Gunk
| Gunk | |
|---|---|
| Spell Type | |
| (Subtype for instant/sorcery spells) | |
| Introduced | Mystery Booster |
| Last used | Unknown Event |
| Rules |
(This is a token card which doesn't cease to exist in a zone other than the battlefield and has no mana cost.) Cycling  |
| Scryfall Statistics | |
Gunk is an unreleased mechanic designed by Richard Garfield, that was later printed on test cards. Gunk is a colorless sorcery card with no mana cost that has cycling .
Description
Gunk cards are worthless cards that don't do anything but can be transferred to the opponent's deck.[1][2]
Richard designed Gunk to spellsling with at the 2008 Worlds in Memphis, Tennessee.[3] Such a mechanic exists in other deckbuilding games where cards enter and leave a player's deck much more regularly and players see their entire deck many times over, but as Magic's game engine is more constrained in both aspects, Gunk needed something above being entirely blank.
Test cards
Gunk appeared on the 2019 Mystery Booster test card Gunk Slug.[4] It reappeared on the 2024 Mystery Booster 2 test card Fludge, Gunk Guardian. Gavin Verhey included the mechanic on The Gunky Runner in the Unknown Event at MagicCon Las Vegas 2024.
Rulings
- A Gunk card is a colorless Gunk sorcery named Gunk with cycling . It has no mana cost, so you can't normally cast it. It has no spell abilities, so if you do find a way to cast it, it won't have any effect.[5]
- Cycling means ", Discard this card: Draw a card."
- A Gunk card's owner is the player who first shuffled it into their library.
- Gunk cards are not tokens. Treat Gunk cards just as one would treat regular cards. They can move between zones just like any other card and continue to exist for the duration of the game. At the end of the game, players should make sure to remove all Gunk cards from their deck.
- Players can represent Gunk cards using objects from outside the game so long as the game state remains clear and understandable to all players. They might need to get creative. Since Gunk cards are shuffled into players' libraries, those players should represent Gunk cards using objects that, while face down, are indistinguishable from other cards in their deck.
Tokens
| Token name | Color | Type line | P/T | Text box | Source | Printings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gunk | 
|
Sorcery | (This is a token card which doesn't cease to exist in a zone other than the battlefield and has no mana cost.) Cycling
|
References
- ↑ Mark Rosewater, Drive to Work #214 "2008"
- ↑ Mark Rosewater (November 22, 2017). "Were Contraptions in any way inspired by the "forbidden" mechanic?". Blogatog. Tumblr.
- ↑ Mark Rosewater (October 14, 2012). "purely out of curiosity, what is richard garfield's "Gunk" mechanic?". Blogatog. Tumblr.
- ↑ Wizards of the Coast (November 11, 2019). "Mystery Booster Release Notes". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Eric Levine (September 20, 2024). "Mystery Booster 2 Release Notes". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
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