Over the past week, I thought while I was sitting in my office, “Where the hell are my cards? More importantly, why can’t I see them? Why do I need to search for them?”

I was updating my infect deck from Pucatrade and noticing that, due to the high cost of cardboard I’ve “invested” in to play this game, I no longer am able to see my cards on a daily basis. They sit in boxes, out of sight.

As our game is largely a game of cardboard, protecting it is an obvious concern, but less apparent is the lack of placement in our homes. It’s something to be hidden, like a Penthouse magazine, instead of displayed like a movie collection.

The simple fact that my cards sit unseen is why I collect original art. The game became visceral on a daily basis again. But I’m a Vorthos—we like to “see” and experience the game on a deeper level. That brought me to this question: How does Magic look in other people’s homes?

So, like any GatheringMagic writer, I talked to a few colleagues on Google Chat and then took to Twitter.

I fired off a few tweets about what I was looking for:

Sorry to anyone in advance whom I missed!

Here we go; check these out!

Our own @MoxyMTG and @Hackworth sent me this:

From @JJHeikkila:

This is from former GM writer of 52 FNMs @Feb31st. He only has World Championship decks now.

From a German MTG player @Wortwelt:

An image from @wizardbumpin:

@ContrastBand has a whole room!

From @brightmatrix:

@DSuperstition keeps it concise:

@GuDoug has this beautiful closet . . . semi-organized:

@SeanFSmith has a full drawer:

@MTGcolorpie has snack drawers—or so my wife said:

@_Stormtrooper_ is upping the swag factor with a custom suitcase!

@GrandpaBelcher has this utter storage swag:

@VolleyJosh has YOLO swag compared to the above:

Or you could go @Monty_Ashley style and just throw ’em in a bin!

Most collections, save for ValleyJosh’s and @GrandpaBelcher’s, look the same. We have white long boxes with random Fat Packs and booster boxes of random colors. Our collections, in essence, look like game stores. Storage is our prime concern, yet we don’t often look at how we store and—most notably—how our storage looks.

Let’s compare this to comic books.

Comic books have a long history of visual aesthetic, from framing a comic book to owning a convention sketch, displaying mini-statues and busts, and having an original art inkworks on our walls. In the comic book world, it’s called “shelf porn” to describe the presentation of the comic hobby, and it looks cool:

Image from rubbish78.tumblr.com.

We don’t have a Pinterest page like this one that has our game manifesting into décor of our living spaces. Magic tried to institute Kamigawa statues and official art prints back in the day, and they didn’t really sell well.

That was then.

This is now.

Our game is now the largest brand in Hasbro’s portfolio. Transformers just needed one terrible movie for it to take a hit. Magic can have Coldsnap and Time Spiral and still grow its player base, and it’s projected to grow even more with Theros.

We suck at showing our Magic collection right now, yes, but not for long. Our geek shame is diminishing; MTG is becoming Geek Chic. The higher number of prints artists are selling—and John Avon is selling his poster lands like a beast—all improve what our collections look like. We just need the Wizards Brand team to get us more products to put into our homes that aren’t cardboard. Statues didn’t work, but coffee table books, comic compendiums, and trinkets are in the near future.

If you’re a third-party vendor, get on that. Start making us trinkets.

If you’re a design-minded person, make a Pinterest page, and show how to display your art right.

If you have a Tumblr page, show a way to better show your Magic collection.

If you have a Legacy deck, show your pimp/swag cards off in your home. Toss the cat figurines, and put up a Force of Will.

See all y’all next week, and tweet me your stash!

- Mike