Introduction
Those of you who’ve been reading my blog for a while know that I sometimes get unusual calls from my boyfriend when he’s at work. Well today I got another one, but this time it was not tied to a request for me to craft nerdcore jewelry.
A Mysterious Package
So, Jeremy called me this morning with excitement and a great deal of puzzlement in his voice. “A package just arrived for you here at the Moonbase*,” he told me. (*Another name for the LoadingReadyRun office, where he works.)
“A package? At the office?” I said, because repeating things is helpful and makes you sound intelligent.
“Yeah. Did you order seven pounds of magic cards and have them delivered here?”
“Did I do what? Magic cards? Seven pounds? What?”
“Well it’s a box that says it contains seven pounds of Magic cards, from Troll and Toad, the online card store, and it’s addressed to you.”
“Are you sure? It has my name on it?”
“The invoice says ‘Importer: Tally Heilke.'”
“Um… wait, really? It says Tally Heilke?”
This went on for a while, with me continuing to sound deeply intelligent and parrot-like, and all of us – me, Jeremy and all his co-workers in the background – rubbing our heads in an excited but entirely mystified way. I had Jeremy crack open the box, but there was no note inside, just a LOT of Magic cards. Various lands, M11 commons and a random (and rather interesting) assortment of 25 rares with absolutely no unifying set or theme.
So after work I went down to the Moonbase and sure enough, there was a package with my name on it. Here’s what it contained.
Two boxes very very full of Magic cards.
One box contained mana of every colour and of many different sets.
The other box contained what must technically be termed a shit tonne of M11 commons. (Btw, does this photo remind anyone else of that bit in Beauty and the Beast, during the song Be Our Guest when there are those lines and lines of dancing dishes, stacked on top of each other? No? Ok, nevermind, just keep reading.)
And 25 randomly assorted rares.
Wild Speculation
Now, I don’t know if this was sent by Troll and Toad, or by someone else via Troll and Toad, or what. I don’t know why it was sent to me, though I can happily put forth some wild speculation. Given that my name was on it and it was sent to an address that one would have to have a certain amount of knowledge to associate with me, I highly doubt that it’s some sort of random mistake. (I sure hope it isn’t!) Here are my various and wild guesses as to why it was sent:
1. Someone is commissioning me to build them a tree fort out of these Magic cards. Which frankly sounds awesome.
2. Someone heard that we have a desperate shortage of Magic cards and wanted to help out. Which would mean that they’ve paid no attention whatsoever to anything my and my friends have been saying on the internet of the past several months. But we’ll totally forgive them, because they’re clearly awesome.
3. Someone saw my Magic card crafts and noticed my poor boyfriend Tweeting about how I kept cutting up his precious cards (though of course he exaggerates, the way boyfriends do), and figured they’d send me a whole bunch of cards to consecrate to the crafting gods with wild abandon and glee. Which is totally freaking awesome, and if I knew who it was I’d give them several huge hugs.
So I have no idea who these are from (though, they could, of course, simply be from Troll and Toad, in which case a huge thank you to them), or why exactly the were sent to me, and I certainly hope it’s not a mistake of some kind. But regardless, it’s been a pretty exciting day. My imagination is gearing up for some massive-scale crafting possibilities… And I hope whoever sent the package will let me know more, like who they are and why they sent these boxes full of crafting supplies, er, I mean, Magic cards.
Notes about the cards
There’s an old-school rare in here that neither Jeremy nor I had previously come across, and there’s something about it that really grabs me. False Dawn is a white sorcery that costs two mana and allows you to turn all permanents you control and all cards you own that are not in play into white cards until end of turn, then allows you to draw a card.
It’s an intriguing mechanic that I think could do some interesting things in the right deck. But what really grabs me is the art. I’m not sure how to explain it, but it’s got an 80s-style-animated-epic-adventure feel to it that reminds me of Lloyd Alexander books and fantasy films from childhood and gives off an aura of wistfulness and excitement. I really can’t explain it any better than that, but I love the card.
I also noticed that when you spread all the cards out in random order, not organized by colour, as I did for this photo, they’re rather reminiscent of a string of Christmas lights. I may have to do something with that…
The Myr is, of course, very excited about all these cards. So many new creatures to blow up!
So a HUGE thank you to whoever sent these! I hope you’ll tell me who you are so I can thank you properly, and so you can tell me if these are indeed supposed to be for crafting, or for playing, or for sharing – not that any of these things are totally mutually exclusive. This was really such an awesome surprise. Unexpected snail mail is one of the best things ever. Unless it’s bills. Or advertisements, or political flyers. But this wasn’t any of those things, so it really is one of the best things ever!
Alexander
/ February 12, 2011That is quite the collection. I say, let the gang pick out any cards they’d like for decks, then construct some massive project out of them. Get featured on dailymtg again.
Also, I believe the rares are random because many stores literally sell “random rares”, cheap but wild and often the lesser quality ones.
Leah
/ February 12, 2011Wow! That is a LOT of cards! Lol how random, I hope you find who sent them to you. Now I am curious to know as well.
Dex
/ February 12, 2011DAMN!
that is a lot of cards! and also a large box full of dreams and crafting ideas!
