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Garfield Event Cards
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One of the advantages of being the creator of Magic: the Gathering is that you get to make your own cards. Richard Garfield has used this privilege thrice, celebrating different aspects of his life. Proposal is not a real card but a color copy sticker glued to a basic land. It was created to be given to Garfield's girlfriend Lily Wu to propose marriage during a game of Magic. The legend goes that it took four games for Richard to draw the card, but when he finally played it, she accepted. There are 9 Proposal cards in existence. One of them was given to Quinton Hoover, creator of the artwork and one of Lily Wu's favored artists, but was stolen off the table at a convention in Tokyo in 1999 and never reappeared. Another copy was handed to Dave Howell, at that time production manager of Wizards of the Coast and technical creator of the card. The other cards were given to members of the Garfield family and are kept in privacy, as Richard Garfield does not want images of this card to appear in public. Description of Proposal by Dave "Snarke" Howell,former production manager of Wizards of the Coast back in 1993: Lily's dress is golden Richard's wearing a cloak Lily's *Asian,* not European. The actual Proposal is, in effect, a Beta black border, not-so-round corners, gray (not white) lettering, no second copyright line, no copyright date. Even the text itself is wrong. Allows Richard to propose MARRIAGE to Lily. If the proposal is accepted (no comma here) both players win; mix [remainder is correct]and the line breaks are in the wrong place. ADDITIONAL INFO ABOUT PROPOSAL FROM MTG Archive Around October 1993, Richard Garfield approached Dave Howell (aka Snarke) to produce a special card. Richard was planning on proposing marriage to his girlfriend Lily Wu, and wanted to do it in a special way. Richard asked Howell to create a card which he could put into a deck and then cast while the two played. Richard had already contacted Lily's favorite artist Quinton Hoover to create an original piece to be used on the card. The artwork reportedly shows Garfield proposing to Lily on bended-knee wearing Renaissance-style clothing. When Howell received the artwork, he scanned the image and then digitally added the card frame, mana symbols, and text. He then created an Iris print from the digital image producing a very high-quality sheet of nine cards. Simple land cards were glued to the backside of the print, and then cut apart. According to Howell, two of the cards were off-center, but seven other turned out well. The cards appear slightly more shiny than real cards, but otherwise very authentic. Howell also said that there are two variations of the card image. Four of them have the artwork set inside the frame, like normal cards. The other five show Richard's knee is resting on the bevelled frame itself. According to Richard, he put just put one in the all-white deck he was playing. As luck would have it, the first three games the pair played, he didn't draw the card. He did finally find it in the fourth game, but was losing. At one point, Lily asked if he wanted to concede because, as a playtester, she didn't think any card he could play would allow him to win. Shortly after, Richard played the now-famous card: Proposal White mana White mana White mana White mana Sorcery Allows Richard to propose marriage to Lily. If the proposal is accepted both players win; mix the cards in play, both libraries and both graveyards as a shared deck. Lily and Richard did get married and the shared deck created by the casting of Proposal is apparently still intact. The eight other Proposal cards were given to family members, except two. One was given to Dave Howell and the other was given to Quinton Hoover. Sadly, someone later stole Hoover's copy during a tour in Japan and its whereabouts is unknown. Richard and Lily have asked those who do have copies not to publish the artwork, due to the personal nature. Splendid Genesis and Fraternal Exaltation were created to commemorate the births of Richard's and Lily's children. These cards were included in the birth announcements sent to their friends. Additional copies were distributed to Wizards of the Coast employees. It is estimated that one sheet of Splendid Genesis cards and two sheets of Fraternal Exaltation cards were printed, indicating 110 copies of the former card and and 220 copies of the latter card to exist. The first birth announcement came with a card-sized square-cornered glossy sticker of a Spendid Genesis card glued on the front.  Richard Garfield, Ph. D. |
| SET | NUM | CARDNAME | ARTIST | SOURCE | DATE | INFO | ||
| 001 | Proposal | Quinton Hoover | Part of Garfield's marriage proposal deck | 1993-11 | YES | |||
| 002 | Splendid Genesis | Monique Thirifay | Birth announcement addition of Garfield's first child, Terry | 1997-09 | YES | |||
| 003 | Fraternal Exaltation | Susan Garfield | Birth announcement addition of Garfield's second child, Schuyler | 1999-? | YES | |||