Posts Tagged ‘Favian Poh’

In Magic: The Gathering, as in many other aspects of our lives, there are many different levels of how we do the things we do.  The beginnings are always tough and complicated, but it only takes a little time and dedication to end up reaching any personal goals you’ve set. Today’s article will talk about a man who’s passion for collecting (MtG) has reached such a level that is really hard to imagine the process he’s been through. Years and years invested to get cards you might not even know they existed. The man I’m talking about is Favian Poh.

I met Favian few days ago, when I contacted him after he posted some of his cards at MTG The Source. I was quite impressed by the beauty of his cards and specially by the difficulty of gathering that many impressive and very (VERY) rare staples together. So, it occurred to me that maybe I could interview him so he could tell us a bit about himself, his collection and about magic in general.

We’ll start with an interview and after that, he’ll explain us a bit about some specific cards he’s very proud of.

(Be aware, lots of pimp stuff are included in this article, so you’d better sit properly if you don’t want to fall off the chair)

PROFILE:

• Name: Favian Poh
• Nickname(s) on forums: Occam on The Source and Salvation, Twol84 on Scg and Motl, Ouallada on the libraries
• Country: Singapore
• Age: 25, 26 end of the year
• Profession: Banking Sector
• Year you started with MtG: 1994/1995

TP: Favian, could you please tell us the story behind your nick name(s)?

Favian: And we’re off to a relatively weird start. I wish I could say that my usernames are derived from some cool and obscure piece of information, but that is unfortunately not the case. Occam is derived from Occam’s Razor (by William of Occam) — the latter is something I generally believe in, and even though Occam is a place, I could not very well name myself William, could I? Ouallada is an ode to Juzam Djinn, which was one of my favourites back in the day, and still is one of my favourites now.

TP: Are you currently playing any format? If so, what deck(s) are you playing at the moment?

Favian: I mostly play legacy these days, sometimes Vintage and Extended. I usually play online (with an anonymous name) as I can get too busy to commit myself to paper tournaments. I play a wide range of legacy decks, from NLS to tempo Bant to 5/3. For extended, I used to play a rockish Doran build until the current extended format got inundated by Thopter-Foundry and Marit Lage. For Vintage, I play workshop aggro, although I have a soft spot for Cerebral Assassin, which is sadly not very viable these days.

TP: We’ve seen pretty cool stuff from your personal collection. When did all begun?

Favian: I have to say that I was pretty young when I started out in the game, but I was lucky enough to purchase all the right cards back then, in decent quantities as well. Most of what I do post online these days would be rarities, as most people have the P9, beta duals etc covered already. My foray into rarities started in 1999/2000, when I read about summer magic and was rightfully entranced by the summer hurricane. I managed to buy into summer before the price boom early in the nighties, and the affair with summer magic has carried on since.

As for test prints, it all began the first time I saw a textless lightning bolt get sold on eBay about a decade ago. It ended easily in the four digits, and I tried to find all the information I could on a card that I thought shouldn’t even have existed. Even though I didn’t actually get into collecting test prints until a couple years later, I treat that as the time I first sat up and took notice of test prints and how undeniably unique and beautiful they were. It was also about then that I decided that any rarities I have would be clean, never signed nor altered in any way. Sorry if this flies in the face of what most people prefer, but rarities to me are already unique, and there is no reason to customize them any further.

TP: I guess the new Official Reprint Policy must have been great news for such a collector. What do you think about the recent announcement and the controversy that has generated between players and collectors?

Favian: I kind of expected to get a question like this, to be honest, and it could not have come at a worse time, especially as the vitriol over the revised reprint policy still lingers strong in the air.

I am going to have to slightly turn my back on my fellow collectors on this issue. It is going to take a very long piece to fully articulate my thoughts on the revised reprint policy, and I do not want this session to be dominated by that. I was disappointed that Wizards pretty much slammed the door shut on the notion of possible future reprints, as while I don’t believe that legacy will ever become as stagnant as vintage, I do believe that having a flagship eternal format is one of the best things possible for the game, and the ever-increasing prices continually erode that possibility.

