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Notice that when I started this series I couldn't just say "the 1020 tournament legal cards not online".  I wish I could, because it's really a lot simpler to say than "widely-distributed non-silver border printed on paper cards", which has to individually account for Un-sets, Richard Garfield announcement cards, and electronic-only cards.  But these cards today prevent us from doing that.  They were in actual, normal packs of Magic, and we shouldn't leave them out just because they were slapped with a genetic deficiency in their mechanics.  That's mechanic-ist.  Today, we examine these 12 exceptions to the tournament legal rule.  Yes, even Vintage won't touch these guys, and if you know Vintage players, they touch everything.  As long as it's double-sleeved.

Once upon a time, Magic had some wacky mechanics like "ante", "flip onto the table cards", and "sub-games".  The powers that be decided eventually to remove these mechanics from tournament magic for these reasons: 1) They were illegal in most US states and territories 2) Playing with your lands spread over three tables was not conducive to tournament play, and 3) Aaron Forsythe hates playing against Shahrazad decks.

The ante cards:

As a group, I deem them virtually impossible to bring online.  Not only might they still violate state, federal, or international law of some form (I'm not a lawyer, but I've watched a lot of Law and Order), there are many inherent problems with ante cards and the whole concept of ante.  They really have no place anymore even in casual games.  Some issues being:

 

1) The cards anted are often vastly unequal in value, even if you impose a rarity restriction of some kind.

 

2) Cards that use ante as a mechanic are generally adding to your game resources for a cost that's not related to that game at all.  That makes them near-impossible to balance correctly, from the stunning brokenness of Contract from Below to the pointlessness of Demonic Attorney.

 

3) Ante games alter the make-up of people's decks from game to game, making legal matches with 60 cards per deck difficult, much less whole tournaments.  This would require all kinds of programming to alter decklists during tournaments.

 

4) Ante cards often lead to hurt feelings and resentment.  Those of you who played back in the ancient days know what I'm talking about.  While the anonymity of online would take some of that "my friend took my card now I hate him" away, instead you would have hundreds of reports of other people "cheating" or "defrauding" when someone's upset by their ante loss.

 

5) It really drags the focus away from the game itself and into the realm of personal financial loss (as opposed to potential gain by winning the tournament).  That's not a good thing.  It's like the being on the Price is Right vs. being on the Cambodian Price is Right where you forfeit your hands if you lose.

 

6) Magic Organized Play does a great job of making matches "count" and adding drama and interest to matches by having a lot on the line, thus removing much of the impetus for ante.  The Magic Online Seasons and Championships are amazing and I highly recommend them.  Now we even have online PTQs!  How awesome is that?

 

1.

 

Contract from Below

Ah, Contract.  This is a good one to start with, because this is easily the most broken Magic card ever printed.  Black Lotus can suck his scaly finger.  Would you play a card that said "Draw seven cards.  Give your opponent a quarter one-quarter of the times you do this."?  I thought so.  An immediate X-of in any Magic deck ever, where X is the number they'll let you get away with.  Unfortunately, that number is generally < 1.

 

The text of the Contract is "I, the undersigned, do hereby agree to all stipulations as discussed."  Now, I'm still no lawyer (though I love reading me some Supreme Court opinions), but I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't sign anything that requires the DEVIL to be honest about what he said to me thirty years ago when I sold my soul.  You just know he's going to end up owning the whole condo and your pet fish's soul, too.

Verdict: NO. Certain people would go apeshit to have this online, but you already can't stand those people.

2.

Darkpact

The easiest and most straightforward of the "steal his card" cards.  I always loved those fingerless glove things the chick was wearing. And yes, that is the world's tiniest brazier ever for summoning the dark powers of the universe.

Verdict: NO.

3.

Demonic Attorney

So they made a card that makes each player ante another card, and does nothing else.  You know what?  I already made that card.  It's called "PLAYING ANOTHER ANTE GAME".

Verdict: NO.  Really silly idea for a card.

 

4.

