Cards 68 to 75: Sedimentary Basics

Ilkka Siiki brought me a huge pile of worn basic lands when we were playing Cube at my place. Thank you!

We spoke briefly about how hard it is to find destroyed basic lands after Ilkka had brought me some cards for the previous FNM update. Between then and today's Cube night, he had dug trough his layers and layers of old cards, and brought me a huge pile of worn Basic lands. There are dozens of them, but I picked only the eight most visibly damaged for immediate inclusion to Wear 'n' Tear. Some more may be added after more thorough scrutiny.

Some of the lands have been worn in use, some have fallen victim to treacherous reflexes when they fell on someones lap and the Island from Portal has probably been used to make tokens or counters during a game. It is quite impressive that a Perfect Fit sleeve is just tight enough to keep the Island in shape well enough that it can be carelessly shuffled.

This took Wear 'n' Tear up to 75 cards, so I made a sideboard by setting aside some of the cards that are especially hard to cast and a few low-impact cards and we played a few games to test how this works. Ilkka dug out his Pauper Turbofog to provide an appropriate level of challenge, and after two games we had won one each. We got everyone ready for the Cube before we could start the third game, so the ultimate winner was never decided.

Cards 64 to 67: Foils for Science

The above cards were brought to me by Panu Karppinen, a highly competetive player here in Jyväskylä who also happens to like foils and other premium cards. The Fireball and two of the Mountains are from the Premium Deck Series: Fire and Lightning deck and the third mountain is from the Premium Deck Series: Slivers deck. All of the cards are extremely severely bent beyond all hope of recovery. Before I reveal exactly how they got this way, I have to deliver the extra-salty rant I promised in yesterday's post, so here goes.

Although these cards have been destroyed later, they were never tournament legal for real. You see, the so called ''premium'' foiling process used for the Premium Deck Series and From the Vault series of products is a scam. Those cards are marketed and sold as real tournament legal Magic cards, but that is outright false advertising in many parts of the world.

Normal foils tend to bend easily, but they can be prevented from becoming marked cards with some care and a bit of effort. The alternate foiling process on these cards however involves a different foiling layer, which turns the card into a kind of a bi-metallic strip thermometer. This means that the foil layer and the cardboard attached to it react to thermal expansion and absorption of humidity differently, which makes the cards bend heavily as the climate they are in changes.

Here in Finland temperature can vary between the extremes of -30°C and +30°C and humidity likewise varies between extremely dry and extremely humid. In climates like this, all attempts to take proper care of foils like this are doomed to fail. These foils are not quite as bad in areas where seasonal variation in climate is not as extreme, if the cards come from a factory that has a similar climate as the area the cards are used in. Playing with these cards in a climate that is different that where the factory was located is still a very bad idea, even if it has mild seasons.

A few years ago, we had a Pro Tour Qualifier in winter, and many people brought decks that play FTV Grove of the Burnwillows and some other cards for which the "premium" version is the cheapest and most available one . It was -25°C and very dry outdoors, and in the fully packed tournament venue the climate was extremely warm and humid. A few rounds into the tournament, just about all deck checks the Judges performed led to Game Losses and Groves and other "premium" foils being replaced with basic lands, as even the foils that had been taken proper care of became marked cards and strictly illegal for tournament play due to the difference between the climate outdoors and the climate indoors.

This is the reason why these versions of these cards tend to be the cheapest ones on the market, and the problem just keeps on propagating as unsuspecting new players buy them, thinking they are buying real Magic cards. If someone from Wizards of the Coast happens to read this, please go to some managers office, slap them, and tell them this has to stop. This foiling process should have never passed Quality Assurance, and it is time to take responsibility for that failure. I suspect it may be cheaper than the regular process used in other products, but if you can not afford to use the foiling process that kind of works, make your premium products with full art instead.

This brings us back to how these cards are stuck being this badly bent. I mentioned earlier that Panu likes his foils and full art cards, so having unplayable ones naturally frustrates him. Being a very tenacious person, he doesn't give up easily, so he scoured the Internet for any and all tips and tricks that are rumoured to be able to fix bent foils. He then systematically tested all of them, even the outlandish ones, on cheap foils and recorded the results.

The result of his scientific experiment was that none of the tricks work, and some of them outright ruin cards, as expected. The Fireball and the Mountain that are bent horizontally were thermally treated in an oven on low heat setting and the laterally bent Mountain was treated with a blow dryer.

Cards 61, 62 and 63: Reflexes of Kozilek

These cards were found buried under the collection of Ilkka Siiki, when he was making an inventory of his cards for selling.

This Inquisition of Kozilek was sent by Teemu Luhtamäki, who got it from a friend of his who quit playing Magic.

