The Magic: the Gathering Iceberg Explained

How many of these increasingly more and more obscure Magic: the Gathering topics do you know? Let's take a stab at explaining this MTG iceberg and find out!

0:00 Start
0:39 Level One
0:41 Phyrexian Language is a Full Conlang
1:38 Queen Marchesa Puzzle
2:11 Super Secret Tech
3:00 Arena Shuffler
4:10 GDS3 BG Serra Angel
6:31 Chandra Straightwashing
7:34 Magister of Worth in Prerelease Packs
8:02 Maro Wrote for Rosanne
8:52 Green Boarder Serendib Efreet
9:34 Level 2
9:36 Reserved List
12:29 Gathering Storm Emails
13:04 Rancored Elf Lawsuit
15:17 Theros: Beyond Death Story
16:20 Oko Corrupted the Ozolith
17:26 Initial Run Legendary Cube
18:32 Eldrazi Jumpstart Packs
19:03 Crackstyle
20:17 Glistening Oil on Ixilin
21:00 Two Explores
22:14 Level Three
22:16 Feroz's Ban Reprinted
23:32 Nalathni Dragon
25:02 The Wanderer is Emrakul
26:09 $40 Arabian Nights Mountain
27:37 Dack Fayden Recton
28:50 Uktabi Orangutan
29:30 GP Cheatlanta
31:38 Persecute Artist
32:29 The Secondary Market Doesn't Exist
35:27 Level Four
35:30 MTG is Turing Complete
36:04 Void Cards
36:45 Bear Snare
37:43 Obosh and Gyruda Hearthstone
39:21 Balance Judge Gift Card Errata
40:54 Ekundu Cyclops
41:10 Addictive Ink
42:22 Chinese Alt Art Skeletons
43:08 MTG Finance Insider Trading
44:47 Level 5
44:50 Shandalar 2
45:45 Sorcerer's Apprentice
46:33 Olivia Voldaren Art
47:27 Phydrazi Monstrosity is Real
48:15 Wizards Knew About Covid-19
49:07 Spectral Chaos
50:07 PT Riot
51:52 HOTR Cards Don't Exist
52:37 Level 6
52:39 JTMS Better than All
54:27 Splendid Genesis
55:57 Blue Hurricane
57:24 Hidden Art Behind Foil Layer
57:56 Bertoncini's Back
59:20 WOTC Started Out as a Money Laundering Front
1:00:11 Avengers Endgame is the Magic Movie
1:00:53 Mox Dragon of the Lotus

[josephwodarczyk]

30:40 That judge who offered to search each trashcan is a baller. Instead of aggression or accusing, he just let the cheater panic.

[mattduarte]

The iceberg is lacking Throat Wolf! In the early years of Magic, it was a rumored to be a super rare "hidden" card that was said to have an ability that worked as sort of "super first strike". Wizards made fun of the whole thing by actually releasing it as one of the Mystery Booster playtest cards.

[Cloudy]

The fact that this iceberg contains not one, but TWO bad rap albums is not something I was expecting.

[KingBobXVI]

46:35 - "...it's her knee..."
It's _supposed_ to be her knee, but the artist made a mistake and she also has two legs on the other side of the dress, meaning if it _is_ her knee, she either has three legs, or her shin on one side is like 5 feet long, lol.

[Fopenplop]

About the Arena shuffler, I think it's important to acknowledge that in 2019, reddit user Douglasjm did some pretty extensive testing and provided evidence that the shuffler was incorrectly implemented and a plausible explanation for how. Later testing showed that the bug had been fixed, but for a time there was something to it.

[gabrielseller]

How has no one mentioned the true here to the Uktabi throne?! Kibo, Uktabi Prince waa printed in Jumpstart 2022 and was also available as a promo for it

[ILSquirtles]

The funny thing about golgari death swarm (6:22) is that its initials are also GDS :P

[CriticalFeline]

I believe the "Shandalar 2" thing might be referring to an obscure line in the game, where one of the village elders tells you that the evil archfiend Arzakon (the main villain of the game) had a powerful rival named Yamden. People probably speculated that this was hinting at a potential sequel.

[frosty]

It’s important to note about the reserve list that the big factor was the stores rather than individual collectors that were freaking out about cards tanking due to overprinting. A lot of card shops had just went through a giant market crash of baseball cards due to overprinting and since magic was still new at the time the stores were understandably nervous about holding a lot of money in a fad that could crash

[TransSoulAlesha]

for the olivia voldaren art, it's not her knee, it's wotc printing a card without the finishing touches. it's supposed to be fabric she's holding. you can see it on the artist's video of drawing olivia. it was her knee at one point, then the legs moved, and now it's just kinda funny

[cadonuno]

Keep in mind that Phyrexian uses some sounds that are impossible for humans to make, so you can't speak it, at least not 100%

[SirDanyTheWarrior]

I knew that Golgari Death Swarm was a reference to that GDS question. But not until today I realized that it shares initials with the Great Designer Search!!

[MrPuzzoncello]

59:16 "puff puff pass and crop rotation" UNIRONICALLY AN INSANE BAR

[Aigis]

48:50 I'm really sad Seth didn't mention that "Death Corona" is literally the name of one of Spacegodzilla's attacks, hence why it was on the card in the first place. It was just VERY unfortunate timing with when it was printed.

[Suspinded]

Re : The Reserved List

The "Foil Loophole" was that they could do foil versions as long as they weren't in commercial product. This allowed the promo printings for Judge Foils, etc because they weren't being commercially released. The FTV:Relics and DD:Phyrexia v Coalition broke that, which spiraled into the lock down we have today.

[andrewsheiman]

54:00 it's worth mentioning that the reason JTMS was so important to Chapin is he was one of very few pros who correctly predicted that JTMS was absurdly strong, and indeed banworthy.

[SuenteusPi]

The Legendary Cube prize packs were insanely bad value, is why they're on the list. Made that cube event incredibly bad EV, instead of the very minorly negative EV cube events usually are run at.

[neorazor]

Trigger warning, they flash Rudy's face for a whole second and a half!!!! ⚠️

[LowQualContent]

@28:36 this is how I feel about compleated Tibat!!! Give that man a compleated card, his compleated design rocks!

[fo-efqo]

37:34 I can sense Seth's blood pressure go up as companion becomes the topic lol