Fun With Magic
Crazy Card Names
by Jeff Zandi
With the release of Champions of Kamigawa,
Wizards of the Coast has now published close
to eleven thousand cards. This eleven year
old legacy represents an ever-growing list
of card names. For as long as Wizards has
been printing these addictive little
cardboard squares, me and my friends have
been having fun with the card names
associated with them. Lately, I’ve been
researching the almost eleven thousand deep
collection of Magic cards printed from the
halcyon days of Alpha and Beta all the way
through Champions of Kamigawa. While I
understand only too well that the research I
have done will have to be updated when the
next set comes out (Unhinged comes out,
like, TOMORROW!) I am not disheartened. Au
contraire, mon ami, I can’t wait to add more
card names to the giant collection.
In a future column, I will be talking about
the many cards that Wizards has recycled and
reprinted multiple times. Today’s FUN WITH
MAGIC column, however, has to do with a few
of my favorite lists of Magic card names.
This is a fun game that everyone can play.
All you need is a list of every card ever
printed in the game. Putting together one of
these lists used to be a lot easier than it
is today. While there are any number of
websites that have card search engines,
looking at the whole collection containing
every Magic card in every printing all at
one time is becoming a bit daunting. For my
simple needs, I have used an Excel
spreadsheet with one line (or row) for every
printing of every card in Magic. My list,
not necessarily the most perfectly
maintained, contains 10,936 lines or rows.
This list contains every set printed for
Magic that has ever been tournament legal,
as well as all three editions of Portal as
well as Unglued, the cards reprinted in
jumbo format, the Vanguard cards, the
special cards associated with the early
Magic novels from Magic, and so on. However,
I think you will find that the cards that I
have included in my lists today come from
sets that were tournament legal at one time
or another.
One of my favorite ongoing gags is Magic
card names that sound, to me at least, like
the name of a local newspaper. (newspapers
are those things printed on the really thin
paper that people used back before the
internet to find movie listing, comic strips
and weather information). Since we’ve been
playing a lot of Champions of Kamigawa
booster drafts, I run across Jukai Messenger
(not in my decks, I assure you) pretty
often, and I get to tell my little joke. I
say, “You know, I used to get the Jukai
Messenger delivered to my house, but I ended
my subscription when they quit carrying
Doonesbury!” I’ve been using this same lame
joke, with different Magic cards, since
1994. Really old Magic players will kind of
laugh, fairly old Magic players will nod and
smile a little bit, and younger Magic
players just look at me like I’ve lost my
mind. Here’s my list.
Top Ten Magic Card Names That Sound Like
Newspaper Names 10. Shieldmage Advocate 9.
Brass Herald 8. Gravespawn Sovereign 7.
Forbidding Watchtower (I bought this from
some guy going door to door) 6. Jayemdae
Tome 5. Rebel Informer (more of an
underground newspaper) 4. Llanowar Sentinel
(not sure if Elves would let you chop trees
for a
newspaper…)
3. Akron Legionnaire (Ohio’s favorite news
weekly) 2. Leonin Sun Standard 1. Mystic
Crusader (competes with Mystic’s other
newspaper, the Compass)
We used to play a game where we would take
turns randomly selecting a card from a stack
and announcing that card’s name was the name
of our new band, you get a lot of totally
plausible musical group names doing that,
like Desperate Ritual, maybe a Christian
band Lifted By Clouds, a metal band called
Steel Wall.
Top Three Magic Card Names That Actually ARE
Famous Musical Group Names 3. Oasis 2. Iron
Maiden 1. Rolling Stones
Top Ten Possible Sports Team Names From
Magic Card Names 10. Coral Fighters (from
the town of Coral…or maybe Coral Gables,
Florida) 9. Red Cliffs Armada 8. Norwood
Riders 7. Spectral Bears 6. Barbary Apes 5.
Durkwood Boars 4. Tel-Jilad Archers 3.
Viashino Warriors 2. Phoenix Firestorm (I
know I reversed this name, it’s the name of
my fantasy football team) 1. Savannah Lions
Top Fifteen Movies That Share Their Name
With a Magic Card 15. Anaconda (I think Ice
Cube is in this snake movie) 14. Awakening
(with Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro) 13.
Black Knight (Martin Lawrence) 12. The Abyss
(not one of my favorites) 11. Roots (okay,
this was a T.V. movie, but a really big
famous one…) 10. Boomerang (not Eddie
Murphy’s best movie, but it was okay) 9.
