Planeswalking – Vault Hunting

I don’t think I’ve ever really seen myself as a collector of things. I am certainly a gatherer of objects but I never feel the need to hold onto objects I no longer have a use for. Every rare Magic card I own is either in a deck or in my trades folder, as the sole purpose of my collection is play. This will go some way to explain why my first action upon obtaining the much sort after From the Vault Twenty card set was to open it and add cards from it to my decks. Before we get into my heresy, let me explain what this box of wonders is.

Once a year for the past five years Wizards of the Coast have released a From the Vault set, each being a themed collection of 15 important, but not necessarily rare, cards. Each set is given a fancy foil treatment and presented in a fancy box. Previous themes have included dragons, banned cards, and legends. This year’s release is a little different – it contains one card that played an important role in tournament play for each of the past twenty years. As with all From the Vault releases the print run is low making them highly sort after by collectors and often selling for above their retail price right away. This is true of From the Vault Twenty mainly because of one card – possibly the most controversial card in modern Magic.

That card is Jace, the Mind Sculptor, an extremely powerful Planeswalker that saw almost complete player saturation during its Pro Tour year and very soon earned the dubious honor of being banned from Standard and Modern formats of play. I won’t go into why he is powerful; if that’s something you care about you’ll already know. My point here is that the first thing I did was unpack my From the Vault Twenty, drop the sparkly life counter dice into my dice bag and put Jace into one of my casual decks. Then I went through the other cards and found homes for a few of them. Long term investment value be damned, these cards are part of a game I love and they should be played with. It’s not like I don’t look after all my cards – my decks are sleeved and every other card is either in a folder or neatly sorted and stored in card box. Jace aside there are some excellent cards in this set. I’ll highlight my personal favorites and the reasons they stand out for me.

Fyndhorn Elves – sure this is just an Ice Age copy of Llanowar Elves but Ice Age was a set I played a huge amount of and this reprinting comes with some much improved artwork. A card of common rarity whose value in play should never be underestimated.	Dark Ritual – another common and another blast from my past. Back when magic was, arguably, simpler than it is today this was a powerhouse of a card. A lucky draw and you find yourself chaining two of these together on your first turn leading to a game winning play.
Swords to Plowshares – I’ve always found this card to be the epitome of white magic philosophy. Removal of a threat but with recompence to its owner. There have been several versions of this card with different art, and the one chosen here is just perfect.	Impulse – originally from the Vision expansion, I’ve included it here simply due to the fantastic artwork. Vastly improved from its initial printing and working perfectly with the foil effect used on this set, it’s mesmerising.

Next year there will be another From the Vault release and if you’re lucky enough to be able to buy one I urge you to actually play with the cards. That goes for those of you with older sets on your shelves, too. I know you want to open and play with them, so give in to your desires. Sure, you’ll probably regret it in five years but you could be hit by a bus tomorrow and you just know your mum will just give all your cards to a charity shop.

To clarify, even though it would prove my point, I do not wish that anyone is hit by a bus.