Magic the Gathering!

Q: “Take the nearest Magic card you’ve got. Flip it over. You see the ‘Deckmaster’ label near the bottom? Look at the letters ‘TER’. Notice something? There’s a blue/purple mark right there! Is there any reason that’s there? Defective printing plates? Evil government conspiracy to brainwash people through a careful message conveyed through it? Was it a fluke, or was it part of some sort of promotion?” — Jonathan Choi, Vancouver, BC

A: From Worth Wollpert, Research & Development:

“I noticed that when I first started playing as well. Up until your question I really had no idea, but I asked around and some old-timers helped me out with the answer. According to Sr. VP Skaff Elias, the purple line through the word Deckmaster (Specifically through the T and R) was simply a printing error — a stray pen-mark, really — that was never caught and corrected. As you know, it’s very important that the backs of Magic cards are all uniform, so it was never changed. On a related note, I think one of you guys should write in and ask someone (probably Richard) about the day the card backs in Arabian Nights almost changed…”