SWAT (like Samuel L. Jackson says, “You’re
either SWAT…or you’re NOT!”) 8. Earthquake
(disaster movie from the Seventies) 7. Death
Wish (Charles Bronson’s best cop flick, also
from the Seventies) 6. Cocoon (“You won’t
get sick, and you’ll never die” says Wilfred
Brimley) 5. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock’s
classic thriller) 4. Backdraft (really good
movie about fires) 3. Glory (with Denzel
Washington and Matthew Broderick) 2. Dawn of
the Dead 1. Raging Bull (Robert DeNiro
boxing biographical flick)
Man, I hate to push into a troubling area,
the same week as the hubbub over the
towel-dropping-skit on Monday Night
Football…
Top Ten Possible Adult Film Names From Magic
Card Names 10. Underwear Dreams (oops, I
made this one up…) 9. Blood Lust 8. Bone
Flute 7. Whip Sergeant 6. Arctic Foxes 5.
Drop of Honey 4. Bone Harvest 3. Clam
Session 2. Grinding Station 1. Booby Trap
“Hey Zanman,” you might ask, suspecting how
strangely obsessed about Magic I can be,
“How many verbs in the English language have
been used as card names in Magic: the
Gathering?” Good question. Easy answer. ALL
OF THE VERBS in the English language have
been used as names for Magic cards. Okay, I
guess that isn’t true, but a SURPRISINGLY
HIGH number of verbs have been used as card
names in Magic. As a matter of fact, two
hundred thirty-three different verbs have
been used as card names to this time (my
list is COMPLETELY up-to-date…until tomorrow
when Unhinged comes out!) Now, many of these
words can be used as nouns as well as verbs.
Please don’t hold that against me.
What about Magic cards whose name is
composed of multiple words that INCLUDE a
verb? My list does not include those, of
which there are many. This is a list of just
the one-word card names that are verbs. List
them ALL, right here? I’m glad you asked! In
order: Absorb, Acquire, Afflict, Allay,
Ambush, Annex, Annihilate, Annul, Anoint,
Arrest, Balance, Bandage, Bargain, Befoul,
Blackmail, Blaze, Blight, Boil, Brainwash,
Brand, Brawl, Breach, Browbeat, Browse,
Camouflage, Channel, Chastise, Chill, Choke,
Cleanse, Clear, Clone, Complicate,
Concentrate, Confiscate, Confound, Conquer,
Corrupt, Crash, Cremate, Decimate,
Decompose, Deconstruct, Demolish, Demystify,
Despoil, Detonate, Devastate, Disarm,
Discombobulate, Disenchant, Dismiss,
Disrupt, Dissipate, Divert, Dominate,
Domineer, Donate, Douse, Dredge, Embolden,
Encroach, Enervate, Enrage, Erase,
Evaporate, Excise, Execute, Exhume, Exile,
Expunge, Extinguish, Extract, Fabricate,
Falter, Flay, Flicker, Flood, Foil, Forget,
Fork, Foster, Granulate, Gush, Heal, Hush,
Illuminate, Implode, Imprison, Incinerate,
Infest, Infuse, Insist, Interdict,
Intervene, Invigorate, Irradiate, Jilt,
Jolt, Jump, Launch, Leap, Liberate, Liquify,
Lure, Meddle, Metamorphose, Misstep,
Mobilize, Mulch, Mutilate, Muzzle,
Naturalize, Nourish, Obliterate, Opt,
Ostracize, Override, Overrun, Paralyze,
Parch, Peek, Perish, Persecute, Pillage,
Polymorph, Predict, Prohibit, Provoke,
Pulverize, Purify, Quash, Radiate, Rally,
Ransack, Reanimate, Reap, Recall, Reclaim,
Recoil, Redeem, Refresh, Regress,
Rejuvenate, Relearn, Remedy, Remove,
Renounce, Repel, Replenish, Repopulate,
Reprocess, Reset, Reshape, Restock,
Restrain, Resuscitate, Retaliate, Rethink,
Retract, Revive, Reweave, Rewind, Rouse,
Rout, Rupture, Rust, Sacrifice, Salvage,
Scald, Scour, Scrap, Shatter, Shelter,
Shimmer, Shock, Shrink, Shunt, Sicken,
Sideswipe, Sift, Simplify, Singe, Slay,
Smash, Smite, Smother, Snag, Snap, Soar,
Spiritualize, Splinter, Squeeze, Squelch,
Standardize, Stifle, Strafe, Stun, Subdue,
Submerge, Suppress, Swat, Swelter, Tangle,
Teleport, Temper, Thrive, Tinker, Tithe,
Topple, Torment, Torture, Traumatize,
Twiddle, Twitch, Undo, Unearth, Unforge,
Unhinge, Unmask, Unnerve, Unsummon,
Vanquish, Vex, Victimize, Vindicate,
Vitalize, Vivify, Wallop, Waylay, Withdraw,
Worship and Zombify.
Some of you like to think of Magic card
names in weird ways and in unusual contexts.
You know who you are! Email me some of your
favorite lists and I will share them with my
friends and the Pojo-literate-world.
Jeff Zandi
Texas Guildmages
Level II DCI Judge
jeffzandi@thoughtcastle.com
Zanman on Magic Online