As for the public disagreements between players and collectors, I completely understand where both camps are coming from. The future of legacy is the foremost concern of players, while the slippery slope that reprints lead Magic to is the foremost concern of collectors. Neither side has the right to arbitrarily impose its views on the other, but judicious reprints could have created a satisfactory solution for all parties involved. As an example, when we have a public company that engages in research and development, what the company essentially does is funnel revenues and cash reserves into R&D, which may or may not pay off in the future. Thus, there is a good chance that the company’s shareholders (Magic collectors) are worse off if the R&D expenses come to nothing as no new product or innovation is created. However, R&D expense may be a necessary route for the company to take to ensure its future competitiveness (which is what legacy players are arguing for), and the shareholders need to be able to see that and call for judicious R&D expenditure.

On a side note, public outcries that Underground Seas will soon exceed $100 each does not do any good, as it is due to the presence of a culture of fear like that which leads to people bidding up the prices of Underground Seas right now to hedge against future price rises. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and does legacy no good right now.

TP: Do you consider collecting MtG as a long term investment? Are you afraid of your cards losing value over the time?

Favian: Yes and no. I would not like to blow a few grand on a set of beta power and have it be worth nothing tomorrow, and I believe that everyone shares the same sentiment to an extent. At the same time, I don’t mind taking some paper losses on some purchases if it ensures the longevity of the game. It’s all about one’s priorities, and as long as those priorities aren’t to make money, I’m sure most people can agree with that. The ability to recoup money from the game upon exit and liquidation is in my opinion one of the strongest selling points of the game, though, and cannot be stressed enough.

I’m not worried at all about various rarities and alpha/beta cards going down in value, as the only way their value gets blown out is if Wizards mass-released summer tomorrow, or if the bottom falls away from the Magic barrel. I do not expect that either will happen anytime soon, but the risk, however minute, is there and I accept it.

(Jordi: I believe this article needs more images!)

TP: What’s the card in your collection you are most proud of, and why?

Favian: My current favourite card in my collection is actually this:

It is not the most expensive card I have, but it has certain personal resonance. I quote a fellow libraries member: “Magic collectors are always broke”, and want to emphasize that the statement is absolutely true. When a once-in-a-lifetime rarity appears, you need to cough up for it or accept that you may never get a second chance. When this was first placed on eBay (and I believe it was covered on your site too), it provoked a huge reaction because it looked different with Parallax Tide’s picture, and was pretty much the first time foil 8ed test prints were revealed.

I wanted it badly too, but ended up the second highest bidder for the one on eBay because I was broke, so to speak. I immediately regretted not winning it, and as only 2-3 of each foil 8ed print exists, the chance that I would see another one was abysmal. As fate would have it, I was hunting for a bunch of other stuff when I came into contact with someone who happened to have one for sale, and purchased it without much question. Unlike most collectors and missed chances, I had a second go at the island above, and it has a personal significance for being destined to be part of my collection, so to speak.

That said, I do treasure most of the cards in my collection, and rarely see the need to sell rarities away. I am working on several projects which are currently unscanned, including a playset of another of the Exodus test prints, a couple of other 5D prints, some UD prints, summer, my dark ritual / Beeble global sets (for which I need plenty of help for the European languages) and hopefully a Fraternal Exaltation/Splendid Genesis. Look out for them!

TP: I understand you can’t reveal the sources that provided some of the stuff you own, but, what would you recommend to someone who would like to start collecting? Who should he/she contact first?

Favian: Jordi, I think you would agree with me when I say that with rarities, beauty really exists in the eyes of the beholder. I would encourage any new budding rarity collector to get familiar with the rarities that exist out there, from albinos to other color-based misprints, from miscuts and crimps to test prints and summer, and from unofficial cards to rare tokens. Sites like the librarities have an extensive pictorial gallery which provides some information about the rarities as well. Nano’s site http://www.nextftp.com/nano/ has a lot of different colour-based misprints, and Squt’s site http://squt.tripod.com/MainError.html has an exhaustive list of misprints and errors too. Then, each person needs to make his or her own decision as to which rarities appeal most, for reasons that differ from individual to individual.

