Page 1 of 3

Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 12:09 pm
by motorcitymagic
Lots of GOOD rarities info in today's "Ask Wizards" column - http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mt ... zards/0803.

[hr]

August 13, 2003    
Q: "What are some of the most rare cards ever printed? I'm not talking about Moxes or anything like that. I've seen blank cards and blue Hurricanes."
--Jack Roosevelt

A: From Brian Tinsman, R&D game designer:
"The rarest cards fall into two categories: misprints and specials. The blank cards you've seen are either misprints or R&D playtest cards that were never used. One famous mistake was a run of Fallen Empires that was printed with backs from Wyvern, another TCG being manufactured at the same factory. The rarest misprints, and among the rarest Magic cards in existence, are those blue Hurricanes. They're from a printing nicknamed 'Summer Magic.' In the summer of '94, Wizards realized one printing of Revised had severe mistakes, with the art almost too dark to see on many cards. Wizards recalled the entire print run and had them all destroyed. Well, almost all of them. About four cases (40 display boxes) accidentally made it to the public in the UK and Tennessee. Today a Summer Magic Birds of Paradise is worth well over a thousand dollars.

"Another misprint was a series of foil Friday Night Magic promotional cards that were added to Japanese Urza's Legacy and Urza's Destiny sheets as test runs to see if the print process was working right. Those cards had no text, just mana costs and art, and were supposed to have been destroyed. Some of them, like Lightning Bolt, accidentally made it into booster packs and are now among the rarest of all cards.

"Special printings are cards that were produced to commemorate some event and given to the participants only. The rarest is probably the 1996 World Champion card, of which only one is supposed to exist. It was encased in a trophy and awarded to Tom Chanpheng, the winner of that tournament. Wizards never printed any other cards for later World Champions. The next rarest is the card Proposal, which Richard Garfield had printed and slipped into a deck in order to propose to his soon-to-be wife, Lily. About seven of these were given to members of their wedding party. Richard also used Magic cards to announce two more special events, the birth of his two children. Splendid Genesis (about 150 cards) and Fraternal Exaltation (about 250 cards) were given to friends and coworkers.

"Sought after by some collectors are cards altered by designers to change their functionality. Although not legal for tournament play, it's generally accepted that if you can get Richard Garfield to change the mana cost or abilities on a card and sign it, you can play it as written. It's rumored that there's a 3/3 Llanowar Elves out there somewhere.

"Thanks to my fellow designer Mike Elliott for helping me out with a bunch of this info."

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 12:44 pm
by ouroboros
"Another misprint was a series of foil Friday Night Magic promotional cards that were added to Japanese Urza's Legacy and Urza's Destiny sheets as test runs to see if the print process was working right. Those cards had no text, just mana costs and art, and were supposed to have been destroyed. Some of them, like Lightning Bolt, accidentally made it into booster packs and are now among the rarest of all cards.


Does this mean that there are other textless foil promos besides the Lightning Bolt?  Does anybody remeber the list of promos that were mistakenly put into the packs besides the Bolt?

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 1:04 pm
by stu55
[quote="motorcitymagic"]

It's rumored that there's a 3/3 Llanowar Elves out there somewhere.
[quote]


Anyone out there got an idea on this?

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 10:03 pm
by mintcollector
stu55:  The Llanowar Elves may indeed exist.  The reason I say this is that I saw a modified Black Lotus by Dr. Garfield to give out 4 mana.  The head judge did allow the card to generate 4 mana when the question arose.  I believe this rule of modification also extended to Peter Adkinson, but I have seen no approval on this.  I know Garfield mods are supported in tournament play for any lucky enough to get one, at least in the one tournament I saw where this issue arose.  Any judges on the forum should confirm or deny that this is widely accepted.

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 11:19 pm
by motorcitymagic
Well... I would say that those Garfield mods aren't allowed in DCI sanctioned tournaments.  :(  After all, how could we even be sure it was genuine?

That being said, I think Garfield mods are SUPREMELY cool and absolutely "legal" in casual play.

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 11:30 pm
by dragsamou
mintcollector wrote: I know Garfield mods are supported in tournament play for any lucky enough to get one, at least in the one tournament I saw where this issue arose.  Any judges on the forum should confirm or deny that this is widely accepted.
Hi Mike.
I'm lucky enough to have received a Special Garfield's Card.It's call:"One More Time",it's a Sorcery,Flavor Text is:This Game doesn't count.Next one does.Since,I never play :-[ is it a Powerful Card to use in Casual Play?

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 12:06 am
by rick21n
The blank Lightning Bolt is located here.

http://www.magiclibrary.net/rarities-error-1.html

Lots of neat stuff out there.....

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 2:10 am
by mintcollector
I wanted to address the Summer Magic blurb.  According to the article Brian Tinsman stated that about 40 display boxes of Summer made it out in the wild.  Boosters boxes have always been 48 boosters with 15 cards in each pack for the main, non-expansion sets correct?  Starters have always been 60 up to Saga.  Also weren't there 16 Starters in a Starter box up to Saga as well due to the smaller starter sizes?  Now the real question is, what was the rough starter to booster ratio of Summer received?  Hopefully Jim at Troll and Toad can answer this one.  My goal would be to estimate what the probable breakdown of Summer may really be out in the wild.

