A local card shop held an ‘anything but a deck box’ tournament, and the winner put their cards in a literal loaf of bread.
Card games are having a bit of a moment right now (despite scalpers upending the market), and one card store decided to bring its players together using an unconventional method; challenging them to bring their decks in anything but a specialized box.
Magic, Pokemon, Riftbound, and other trading card game players will most certainly have purchased at least one deck box in which to store the cards they intend to actively play with. Oftentimes, these are specially-made, leather-coated boxes from specific companies, but they can be handmade, as well. They don’t have to be boxes, either, but that’s the usual shape most folks go with.
This time around, players had to show up to their local tournaments using literally anything else but a box to store their cards… and the winning player put their deck inside a loaf of bread.
As told by Reddit user and Pokemon TCG player ‘lemonyellowdavintage,’ they ended up taking home the prize for this hilarious competition, earning themselves a special mat featuring starters Totodile, Chikorita, and Tepig.
They shared a photo of their winning deck ‘box,’ a perfectly-shaped loaf of bread that somehow didn’t fall apart. The winner said it managed to stay “pretty hard and dry all day surprisingly,” joking that they weren’t sure how, but “didn’t question it.”
While it may have earned them a new mat, it was just one of several wild not-deck-boxes that got entered. According to lemonyellowdavintage, some players used a coffee container and even a boot, while another left them loose in a bag. “I swear the boot should’ve won, though,” they lamented.
Commenters were quick to joke about the cards dealing poison damage to opponents with celiac disease, prompting the player to respond, “Allergens as a strategy… I didn’t ever consider that. (I joke, I did check that no one had any allergies before this, it’s a small league.)”
This is the latest wild news to come from the Pokemon TCG scene after a pair of thieves got arrested for making off with £71,000 of stolen stock (around $95,000). Luckily, The Pokemon Company is doing its best to deter this type of energy, implementing facial recognition at select stores in Japan to help discourage scalping.
Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.