As for who a new rarity collector should contact, building relationships on forums is usually a great starting point. When someone comes across as knowledgeable or as a large collector of a certain rarity, chances are he or she would have access to certain rarities, and could introduce one to a range of contacts too. For rarities, who you know is a lot more important than what you know. Due diligence is extremely important.

TP: Is eBay trustworthy when it comes to hard-to-find cards? (We ain’t talking about Alpha/Beta rares here, we are talking about real-hard-to-find stuff like misprints, test prints, summer rares, etc…)

Favian: The problem with eBay with regards to rarities is not one of fraudulent intentions, but usually that sellers themselves may have misconceptions about certain misprints, although the two concepts could be interlaced. For example, a lot of albinos and colour misprints on eBay need to be taken with a pinch of salt, as many of them are actually sun-faded. For summer magic and test prints, the market for these cards is minute, with very few collectors actually being very active in these areas. Chances are that if a large seller of summer or test prints is on eBay, some other collector of summer or test prints would know of him or her, and could verify the veracity of the cards. Having a subject matter expert (and there are definitely people who know a lot more about rarities than I do) to eyeball certain questionable auctions never hurts.

In the end, caveat emptor still takes precedence on eBay. The normal precautionary measures need to be taken for rarities as well. Bidders should try to bridge the informational gap by searching for information about certain misprints online before jumping in where angels fear to tread, and keep in mind that a deal that is too good to be true is probably just that.

TP: I know you don’t like to use the word “pimp” to describe this high-end collecting movement, but, If you’d have to list the top10 of your pimp scale, what would it be?

Favian: For me, the ten most expensive cards in the game are as follows (excluding cards like Proposal, 1996 World Champion, Shichifukujin Dragon and graded Lotuses):

10) Summer Shivan Dragon / Summer Sol Ring

9) Summer Demonic Tutor

Splendid Genesis

6) Summer Birds of Paradise / Top tier foil test prints

5) Other Summer Blue Duals

4) Summer Mana Vault

2) Summer Hurricane / Underground Sea

1) Summer Serendib Efreet

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And now let’s move on and see some of the stuff from Favian’s collection. First of all, some images and then he’ll talk about his CoTs (City of Traitors), Saga textless, Island (8e prints) and the EE (Engineered Explosives).

You’d ask yourself what’s wrong with the EE? He’ll explain more about this card later. And the Underground Sea? It’s partly albino!

City of Traitors Exodus Test prints

Favian: I’ve received a lot of PMs from various people across various forums in which I have posted the recent scans containing the foil Cities or Traitors, so I feel obligated to speak a bit about what these cards are all about. My definition of a test print is an aesthetic proxy that Wizards uses to test different design features and processes, be it a foiling process, different frames, usage of space on a card, where the P/T box should be and so on. The Exodus test prints are arguably the most important test prints ever, as they were the backbone on which the foiling process was tested before being rolled out in Urza’s Legacy. Urza’s Legacy was released in 1999, and test prints are typically created 1-2 years beforehand, which is why Exodus cards were chosen. Note that it is highly likely that these cards were already in the process of being tested even before Exodus was released in June 1998.

One card of each colour and type was chosen from Exodus. A land (City of Traitors), a white card (Oath of Lieges), a blue card (Mana Breach), a red card (Fighting Chance), a black card (Plaguebearer), a green card (Survival of the Fittest), a gold card (Pygmy Hippo from Visions as no gold card exists in Exodus) and an artifact card (Memory Crystal). All of these are available either silver-bordered (testing not just the foiling, but Unglued borders) or black-bordered. Both the silver-bordered (no foil star) and black bordered (most have the foil star) ones have different variations (lighter/darker), and the black bordered ones have a test number on the right side of the card to indicate the intensity of the foiling and colouring. The black-bordered ones are also unique in that they have different colours for textboxes, although only the Cities of Traitors were tested for this.

A closer look so you can appreciate the details.

