Cards 91 and 92: Treasures from the opposite side of the globe

I'm back! I was vacationing in Croatia for a week and then headed to Helsinki for Porocon when I got back to Finland. In the mean while the cards pictured above and one other package had arrived in my mailbox. There is another post coming very soon after this one for the other package, and a third one for my haul from Porocon.

These cards came all the way from New Zealand, from a Vintage-playing gentleman who goes with the nick KIP_NZ on the IRC channel #mtg on EFNet. Many thanks to him! The severely worn Cabal Coffers he traded from one of his friends just for this purpose and the Incinerate has reportedly been on a windowsill basking in the sun for several years. The Incinerate is probably technically still tournament legal, but such thorough bleaching is interesting enough that I will play it nevertheless.

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 50: Swidden Plateau

This Plateau is the second card sent to me by redditor Zombiesquisher. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for this and the Sword of Reddit and Tumbling.

I knew to expect something special when I saw another envelope from Zombiesquisher, but I still shed a single manly tear when I opened it and saw what was inside. I cried both in horror of what I witnessed, and in gratitude for getting something this spectacular for Wear 'n' Tear. This card is the very definition of practically mint.

This Plateau comes from another one of Zombiesquisher's friends who was the unfortunate victim of a house fire. Miraculously his Magic cards survived the blaze, but while helping with clearing out the property and moving to a new house, his mother-in-law threw his Legacy and Commander decks in a trash bag. The trash bag was in turn left in a burn pit, but the fire was extinguished by rain during the night. In another miraculous recovery, most of the cards survived the second assault by fire and being doused by rain, except for his Plateau, Underground Sea and Volcanic Island. Zombiesquisher later got his hands on the Plateau and was kind enough to contribute it to this project.

I don't think I need to describe the damage this time, since the pictures above make it painfully obvious what has happened to this card. You can even see the blue layer that Magic cards have inside them as an anti-counterfeiting method. Only thing the photographs fail to capture is the strong smell of smoke emanating from the Plateau. Fittingly, it just became the thirteenth land in Wear 'n' Tear.