Cards 89 and 90: Dark Discoveries

Today's additions all come from previous contributors. The Tormented hero is from Ville-Veikko Vähäaho, who is also responsible for an Aetherling and the Despoil and Dark Banishing are from Ilkka Siiki, who has previously provided some crimpled cards and a pile of Basic Lands.

The FNM Foil Tormented Hero was found under VVV's kitchen counter. Having been tormented in inhumane conditions for an unknown period of time, the card is severely bent and has worn edges. The Despoil and Dark Banishing were found when Ilkka had some local players over at his apartment to loot his boxes of Commons, so he can get rid of as many as possible before moving abroad. The Despoil is unfortunately only badly worn, but hardly destroyed, so it does not make the cut. The Dark Banishing on the other hand has a small tear on its edge and has been worn badly enough that it bends in odd ways, making it just Practically Mint enough. It is starting to look a lot like Black will be the primary colour of this deck.

Wear 'n' Tear now has 90 cards in it, and the box of cards rejected from it also contains 85 cards. If I combine the two, we are roughly half-way to a small cube. That is starting to look like a real possibility.

Cards 87 and 88: Reading and Spying

These cards were sent by Sampsa Nylund, who has also sent some cards earlier. Thank you again!

Today's envelope came from Sampa Nylund, who also contributed the second card of Wear 'n' Tear earlier. The torn Goblin Spy is from the same batch of cards he got from a friend as a child along with the previously seen Mountain With a Peak. It has some sentimental value as his first ever Magic card. It is a fine addition to my project, even though the ability doesn't reveal any additional information that couldn't be deduced from seeing the unique card backs already.

The other cards are assorted victims of time and games that he could not tell exactly when and where they have been damaged. The Read the Bones has been bent badly enough to make it an easy addition to Wear 'n' Tear, but the Vile Requiem and Trade Caravan, although badly worn, would still be tournament legal, and thus they are not quite worn enough for me. We might see them again if I combine Wear 'n' Tear with the pile of cards rejected from it to create a small Cube.

Cards 83 to 86: Swallowed Soldier and Defective Promotions

This Anafenza, the Foremost was left at my local game store by Lassi Ahlberg, a local L1 Judge who took his judge exam in the same event I did.

These crimped prerelease promos were collected at the Puolenkuun Pelit prerelease in Tampere by user scor of mtgsuomi.

Scor also threw in these cards along with the crimped foils.

I got two nice deliveries today. Lasse had left a card of mine he had been holding in Fantasiapelit, my local game store, and had attached the pictured Anafenza to it. His sofa hand swallowed her, and digested her to this shape. Beware of deceptively comfy furniture. First they crush your magic cards, then they steal your car keys.

The Odric, Lunach Marshal, Harness the Storm and Burn from Within all come from the Puolenkuun Pelit prerelease in Tampere, where scor likely opened one of them and collected the others as donations to me from other people who had gotten defective product. All of these have had their bottom edge crimped by the machine that packages the promos in plastic. This makes them count as marked cards and useless for tournament play.

The last two cards, Murasa Ranger and the worn Island scor found from his own collection. The Ranger is an interesting misprint where the printer had likely ran out of ink, so the text box has much thinner text than usual. It is otherwise in mint condition, so It'd clearly be legal to play in tournaments and thus not eligible for Wear 'n' Tear. The Island has been with him for a long time and had accumulated wear and tear over the years so it now has a ruined corner which makes it marked. It is not very spectacular, but it is a basic land, so I am not going to raise the bar very high for it.

Cards 76-82: Practically Mint Prerelease

The pre-release was a three-fold success for me. Firstly, because Shadows over Innistrad seems to be a very nice format for limited. I can't wait to get to draft it. Secondly, because I did not lose a single match today. Unfortunately I got a draw on one round though. Thirdly, because I got many Practically Mint cards to add to Wear 'n' Tear.

The first addition is the Conquering Manticore from the Heroes vs. Monsters Duel Deck. It was given to me by a younger player in the tournament who had started playing Magic with his brother after they bought the duel deck. I unfortunately did not memorize his name. The card had fallen on the floor and slid under his brother's fridge during a game, and they had left it there because removing it would have taken too much time and effort at the time. When they finally retrieved it, they noticed that the fridge had leaked all manners of fluids and grime onto the floor below and the Manticore was gone for good. Thank you for letting me have it!

The rest of the cards all come from the same pool of cards. My friend Ismo Virtanen toppled his bottle of flavoured mineral water during deck construction, which soaked his deck. He sleeved up what he could and played trough the tournament, but after the games many of the cards had been soaked long enough that they were worthless. I felt sorry for his loss, but also eager to add such fresh cards and a first-hand story to my little project.

I give my thanks to Ismo and the sponsor of this contribution, Bonaqua, for these fine cards. The pile I got from him contained many more cards, but I added only the seven most severely bent cards. Some changes may happen in the future, if some of these appear too good to fit in with the rest of the deck or some of the others dry more and settle into more bizarre shapes.