Also I don’t think Jer has any right to complain now about your “creativity”.
Monica
/ February 12, 2011Sorry, I lost the rest of the post after you mentioned Lloyd Alexander, and I had to try and figure out what book I could match to it ;-) I’m thinking The Book of Three, with Taran sulking in the cloak, ’cause he did a lot of sulking.
Also, I would like to see a tree house made out of magic cards. I’ve made a paper birdhouse, perhaps you could make a mini one out of a few cards? http://www.frugalfamilyfunblog.com/2011/01/printable-bird-house-play-set.html
MTGirl
/ February 13, 2011So many MTG cards. For sure, your myr plushie is soooo happy! If I were you, I’ll be more inspired to play magic and make jewelry. ^_^
Under_Score
/ February 15, 2011Hi, Tally.
I thought about leaving it a surprise, since I certainly wasn’t in it for the credit. I figured I owed you some sort of explanation, though, especially since you seem unsure what to do with them. So, yes, I am the one who sent you the cards (I have the email receipts if you don’t believe me, but it’s not like it matters since I’m not looking for anything in return) Now, lets see if I can address a few of your concerns.
My Reasons
There are a number of things that led up to this gift. It started a few weeks back when I received my package of stuff I won during Desert Bus. (Which really means that it started at Desert Bus itself, which was the first time I “met” you – sorry if that sounds creepy, I couldn’t think of a better way to say it). On said package was the address for LRR, which I made sure to make a note of for the future.
Recently, I’ve been going through an Amazon.com addiction, buying things for me and my friends with little regard to frugality. Sort of like how I was during Desert Bus, in fact. Actually, now that I’m recounting it, my addiction started right before I received my Desert Bus package. The package arrived a day before I started getting my Amazon orders. Anyways, so I was already in the process of spending money.
Now, at some point during this internet shopping spree, you posted your entry on Magic card crafts. (I had started following you and your fellow LRR contributors on Twitter during Desert Bus, so that’s how I knew about it). You might remember I commented on it about using the ideas with Pokemon cards instead. (I did, by the way, make a dice box to replace the brown paper bad I had been using). It was this post that clued me in to you guys liking Magic, or at least reminded me.
Anyways, a few days after that I noticed that this Amazon Marketplace store, Troll and Toad, which I had ordered a few Roleplaying books from, had an item for a thousand magic cards with 25 assorted rares. I figured, with all the money I had spent so far, the price for this wasn’t that much. So, using my newfound stalker abilities, I decided to send LRR a little gift. I was a little nervous about not having a real name on the shipping address, though, so I put yours on there, since you were the one that made me think of it.
That said, after I had ordered it, you guys started Tweeting about those new Magic booster boxes you were opening. I tried to take it in good-nature: at least it proved you all liked Magic. ;P
What I Intended for Them
I didn’t really have any plans at the time. I figured you’d do with them as was needed. I knew unofficial packs like that usually didn’t have the best cards, so I doubted there would be too many you guys could actually use. While they were a gift for all of LRR, I figured they’d be of most use to you with your crafts, another reason I put your name on it. Really, it’s whatever you and the others want to do with them. I like the suggestion one person put forth of letting the others take a look through them before cutting them up, but it might already be too late for that. Other than that, though, go wild! I don’t mind if you make a ball gown out of the lands or use them all for wallpaper. They’re yours.
In Conclusion
It was awesome to hear about how much you enjoyed getting this. I honestly wasn’t expecting you to make this big a deal about it. Maybe a Tweet laced with suspicion and paranoia. I mean, I was worried it’d be seen as kind of creepy. Hopefully Jer won’t hunt me down and threaten to kill me in a jealous rage. >.> (Although what is a little freaky is that my name is Jeremy too).
Annnnnnnnnyways. I’m glad this went over so well, and it’s good to see there was at least one card in there that you liked for the card itself. Hope you have fun with them, whatever you decide to make.
Jer
/ February 16, 2011Haha. Vengeful: totally describes me. Thanks for thinking of us, under_score. I think we were all fascinated by the mystery, more than anything–and appreciate the thought (not all of us can afford to get booster boxes!).
Also, I remember Troll & Toad from when I used to read The Duelist and Scrye as a kid: you could mail-order moxen from them, and my friends and I always wished we could afford the $70 needed to do so ;).
Best!
admin
/ February 16, 2011Wow! Fun that I totally remember you from the Desert Bus chat – we all loved your username.
Well, we all feel very special that you’d send us such a thoughtful gift, and we’ll certainly put it to good use. I, too, thought Alexander’s suggestion was a good one. And don’t worry, I haven’t cut anything up yet – I wanted to wait and see if we heard from the sender (you) first. I will see what the gang wants to use, and then… I’ve been pondering some interesting large-scale crafting ideas… :)
Jeremy (Under_Score Jeremy, not “my” Jeremy), thank you SO much for this! It’s really generous, and we feel very special that you’d think us worthy of such a sweet gift. As I said on the LRR forums, I thought this sort of thing only ever happened in movies. It totally made my day.
And I love that you used my tutorial to make one of those boxes. :) They’re totally a perfect little size, eh?
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