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 93 to 102: Legitimate Merchandise

The above cards and a couple of dozen more arrived via mail from kanslerioikein, who we remember from the previous singles bin finds. These cards were also found in his local game store. He took all of the worn cards he could find there and sent them to me, but I photographed only the ten most damaged ones.

The Elves of the Deep shadow has what look like coffee stains on it and the Gorilla War Cry is torn, so they easily make the cut for the deck. Most of the other pictured cards have small bends or severe scratching, but I decided to include them as well. With this, Wear 'n' Tear is now a complete Highlander deck with even some leeway to choose cards for the full hundred. I am still hoping to find a five-colour commander to turn it into an EDH deck though.

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.

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 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 55 and 56: Rustling Specter and Mud Plains

The Plains is from Joonas Himmanen and the very special Hypnotic Specter is from Pekka Ahonen. Thank you, gentlemen!

I got these cards during yesterday's FNM.  Joonas's Plains has been worn trough unsleeved play and has accumulated an impressive amount of grime. Pekka's Hypnotic Specter hasn't technically been damaged, but it is utterly unplayable due to a manufacturing error.

The Hypnotic Specter is a Player Rewards foil that Pekka got when they were originally distributed. It has an over sized foil layer due to a manufacturing error, which makes a delightful rustling sound whenever you touch the card. It is literally hypnotic; kind of like popping bubble wrap. Wizards of the Coast kindly sent him a replacement, but he held on to the flawed copy as well. It probably wasn't easy to let such a unique card go, so Pekka deserves superplusthanks for his contribution!

Cards 51 to 54: Worn Goods

All of the above cards were sent by user Jamu from mtgsuomi. Thanks!

The pictured batch of cards arrived in the mail a few days ago. All but the Crashing Boars had been lying on a shelf mixed with a random pile of junk. This has left them with quite a bit of wear and tear. The Crashing Boars was found in a box of cards and Jamu has no idea what had happened to it, but the damage seems deceptively similar to the other cards.

The Torch Song and Crashing Boars have missing corners so they are obviously damaged enough for Wear 'n' Tear. The Plains has a torn left edge but is otherwise not in completely horrible condition and the Swamp has a folded left corner. Basic lands are more than welcome additions, since Wear 'n' Tear has and will probably always have severe mana problems. The Plated Spider however also has a fold line across it, but the damage is hard enough to see that I decided to set it aside for now.

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.

Cards ??: Recycled Gold

This time we have a slightly problematic batch of cards to deal with. The Food Chain pictured on the top row came from alias Prote from mtgsuomi earlier this week. The rest of the cards are from alias Jamu from the same site.

Prote got the Food Chain from the collection of a friend of his who had quit magic a long time ago. Among cards that were mostly in good condition he found one Food Chain that wasn't exactly in mint condition. His friend had gotten it in as a throw-in in a trade back when the card was practically a worthless junk rare. This individual card later saw play in a Goblin Food Chain deck in Type 1 but for the past ten years or so it has been tumbling in a desk drawer among other cards.

The Food Chain has a creased fold line across the middle and a curve created probably by pressing it with a thumb on one edge. Both instances of damage look irreversible, but the damage is still subtle enough that I will probably not add it to Wear 'n' Tear even though I wouldn't be comfortable playing it in a tournament nor selling or trading it. It is pretty high on the list of cards that almost made it and might be reconsidered at a later date.

The Angelic Page from Jamu is a very similar case to the Food Chain, but its bends are even more subtle. The rest of his cards are a bit more interesting though, since they aren't really real magic cards. They are the remnants of a 1998 Brian Selden World Championship deck, which was printed with gold borders and the nonstandard back you can see on the top row, so the cards have never been legal in any sort of official play. The deck had been tumbling in another deck drawer roughly since it was first printed and the remaining cards are indeed in a very worn state.

I have been thinking for a long about the inclusion of gold and silver bordered cards and I am still unsure about what to do with them, but I will set these aside for now at least. Every card in the deck is already illegal for tournament play, so these wouldn't technically change anything, but I feel it might be more dramatic if each card in Wear 'n' Tear has had at least some value as a sanctioned magic card before their demise. Feedback on what should be included and what should be excluded is welcome as always.

So far the pile of cards that haven't quite been practically mint enough contains about 25 or so unique cards plus some duplicates, which is a disturbingly large number, so some of them may get another chance at a later date, since it feels bad to reject this many contributions.

Cards 44-48: Borderline Benchers

Dear readers, please help me figure out where the line between bad enough for Wear 'n' Tear and a playable card goes!

The day after the fat envelope from Oulu, I find an even fatter one in my mail from Vantaa, the maze of suburbs that is almost the capital of Finland. Most of the cards are from the collection of Kalle Saleva, alias Salevanen, one of the L1 judges in the south, but the Ajani's Chosen and Bile Blight are from Toni Routasaari, alias Routton.

Routton's cards are victims of a tragic accident involving a glass of the sugary drink Sprite. Fizzy drinks clearly aren't good for cardboard, since both of the cards are bent badly enough that they almost resemble turbine blades.

Salevanen's contribution to the cause is a massive pile of mostly green and white cards that have been damaged in various ways involving water, rolling around the floor for years et cetera. Not all of the cards have the damage visible enough to count, so I will only mention some highlights.

My favourite inclusion is the fabulous Sphinx Ambassador that came from an anonymous friend of his. It has gotten slightly moist in a pile of cards and the cards had gotten so intimate with each other that she still carries a piece of some other card's back on her. You can even make out the text ''Deckmaster'' on it. The other easy inclusion is the water damaged and slightly worn Pili-Pala that is barely rustic enough for my tastes.