I do not have scans for this, but there are also other non-foil test prints from Exodus (Bequeathal, Angelic Blessing etc) which have the foil star and with the symbols made from the same material as the foil star. They were likely created to test how the foil star would look like.

Exodus test prints are not as rare as the newer test prints, but a lot of people hold them in awe as they were after all the first bona fide test prints the game had, and because two of the cards are so widely played. Whatever it is, Exodus test prints are an integral part of the game’s history, and should be respected as such. I own a couple of silver bordered Exodus prints, but I generally only go for the black bordered ones. When I picked up the first CoT, the one with the black symbol and black textbox, which is also my favourite of the lot, I spoke to a friend of mine and was basically told to never half-ass a collection, especially when the possibility of a playset existed. I thought about it, agreed, and the rest is basically history. I’m not sure whether another playset exists out there, with all the huge unnamed collectors around, but this one is pretty special to me.

Parallax Island:

Favian: I have already stated that I like this card very much, and I hope its story did not bore anybody. Just a quick comment on 8ed test prints. There are between two to three of each foil variation (some have light/dark variations), and there are non-foil versions too. Some people have stated that they are actually 6ed prints, as they use 5ed art, but this is untrue. These were printed in 2001, after the release of 7ed, and the island above has the art of parallax tide, when Nemesis was released in 2000. As can be seen from the Counterspell, 8ed prints were a bit idiosyncratic with the way certain aesthetics were tested, with P/T boxes on spells.

8e foil test prints are also very arguably the most prestigious set of test prints, with the value of the worst common (not all cards in 8ed were tested, though) being close to a grand and the value of the high-end cards, rares like Adarkar Wastes, approaching two grand.

Textless Saga:

Favian: I actually had two slots on my recent scan occupied by two other nice rarities, but I managed to make a deal for the textless cradle and bolt, and those two are auto-includes in any scan that has rarities. Textless saga has an almost mystical aura as the saga prints are extremely well known like the Exodus test prints, but are much rarer than the latter, and were actually leaked out in product. The full saga test print complement consists of 11 cards, namely Pouncing Jaguar, Lightning Bolt, Serra Avatar, Thran Quarry, Gaea’s cradle, Rewind, Skittering Skirge, Duress, Stroke of Genius, Karn and the textless, all black foil filler with the star. The filler was there to make up a modular sheet component of 11, with sheet size of 110 cards. As you might be able to already tell, all these cards were essentially test prints for various Arena and Judge promos that were given out, besides the filler, of course.

Textless Saga was followed by textless Destiny, and the latter was quite a bit rarer as none was leaked out through product. Unlike Saga, every Destiny card is available as a textless foil test print. I was lucky enough to pick up a textless Beeble for part of my collection, as well as some other textless UD commons/uncommons that aren’t in any of my current scans. The hunt for some of the rare textless UD cards continues.

Engineered Explosives:

Favian: In every forum where I posted the recent scan, I stated very clearly that the Engineered Explosives was the cream of the scan’s crop. It is not an attempt to boast or to big the EE up – a test print EE, from a set of test prints that are all likely the only copies of their kind around, can easily be concluded to be a huge hitter, certainly one of those mysterious expensive cards that no one has heard about. I basically dragged out the deal to purchase the EE for a few months as I kept getting sidetracked by other smaller rarities and test prints, but it was always going to be a part of my collection eventually. The focus on the EE in the scan is also in the hope that 5D prints are brought into public perception just like the rest of the existing test prints, and that another person who sees the EE and who has information about 5D prints can step forward.

For the back-story of the 5D prints, they were created to test sunburst foiling for the JS range promos, which is why the EE is foiled like that. Like the Exodus test prints, the EE scans poorly but looks excellent in real life. The EE is a very favoured card in my collection and will never be sold, but hopefully everyone out there enjoys what was a previously unknown piece of magic history.

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From Team Pataners we appreciate the effort that Favian Poh has done in order to help us understand and discover how marvelous collecting MtG can really be when you have the passion, the time, the will and the money (of course)!

Big thanks again Favian!