I was brought a total of seven cards in this week's FNM, but you will have to wait for the last four, until I get better pictures and write a longer rant about the many ways in which those four cards are ruined. In the mean while, you can enjoy these three excellent additions to Wear 'n' Tear. I promise the rant will be salty enough to be worth the wait.

Ilkka was the most active judge in my area when I started playing, but for a long time he has been too busy with work and sports to be able to play or judge in magic tournaments, so he is selling most of his cards. While going trough his collection, he found the Circle of Protection: Artifacts and the Defense of the Heart buried under piles and piles of other cards. The Circle was literally folded across the lines you can see on it. He does not know how exactly they were destroyed, but it is safe to assume they have been crushed in storage.

The Inquisition has a simple story, but one that is certain to resonate with most of my readers. I assume most of you have some experience with the reflex of trying to catch something that falls on your lap by snapping your knees together. That is exactly what happened to this this card as Teemu's friend fumbled with it. Most magic players learn to get rid of that reflex, but for some it takes destroying an expensive card or two until they learn to let things fall.

Cards 59 and 60: Crushed Eye and Bruma

The two Frozen Shades are from Kake and the Unblinking Bleb is from Marde, both notorious players in Tampere.

The Unblinking Bleb has extensive wear and tear over the entire card. It has been used with a sleeve as a hideout for some Bank Identifier Codes and in that duty both the card and the sleeve have been crushed in pockets, wallets, pencil cases and wherever else thoroughly and repeatedly. It is a fine addition to Wear 'n' Tear.

The two Frozen Shades are almost booster fresh, although they might not look like it. Their story begins in a cottage in the beautiful natural park of Koli, where Team Dredge and some other players spent some nights playing Magic. Kake won two boosters of Italian 4th edition for placing second in a Jungle Draft, and to his surprise seven of the cards in both boosters were exactly the same, including these Frozen Shades. As is often the case with Finnish Magic players, some alcohol was involved, and this booster packing oddity led to the fine gentlemen taking these two handsome Brumas to the Sauna with them, which apparently seemed both hilarious and a good idea at the time.

Being treated to much relaxing heat and humidity allowed Kake to give them a condition rating to match their language: Mediterranean Mint. As I try to follow a Singleton rule, only one of the Shades counts towards the total sum of cards.

Card 58: Voice of Korea

This very rare Korean Voice of Resurgence is a contribution from Hannu Vallin, one of the gentlemen behind Poromagia.

I have got yet another practically mint card to introduce today. This Voice of Resurgence was originally obtained by Hannu Vallin for his personal collection, but he had lost it on his way home from work. He found it on the parking lot the next morning, but it was far too late to save the card. There is still an astonishing amount of sand adsorbed on the card, which it deposits as fine layers inside any sleeve it is in.

Being run over by cars in bad weather is cruel enough, but that is only the beginning of the Voice's story. Hannu took the ruined piece of cardboard home with him, but he tossed it into a bag on his porch and abandoned it there. The card spent several seasons outdoors at the mercy of the elements, being buried under snow and soaked by melting snow and so on, until much later Hannu found it again, and sent it to the only home it could fit in, Wear 'n' Tear.

I have tried to describe the damage on this card for a while now, but I am still at a loss of words. There is sand, there is grime, there is extreme water damage and it is beautiful and horrifying at the same time.

Card 57: Daggered Cloak

This Cloak of Confusion was given to me during FNM by Topias Paasonen, a local player and one of my neighbours.

This Dark Ritual was mailed to me by Jani Havukainen from Helsinki.

This time I am presenting you a severely malformed Dark Ritual and a slashed Cloak of Confusion. Wear 'n' Tear is starting to have a really high number of black cards in it. We already have one Dark Ritual in the deck, so I am not adding this one to the official counter, which assumes a singleton format. If we include duplicates, the count is at 59 cards, so I am just a few lands short of being able to run a challenge table as a side event at some tournaments.

The damage on the Cloak of Confusion is very interesting. Topias may have explained to me what happened to it, but our friendly local game store was so busy at that moment, that I didn't quite understand what was said. It has some generic scratches and wear and tear but what has properly destroyed the card is the huge slash that has split the card neatly in half. To my trained card coroner's eye it doesn't look like it was cut by scissors, but I am truly at a loss on what else it could have been. People don't toss Magic cards to practice cuts with their swords and knives do they?

Jani got the pictured Dark Ritual as a part of a larger collection he purchased, so he doesn't know what has happened to it. It is bent badly enough that it would stand out as a huge gap in any regular deck, though in Wear 'n' Tear it paradoxically blends in nicely with the other cards that are bulging the pile this way and that. The bending is so heavy I actually felt what kind of contribution was in the envelope when I got my mail. The damage is significant enough to count as destroyed, but I don't know yet which Dark Ritual I have received will make it to any singleton lists I might make from this card pool.