A third standout is the chewed up Remodel, but since it is an un-card I am not entirely sure what to do with it. Since all of the cards in Wear 'n' Tear are technically illegal to play, adding an un-card wouldn't really change the legality of the deck for any format, but I am still tempted to use cards that would be legal for some format if they were not destroyed. I'd like to hear the readers' opinions on this!

The rest of the cards are fairly lightly damaged, and since I have a high tolerance for wear on cards I use in my real decks, most of them feel fineish to me. The played Forest gets a pass because most people don't save destroyed basic lands, so I will have to lower, or raise, my standards when it comes to basics if I am ever going to cast any spells with this deck. The rest of the cards will have to wait on the team bench. Reader feedback about these cards would also be welcome!

Cards 40, 41, 42 and 43: Oulu Ruins Everything

When I came home yesterday, I found a mysterious envelope from the northern city of Oulu in my mailbox. The Magic players of Oulu are known for their fondness for multiple substance abuse with a mix of Magic and alcohol.  In a recent gaming session in a local bar a group of fine gentlemen had pooled their practically mint cards together and sent it to me. I find this awesome.

The Ninja is from Vesa Kauppinen, alias Naabi. It bears marks of a rather typical bending accident, which is more clearly visible on its back side. Those of you who have made the mistake of storing decks in a Fat Pack box certainly know the cardboard ledge inside the lid of the box. I know I do, and this Ninja is evidence that Naabi found out about it when he was a fresh Magic player. The consensus in Oulu is that the creature must have used Ninjutsu to save some more expensive card and entered combat with the box in its stead. Kids, be careful around Fat Packs! There won't always be a Ninja around to save your investments.

The Mind Bend and Crookshank Kobolds are from Sami, alias Neuroosi, who is the diligent gentleman who gathered these cards. The Mind Bend matches its name by being more than a little bent. It comes from a shared pool of cards and none of the involved players know or admit what exactly has happened to it. It seems safe to assume it has had beer poured on it when games have gotten a little wild. The kobold that kept it company on the journey to Central Finland isn't actually destroyed, but Neuroosi thinks that all proper decks need a kobold. I am not convinced, but I do know that all proper decks need a Tarpan, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt in case they also need a kobold.

The NM- Deep Spawn, Swamp and Morinfen are from the alias Edvin. The Deep Spawn was found behind the radiator of his old rental apartment. How it got there will forever be a mystery, but the card looks like it has been lovingly played with for quite some time. The Swamp and Morinfen were included in a cheap purchase of bulk cards Edvin made. The Swamp has its foil layer partially peeled off very much like the Rhox from the previous post, but this is a bit harder to see on it. I still find it barely bad enough for Wear 'n' Tear. The Morinfen is a bit wavy and has probably been damaged by water, but the damage is so light I am not comfortable with adding it to the deck.

Cards 21-27: Mystery Cards from a Mystery Contributor

These seven cards were in the mail on the same day as the cards from Co and ruusuv were, but they came in an anonymous brown letter which had no postmark on the stamp. Normally this would mean that the cards might have been delivered directly to my mailbox, but since they arrived at the same time as my regular mail and Finnish postal workers have been pretty lazy with their markings lately, I can not be sure about it. If my anonymous benefactor wishes to identify themselves and share the story of these cards, they may do so in the comments below.

The Lonely Sandbar, Remote Isle and Aether Spellbomb are severely bent and spotty in a way that is typical to cards damaged by water. The spots are light brown and the cards have a faint smell of coffee, so I deduce that they must have had coffee spilled on them. The forest has similar damage to it, but the spots on it are clear and it has a scratch on the artwork, so it might have been damaged in some other incident.

The Swamp has been badly scratched and it has been bent on the lower half, but I am unable to guess the source of the damage. The Ulamog's Crusher is otherwise practically mint but it has been folded badly enough that the two halves of the card have been partially torn loose. The Death Denied has probably been under the leg of a table or some other heavy piece of furniture as it has a very heavily dented perfectly round shape in the middle of the card.

Card 11: Mysterious Delta

This Polluted Delta was sent to me by Markku Rikola, the baldest man in Tampere. May his scalp shine brightly forever.

This Polluted Delta was included in the collection that came to Markku from the Finnish Champion Mikko Airaksinen and Magic Online World Champion Anssi Myllymäki. This happened during the bygone era when it was common to pool collections together to enable a larger variety of decks to be played in tournaments.

The card is otherwise in very good condition, except for one corner that has been neatly sliced off with some sort of sharp tool. None of the three gentlemen know when or how this happened, but by the time Markku got it, the card was already in this condition. I am glad to be able to add it to The Deck, even though there are no islands or swamps to search with it for now. Markku sends the readers his greetings with: ''I hope this card makes the final cut''.

Cards 7, 8 , 9 and 10: Surprise Shreddings

These cards came as a nice surprise in the mail from the alias kanslerioikein from mtgsuomi. Thank you kanslerioikein!

These blue cards were reportedly found among the singles sold at a local game store. Both have seen a lot of wear and tear and the Contempt is missing a corner. The enchantment has also apparently been used as a proxy at some point in its history, as there is ''drake'' written with black marker on its back.

The Evolving Wilds and Jungle Hollow are both badly mangled, which is to be expected as kanslerioikein used them in an attempt to teach their dog to play Magic. It looks like the attempt failed, but I commend them for trying.

''Please, let there be no deck check!''

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.