template you have installed, and template packs differ: different packs, and different versions of the same pack, can present keyword and reminder text differently on the card. To separate the layers, test the same set — again, a copy — with a different, current template pack if you have one, and compare. If the behaviour follows the template, the fix is at pack level (update or change the pack). If it follows the program build across templates, it is the program layer. This distinction matters because reinstalling the program cannot fix a template-layer difference, and swapping templates cannot fix a program bug.
Step 4: Check the set, not just single cards
If only some cards misbehave on the same build and same template, compare a misbehaving card with a correct one in the same set: same template selected, same keyword, and no manually typed reminder text duplicating the automatic one. Reminder text typed by hand into the rules box on some cards, alongside automatic reminder text, is a common way to end up with it appearing twice — and that is set content to clean up, not a bug to report.
What we have not claimed here
We have deliberately not published step-by-step "reproductions" of specific keyword bugs. The changelog confirms the bug category and the fixes; it does not give us a verified recipe for triggering each one on your machine, and inventing one would risk sending you through steps that match nothing on your screen. The framework above — build first, newer build second, template layer third, set content last — resolves the documented causes in order.
If you end up moving builds as part of the fix, How to Install Magic Set Editor covers setting up 2.1.2 plus a template pack, or a community bundle, without disturbing your existing sets.