One consequence of playing Magic: The Gathering is the hundreds, if not thousands, of useless cards that you inevitably collect. Here’s a neat way to reuse at least one of those.
One Aussie user, YesICannabis420, posted a neat GIF of this trick on the Magic subreddit earlier this week. To the uninitiated, it looks like they’re using a Swamp — one of the five basic lands in Magic — in place of an Opal Card, the smartcard for Sydney’s public transport.
Naturally, an Opal card is still being used here. Over a few private messages, the user explained that they got the idea from a common line seen at Sydney train stations — “Don’t Forget To Tap” — which made them think of Magic.
“In Magic The Gathering we ‘tap’ our land cards for mana and on our public transport we ‘tap on/off’ with our Opal card to get a ride, I love puns and wordplay so it just popped into my mind to ‘tap on’ using a land card,” they explained.
Because Opal cards work using NFC, taping a card to the front — or back, where the Opal card number is listed — doesn’t affect its functionality. And because the Myki cards in Melbourne use similar technology, there’s no reason you couldn’t spice up your tram or train card in Victoria with some M:TG love there.
And most importantly, because the land doesn’t interfere with the card, it won’t stop transport officers from checking the card’s balance during random spot checks.
When asked why a Swamp — although as a former fan of Esper Control, I’m not hating — the Australian replied that it was just the card he had on hand. “I always do it now whenever I get a new Opal card,” they explained. “My current [Opal cards] are a Plains and a Forest.”
It’s not a technically flashy trick, but it’s a nice reuse of a Magic card that Magic players will have way too many of. You could also take the trick a lot further, depending on how much you want to freak out transport officers when they check your card. Ekundu Cyclops would get some looks. There’s always Frog Tongue. Thought Lash is pretty gross. And handing over this would probably raise an eyebrow.
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