Jeweled Bird

Kai Budde used this card to win the Magic Invitational.  No, really, you can read all about it somewhere on the interents.  One of Rosewater's "wacky" formats that year was ante games, where the value of cards you won in ante made you the winner of that series.  It was kind of like flipping a coin, except that Kai brought a two-headed coin when he showed up with his CHRONICLES reprints of Jeweled Bird.  Yes, the crappy white-border version worth only $0.50.  So he ensured that no matter how badly he lost, if the game dragged on long enough the most his opponent could win would be $.50.  MTG.com has never mentioned ante at all.  Notes I've sent to Rosewater over the years asking him to generally talk about the design of ante cards in a column someday have gone unanswered.  I think it's because he's still a bit embarrassed about this fiasco.  Or maybe it's the lawyers again.

 

Anyway, it does it's job in an ante game.  It's funny, this is really the only case I can think of where the cheaper, washed out white border version of a card is universally more 'playable' than the black border.

VERDICT: NO.  Random note, this is the first card that ever added "Draw a card" as a bonus that wasn't the primary effect.

 

5.

Bronze Tablet

They kept putting these "escape clauses" into these later ante cards.  Which is goofy, because they already had a built in escape clause - it's called conceding while the ability is on the stack.  You don't want him to get your card?  Fine, just give up.  This card has the Contract problem in reverse - how much "in game" cards/life is worth your collection's integrity?  Unfortunately for Bronze Tablet, this costs 10 mana total, while Contract costs 1.  At least now it behaves like an Amulet of Unmaking, and actually removes stuff from the game regardless of life being paid / ownership exchanged, etc.  That's definitely not the way we played it in 1994.  It used to do a big fat hairy nothing for 10 mana.

VERDICT: NO.  Though it has a non-ante use now, it's not really a good or efficient one.

6.

Rebirth

So, you spend six mana, and you and your opponent each get healed to 20?  For the cost of some random card?  Was it really too much to ask to make this so only you could use it?  If you really need to be healed back to 20 badly enough to play this, chances are he's got some stuff on the board hurting you.  And so chances are better than even that after you play this, you both get healed, and then you lose two cards permanently.  It's not win-more - this card is strictly lose-more.

VERDICT: NO.  It's a shame that a snappy name like "Rebirth" was used on this gar-bage.

7.

Tempest Efreet

The next evolution of the Ante card - He attacks! He blocks! He looks like he flies but doesn't!  He has like 80 words in the tiniest typeface possible!  Again saddled with an unnecessary escape clause, he tries to exchange himself for a random card in your opponent's hand.  So, you get to give up your Hill Giant and you own a random card.  Woo.  Prior to M10, he could block and trade with something and still try his little trick thanks to damage on the stack.  Which was at least is something, I suppose. Now he can't even do that.  There's worse HiIl Giants out there...  I just can't think of any at the moment.

VERDICT: NO.  Ah, the Efreet tribe must ever be shy one member.  Sorry, Tribal Wars.  Really, you'll be fine.

8.

Amulet of Quoz

This card is one of the reasons Ice Age as a set couldn't be released online (besides it's general awfulness in limited - why hello ME2!).  As a judge, this card cracks me up.  Until they changed the prize structure, we spent a lot of time in the middle-late rounds of large pre-release flights gently reminding people it's NOT ok to flip a coin to determine the winner of a match.  Sometimes with gentle DQs.  But this card says "Hey, it's cool man.  You don't need to play Magic.  Just flip until you win.  Start your gambling addiction early!"  Yeah, this card is kind of like Magic Organized Play's worst nightmare - a tournament where people just flip coins or roll some dice to determine who gets the prizes.  I think you can already play a game like that - just go ask those hobos over by the basketball court.

VERDICT: NO.  And a double NO.

 

9.

Timmerian Fiends

So insane.  I could never figure out what the heck is going on in this artwork.  Skeletor has some very random bones hanging over his mystical eyeball.  I'm sure he thinks they're very intimidating, but the fact that they're totally obscuring his vision makes them somewhat less spooky and more like some kind of cartoon undead pirate from Scooby-Doo.  Meanwhile, Wolfman back there looks very much like he just came from some Furry party.  You know the kind that I mean.  Geez, you can even see the eye holes in his costume.  And those antlers are very obviously glued onto his hood.  I've seen toddlers dressed as a pumpkin that were more convincing than this.  Oh, and their ability sucks too.  Sure, I would love to ante an extra card so they'd realize they'd spent six mana on a big fat nothing, because I can't possibly lose to someone who plays this card on purpose.