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 4:32 am
by ouroboros
I'm pretty sure that 15 card booster packs have always been 36 packs per box.  I'm pretty sure that Tournament/Starter deck boxes have been 12 per box, with 3 rares each, so the total number of rares from a starter box is the same as that of a booster box, namely 36.

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 4:45 am
by mintcollector
Oops, yes 36 boosters is correct.  48 was a mistake.  I called my local venue and asked them about the starters though.  Prior to Saga when tournament starters did not exist,  starters were 60 cards, and the manager thinks he remembers pre-Sage starter boxes being 16.....he thinks.  He remembers there used to be more of them in a starter box.

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 5:12 am
by motorcitymagic
Mirage was the first expansion to have 12 starters/box. Fifth Edition was the first base set with 12.

Ice Age, Fourth and previous all had 10 starters/box.

Crystal Keep has always been very reliable about this sort of information.

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 5:38 am
by mintcollector
I decided to call Jim at Troll and Toad about this and he stated that there are far more than 40 boxes out in the wild.  The excercise on my part is then pointless.

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 6:36 am
by Ralph Herold
This is a good example why I hesitate to add print run numbers to this site. If you can not even trust official sources, then listing rumored numbers is pointless in my opinion.

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 7:32 am
by TerraFrost
according to Brian Tinsman's answer, summer magic was shipped out to the UK and Tennessee.  Now, while this site may not say anything that contradicts that, according to Bob's old site, it was shipped to the UK and Texas...

also, in looking up this sites summer magic page...  it describes the cards that are different, and...  isn't the demonic tutor different, as well?  in this case, doesn't it have the pentagram at the top of the forehead removed?
"Another misprint was a series of foil Friday Night Magic promotional cards that were added to Japanese Urza's Legacy and Urza's Destiny sheets as test runs to see if the print process was working right. Those cards had no text, just mana costs and art, and were supposed to have been destroyed. Some of them, like Lightning Bolt, accidentally made it into booster packs and are now among the rarest of all cards.
this sorta contradicts the announcement WotC made concerning this collation error, which is this (courtesy of mtgnews.com):
June 9, 1999 (Seattle, Wash.) - Wizards of the Coast Inc., maker of the bestselling Magic: The Gathering® trading card game, announced today that a collation error has been detected in the Magic: The Gathering - Urza's Destiny™ expansion, which released last Monday, June 7, 1999. Cards appearing in the recently released set include a small number of Urza's Saga™ premium foil-stamped cards and one Fourth Edition™ card, all of which were specially developed for prize distribution through programs managed by the DCI™ players's organization and Magic: The Gathering Arena™ league. The ten premium cards, which include Stroke of Genius; Pouncing Jaguar; Gaea's Cradle; Thran Quarry; Rewind; Skittering Skirge; Duress; Serra Avatar; Karn, Silver Golem and Lightning Bolt were collated in place of uncommon cards that should have appeared in the expansion. These cards will still be included as prizes in future DCI and Arena programs, but are now unintentional bonus cards for fans as well.
according to the WotC press release, these cards only appeared in Urza's Destiny packs.  According to Brian Tinsman, these cards are in Urza's Destiny and Urza's Legacy packs.  also, not all the FNM promo cards pulled out of Urza's Destiny packs were blank.  Thus far, the only blank one that has been discovered is of a Lightning Bolt, and we know about that one...

as for the 3/3 llanower elves...  i'm not even sure that qualifies as rarities material, myself, but...  whatever, hehe :)

Re: Rarities info in Aug 13th Ask Wizards

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2003 8:27 pm
by Erl00
mintcollector wrote:I wanted to address the Summer Magic blurb.  According to the article Brian Tinsman stated that about 40 display boxes of Summer made it out in the wild.  Boosters boxes have always been 48 boosters with 15 cards in each pack for the main, non-expansion sets correct?  Starters have always been 60 up to Saga.  Also weren't there 16 Starters in a Starter box up to Saga as well due to the smaller starter sizes?  Now the real question is, what was the rough starter to booster ratio of Summer received?  Hopefully Jim at Troll and Toad can answer this one.  My goal would be to estimate what the probable breakdown of Summer may really be out in the wild.
As far as I know, there are no such things like Summer Magic Starter decks, only booster packs.

Also, to reply on another post of yours: Do never trust what Wizard tells you ;) I should have kept e-mails I recieved from them when I was looking which packs existed in which languages when I started my collection ...


Jim says that "far more than 40 boxes were released" ??? That's a lot more than what I thought. 40 boxes already mean about 12 copies of each rares. It's twice as much as common knowledge ...
Jim? can you add anything to proove this assessment?

Finally, I know from a reliable source in The Netherlands thats Summer boxes appeared in Ireland. Many Dutch student were there at this time and this is how so many Summer cards ended up in The Netherlands.