Editor’s Introduction: Have you ever seen a card that looks extremely dark, or like it had way too much ink on it? These rarities happen when the ink levels are not layed down as intended by the printer. Check out Chapter IX of Keith Adams‘ Magic Oddica to learn all about these unique collectibles.
This week I wanted to focus on dark cards. And no, I am not referring to the old set called The Dark, I am actually talking about cards that have an excessive amount of inking on them. If you’ve been playing long enough, you’ve probably seen two copies of the same card in which one may be a bit lighter/ darker than the other, but not given it much thought. It’s not until things get extremely different that it may catch your attention.
Mistakes happen, and one that was annoyingly common to find around Mirage block was finding cards that were overinked. Those brown artifacts looked like a black card. Green, same thing. Land… ditto. You could play a three color deck, and the casual observer would swear you were playing a mono deck. Now, Mirage-age cards were not the only cards with this issue, it still happens today. It just seems like they were great at perfecting this defect to a tee back in the late 90’s.
Flash forward to now, and most players can’t claim they’ve ever opened a box of Mirage. These overinked cards look like bad proxies your younger brother made with a bad printer. However, I assure you that these are real cards I have to show you. They still happen today, but are much less frequent. Even the Mirage-era cards are popular now, because many players threw theirs out. Speaking from experience, they are tournament legal, but you may have to spend some time convincing a skeptical judge. At a glance, you will have some stiff accusations by anyone sitting across from you who is more than happy to disqualify you, so make sure you call this to a judge’s attention before you start using them in any tournament.
So that is all for now. Inking issues are somewhat common, and come in many fun and strange forms. But I have to cover the basics before I start branching out to the absolutely crazy stuff. Stay tuned for more Magic Oddica…