VERDICT: NO.

The Dexterity cards (Flip me onto the table cards):

Our second mechanic that is well and truly banned from the game, dexterity cards are super fun in small doses.  They have absolutely zero place in tournament magic, but as casual cards they rock the house.  They really have nothing whatsoever to do with playing the game of Magic, but neither does Clash.  The British punks or the Lorwyn mechanic.

10.

Chaos Orb

You've never quite experienced chaos if you didn't live through a Chaos Orb in a multiplayer game back in the old days.  Back then, there was no "gentleman" rule about not being able to rearrange your cards from the moment it hits the stack until the moment it leaves play.  No, once you saw it coming it was a mad dash as everyone grabbed all of their permanents and tried to spread out all of their cards as far apart as possible all at once, generally infringing on the space of your neighbor, who would take this a sign to infringe your permanents right into the wastebasket or their backpack.  We used to resort to hiding our best cards under vending machines or sofas.  And after it had done it's dirty deed, it was literally a half-hour while everyone went to retrieve all of their permanents stashed in various secret locations.  And I think some light cheating may have occurred.  Did he really have 11 islands in play an hour ago when this all started?

 

With the modern gentleman's rules about no rearranging, and Magic Online handling permanent arrangement automatically (and doing a way better job than Microprose Shandalar used to), it's conceivable this card could come online.  It would require extensive programming, and it would have to be auto-banned from all competitive formats, but even so, I think people would love to have it again.  I know I would.  There's some problems, in that people's screen sizes are different and some MTGO settings let you alter the way things are arranged.  But I think they can be solved, and it's at least remotely possible to get it someday.

VERDICT: YES (R, programming issues, banned).  There's big issues, but it really is a ton of fun in casual play.  Everyone would want one.  Or seven.

11.

Falling Star

The Robin to Chaos Orb's Batman, Falling Star is always getting captured by the Joker while Chaos Orb has to swoop in and save him.  At least that's what they pretend - banned cards have a lot of free time on their hands, as it turns out.  As the annoying sidekick to one of the most fun cards of all time, just like the Joker, you would tend to chuckle if he showed up to stop you.  Someone would cast Falling Star, and... no one would really bother to re-arrange anything.  Meh.  Yeah, it's pretty bad.

VERDICT: NO.  Even if you do get Chaos Orb online some distant day, this one's not really worth it.  Keep the mechanic special.  Interesting in that it's the only Sorcery that's allowed to "come into play", such as it is.

 

The sub-games card:

12.

Shahrazad

I don't care what anyone says, Shahrazad should totally make it online.  It would require very little in the way of programming - just an extra set of tabs at the top or bottom of your duel screen that allow you to change over from main game to sub-game 1, etc.  There's no "table space" or "game length" issues online - it neatly solves those problems by giving each player infinite table space and a chess timer.  Because Gottlieb already nerfed its "brokenness" by requiring all shuffling of exiled cards back into the main game, every reason they gave for banning it doesn't apply online.  So I think Classic could totally handle this card online, both casually and in tournaments.  I'm not sure there's much of a use for it since the nerf, but I would love to see people try and break it again.

VERDICT: YES (R, programming issues).  It would take some programming chops, but not Chaos-Orb level where you're programming a whole new sub-game.  Well, you are programming a whole new sub-game, but, well, you know what I mean.

SUMMARY:

• 1. Contract from Below NO
• 2. Darkpact NO
• 3. Demonic Attorney NO
• 4. Jeweled Bird NO
• 5. Bronze Tablet NO
• 6. Rebirth NO
• 7. Tempest Efreet NO
• 8. Amulet of Quoz NO
• 9. Timmerian Fiends NO
• 10. Chaos Orb YES (R, programming issues, banned)
• 11. Falling Star NO
• 12. Shahrazad YES (R, programming issues)

 NEXT WEEK: We examine the less-cool cousins of the banned cards, the "problem children".