Card 109: Introducing the Chew Test

This card was sent to me by Jouni Saikkonen, a local player here in Jyväskylä. Many thanks to him!

This Swift Warkite has been thoroughly chewed and the blue inner layer found inside Magic cards is both visible and has had its blue ink practically sucked out. The reason for its condition is that the card has undergone a new method for detecting counterfeit cards.

Jouni's toddler daughter cares for him a great deal and is understandably concerned about the value of the Magic collection she will eventually inherit. To make sure her father does not get scammed by shady Magic dealers, she has done extensive Research and Development and is now ready to introduce the Chew Test to the Magic community. This method for spotting counterfeit cards is absolutely infallible, simple to perform and is roughly as invasive as many other popular card testing methods.

To perform the test, you should hand a suspicious seeming card to a nearby toddler. Then all you need to do is patiently wait for them to chew on it until the test is complete and they are ready to let go of the card. It is important to not interrupt this process, as an interrupted test will not give reliable results. Once the toddler indicates that the process is complete, all you need to do is inspect their mouth.

If their lips have turned vivid blue, the card is genuine. If the colour indicator does not change from pink to blue, you have found a counterfeit card. This test is very easy to perform and is very reliable. The best thing is, the Chew Test is unlikely to leave your cards in any worse condition than the famous Bend Test would!

Cards 103 to 108: Baby Snacks and annoucing The Cube

Last weekend was the time for Porocon and the Finnish Nationals as its main event. I met Juha Ihonen there, who has had the honour of providing the first practically mint card for my project. Juha was in the deck check team for the main event and I was running a modern side tournament on day two of the convention. Thank you for these practically mint treasures, and for your support during the event.

Ihonen's card salvaging cats share his floors with a miniature version of him, the Ihonen jr., who is at the age where your gums tend to itch and paper and cardboard look very tasty to your eyes. This combined with Ihonen sr. storing commons in an open box have led to various accidents, six of which are pictured above.

All of the cards have been chewed and even those that haven't been bitten into pieces have been so thoroughly soaked in drool that they are completely destroyed. This blog so far hasn't featured any cards from my own collection, but my floors are reigned over by a Little Girl who shares Ihonen jr's taste for cardboard, so if you will ever see any cards that have been destroyed in my care, they will probably look like these.

The approved card pool for Wear 'n' Tear is now well past one hundred and the pile of cards that haven't quite made it is almost as large, so now is a good time to begin building The Cube from these. As cards keep coming, I will add and remove them from Wear 'n' Tear, which for now is a Highlander deck and may turn into a Commander deck in the future, and all cards will have a place in a cube that I will hopefully get to use  once we are up to three hundred or so cards in total.

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 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.

Cards 34-37: FNM Spoils

These three cards were donated by Jaakko Vuorela.

The Aetherling is from Ville-Veikko Vähäaho and the Sunstrikers are from Antti Kosonen.

The environmentally conscious Magic players in Jyväskylä recycled some more cardboard yesterday, when I was given the above cards during Friday Night Magic. It's a win/win for everyone and everything. Trash gets properly recycled and my deck gets bigger. Thanks to everyone involved in this!

The Shadowmage Infiltrator, Wolf-Skull Shaman and Goblin Replica from Jaakko are otherwise unrelated to each other. The Finkel he got as a throw-in with some trade and the Goblin Replica has suffered the sorry fate of being stuffed in the pocket of young Jaakko's pants way back when. Carrying Magic cards in your pockets really isn't a good idea, but we can forgive little boys that mistake. The Wolf-Skull shaman has had some sticky drink spilled on it and a bunch of other cards. The distinctive damage is from the drink getting it stuck to some other card and the surface layer ripping off when the cards were separated. Jaakko was unfortunately unable to find the other half of this puzzle yet, but we might see a mirror image of this pattern on some other destroyed card in the future.

The Aetherling from Ville has suffered typical water damage, but I am sadly unable to remember the details of how this happened. It lacks the typical white spots, but it is instead so wavy that you can even see the sexy curves in the picture.  The Ajani's Sunstriker from Antti actually came with an identical pair. They have both been folded to act as protectors for sleeved cards in an envelope. Since they have been intentionally destroyed, I came to the conclusion I can not use them here, so one of them is fulfilling its original purpose again  and is on its way to Sweden bravely protecting some cards I sold via magiccardmarket. Sorry for mistakenly saying they are OK, Antti!

Cards 3 and 4: Childhood Lobotomy and Pressed Valakut

This batch of cardboard was brought to me by Jukka Jääskelä; a local player known for his enthusiasm for Legacy.

Card number three is Jukka's first ever foil that he traded his Planar Portal and Crosis, the Purger for in elementary school. He never needed it for any deck, but he just had to have it because of the captivating artwork. The card has not aged well, and all of its edges are severely worn and the topmost layer is peeling off from one corner.

Card number four is a Valakut Jukka opened from a fat pack and left lying on his desk. It eventually drifted under his keyboard, where it got stuck and torn badly enough that a piece of the border was shorn off.

Card 2: A Mountain with a Peak

These cards were donated by Sampsa Nylund, a most generous player from Helsinki.

The card of the day is a beautiful foil Mountain from the Invasion set. It was Sampsa's first foil that he got as a child, long before he properly got into Magic. The card already had the distinctive peak on the upper right corner when he got it. I am glad to be able to provide a dignified retirement for this crippled veteran of a card that he held on to for such a long time.

The Mountain was kept company on the journey to my desk by this Soulflayer, that has had an unfortunate hit-and-run accident with the wheels of an office chair. This card has a peanut sized dent on the top and some tearing on the edges, but the damage is likely so hard to see trough one of the Perfect Fit sleeves I am using for the Deck, that I am leaving it out of the card pool for now.

It is worth noting that it is currently possible to cast all of the spells in the Deck with the mana it contains. I suspect this might not happen again for a long time after this post.