Posted in: Card Games, Games, Magic: The Gathering, Tabletop, Wizards of the Coast | Tagged: commander, deck, EDH, magic, Magic: The Gathering, MTG, opinion, personalization, wizards of the coast, WotC

Why And How Players Personalize – "Magic: The Gathering"

Hey all! I figured after yesterday's article on The Golden Age of Magic, I'd write up an article about the different ways that people personalize their Magic: the Gathering decks. This article will go beyond just "pet cards", or cards people put into their decks because of some personal attachment. The gist of this article applies to purely cosmetic reasons and methods for people to make their Magic decks a personal labor of love.

For some people, this act of sleeving may come out of necessity to protect one's cards, and nothing more. This is a person who cares more about the game as a whole than the intricacies of, for example, its lore, or its art or themes. Keeping this type of person in mind but out of the article is nearly impossible because so many of them exist. However, for the purposes of this article, I want to focus on the cosmetically-inclined. What kinds of sleeves fit your deck the best?

Are you a burn player? Do you want things to be a bit crispier at the end than when you started the game?

This sort of sleeve or box exudes a sort of dark humor and almost an irony in that while you are incinerating your opponents with burn spells and being pithy about it, your opponents may be roasting alive. But why not? You're the burn player. Go ahead. Show your colors.

Are you playing a deck that is so edgy that you simply need to look to Edgar Allan Poe for inspiration? Are you an Orzhov player, so transfixed on the horrors of the world of the living that you look to the realms of the dead for solace? Look no further!

Nevermore will your opponents be so ignorant to deny you your misery and torment. Rather, through your matches, they'll share a rather serious moment, at least through your oh-so-edgy deck box. Why not? The deck box is edgy enough.

But in all seriousness, people who alter their own cards exude the most care and love towards their prized decks. Rather than protecting their keep at all costs, players who have their cards altered go at great lengths and at greater expense to willingly change the art on the cards they love the most. For example, take this one:

This card is generally very easy to come across. In most, if not all expansions it's in, it's a common card. However, someone took the time out of their busy lives to expand the art of this Dark Ritual, and now it's even more lovely. But it's not just commons which are altered. Some people will go far enough to alter rares and even mythic rares. Some will even modify cards which are straight-up valuable.

Granted, Force of Will was first printed at uncommon rarity back in Alliances, but it is now well over $100 on secondary market sites. The card was definitely played back then, though, and holds its own today, so the fact that someone toiled over an art station with what is effectively more than a cardstock $100 bill to make it what it is today shows great passion.

In conclusion, people make their cards prettier in many ways and for a variety of reasons, all valid, and all lovely in their own idiom. It isn't to say that those without altered cards or nice sleeves aren't loving the decks they make, but it is to say that the decks we love ate the decks we keep. This can show that.

So go ahead! Sleeve your artifact deck with Leonardo da Vinci-style sleeves. Box it in a metal tin with gears on it. Alter that Ornithopter with an extended art (cover the text box, even! We all know it just flies)! Just keep loving your deck. Personalization is a huge way to make a Magic: The Gathering deck become better over time.

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