Card 12: Rip Stream

Greetings from the Prerelease at Tampere. While I was working as an assistant judge at the tournament, I was handed this beautiful Full Art Foil Premium Mythic Rare Expedition (Sounds like Yugi Oh doesn't it?) Prairie Stream as a devious bribe.

As those readers who have been exposed to the darker side of the Internet will likely guess, this card has been horribly abused in a game of ''Flip it, or rip it''. While I do not normally accept cards that have been destroyed on purpose, I consider giving this poor card a loving home an act of charity worth making an exception for.

The lower half of the actual card is completely ripped off, and the stripped foil layer is just lying loose on it.

With the addition of an Island Plains, Wear 'n' Tear can produce all five colours of mana and even the fetchland has a target now.

The Deck Needs a Name

For inspiration, this is what we are currently working with.

Some friends of mine pointed out that, since there already is an established The Deck in Magic, the name I am using for the deck I build on this blog is a big misleading. I agree. The Deck is unlikely to become a version of The Deck, so it needs a name of its own.

I am making a Reddit thread where I will link this post. The most upvoted suggestion will be The Deck's new name.

The Thread

In other news, I am going to the Oath of the Gatewatch Prerelease this weekend where I will work as an assistant Judge and take my L1 exam. If any attending players have some practically mint cards to spare, please bring them along.

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!''

Card 6: Soul Chew Toy

This Soul Warden was sent to me by the alias Infrapunatulkku from mtgsuomi. Thank you very much!

Once upon a time, this wonderful white weenie was a veritable workhorse of gaining life, until Infrapunatulkku's dog got its teeth on it. Now the card suffers from severe teeth marks and a corner that is almost torn off. Fortunately, I am able to give it a home where it can spend its retirement still doing what it does best.

The Deck now contains all five colours! Unfortunately white, blue, black and green are found only in mana costs and our mana sources only produce red. There are still at least 54 cards to go, so there is a fair chance I'll get at least one source for every colour by then.

Card 5: Deceptive Rancor

This Rancor was given to me by Arto Liukkonen, a local player in Jyväskylä. He was kind enough to throw in a Mind Stone for my Pauper Cube along with it. Many thanks to him!

The fifth card added to The Deck is this Rancor Arto got as a throw-in when he bought the Rancors for his Infect deck. At first glance it looks practically mint, other than the wear on the left border. You'd almost think it wasn't in bad enough condition to qualify for this project.

On further inspection you just keep finding more and more damage, until the real state of the card becomes apparent. There are significant scratches and dents scattered all over the surface and it is bent and dented badly enough in the middle, that there is no hope that the cardboard could ever be forced back into shape.

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.

The Metapost: The Deck and contributing to it

My name is Jyri Hämäläinen and I am a competitive Magic player and prospective judge from Jyväskylä, Finland. I have been actively playing Magic in tournaments since the autumn of 2012, though I was already familiar with the game from having played it briefly as a schoolkid around the turn of the millennium. I am known for a strong tendency to play small disruptive white creatures in all formats.

I got the idea for collecting destroyed magic cards from Cockatrice, where some American player mentioned in passing about his Commander deck built out of ruined cards. The idea appealed to me and I started asking around if people had amusing stories about ruined cards in my area. The response on mtgsuomi and various local and regional IRC channels was very positive, so I moved ahead with the project.

Since all of the cards in it are strictly illegal to play in all games of Magic, The Deck won't technically belong in any format. At first I will try to conform to the card pool of some sanctioned 60-card format. Which one it is depends on which kind of cards I first happen to get my hands on, since I accept cards printed in any product published under the Magic brand. All the cards I am currently expecting correspond to cards legal in Modern, but I strongly suspect that by the 60-card mark The Deck will be a Vintage deck. Even that might fail, if I find some un-cards with interesting histories.

If the number of cards available grows large enough I will likely update The Deck to some 100-card singleton format. I enjoy playing Highlander much more than Commander, but the inherent silliness of this project might match the The Spirit of EDH so much better that I will have to go outside of my comfort zone.

Lastly, if this blog happens to go viral at some point and my apartment becomes flooded with cardboard trash, I promise to turn The Deck into The Cube.

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.

Card 1: Cathandled Pithing Needle

The first card for the Deck was a Christmas present from J. Ihonen, a well known L2 judge and  player from southern Finland. Many thanks to him!

The first specimen is a Pithing Needle that had been stuck between the skirting and the wall behind some furniture. Ihonen's cats had tried to salvage the card several times during the year, but their attempts had failed.

Some signs of these heroic efforts to reclaim this card can be seen on its surfaces, but other than that, the card is in practically mint condition.