Usually, when a printer produces washed-out images, inverted colors, and weird colored bands, somebody calls IT. MSCHF would like you to consider collecting the results instead. Meet Secret Lair x MSCHF: The Zeta Set, an official Magic: The Gathering collaboration that makes your office photocopier look like an underappreciated artist.
The scrappy appearance pays tribute to Magic’s early playtesting days, when prototype cards were printed, cut up, and passed around before the game reached the public. MSCHF has applied that homemade look to 121 existing cards, from early favorites to more recent additions. They’re official cards. They just look like someone made them while the supervisor was at lunch.
Each booster contains seven randomized cards: three commons, two uncommons, one rare or mythic rare, and one wildcard of any rarity. So, despite the name, buying The Zeta Set does not get you the set. Collecting remains an exercise in optimism.
There are three treatments: standard Photocopy, inverted Photocopy Negative, and the deliberately misbehaving Color Banding. The latter two appear at rates of 10% and 5%, respectively. Somewhere, a printer technician is watching people celebrate the exact problems he gets shouted at for.
The Zeta Set launched through Secret Lair’s Chaos Vault on September 2, priced at US$19.92 per booster, a nod to the 1992 playtesting era. At the time of this post, the status is indicated as “no longer available.” Yeah. I know. It sucks.
Unfortunately, checkout supplied some unplanned chaos. Wizards called the sale “a disaster” and said it was investigating what went wrong. The photocopier aesthetic was intentional. The shopping experience was not supposed to need troubleshooting, too.
Images: MSCHF/Magic: The Gathering.
