By: Jared Yost

*EDIT: Unfortunately, I was wrong when indicating that Beta is rarer than Alpha. From Twitter initial comments, I did research and found this article written by Chase Andres which explains how much rarer Alpha is than Beta. My apologies, I have updated the article with similar cards from Alpha instead of Beta when I could find an Alpha version that was worth more than a graded Beta version I had previously found.

ORIGINAL:

I decided to write an article this week on the premise “What is the most absurdly expensive deck that I could play a game of Magic with and still be competitive?”. The answer will definitely shock you. As I did the research for this article, it astounded me how many rare and hard to find cards exist within the Magic world. A lot of people know that Black Lotus exists and is rare, but did you know that there was a printing of Revised that was released early and then recalled to be destroyed? Did you know that some of it was not destroyed and instead still exists today? These cards do exist and it is known as Summer Magic. The prices of the cards from that set will absolutely floor you and I will get to that later.

Before I delve into the deck, I think the first question we’re all wondering is what playmat could we use for a deck truly fit for King Midas? May I suggest this one. According to the seller, this is the world’s rarest playmat, which seems fit for a deck that would truly be the world’s rarest deck.

Though at $350, this is chump change compared to what the deck I will lay out will cost you.

The format of the deck will have to be Vintage, not only for the Power 9 but also for several other cards that are hard to find and can only be played in Vintage. I am going to go with Sna Control, a deck used by Jacob Dunn from a recent GP Melbourne Side Event since it contains most of the P9 cards (which we can all agree are the most sought after collectable cards in the game) in addition to Jace, The Mind Sculptor and other stupidly expensive cards. This deck will showcase perfectly how expensive a Magic deck can get if you want to have the most awe-inspiring, ostentatious deck that you can imagine.

Also, anything that I would acquire from Alpha or Beta I will try to prefer the Beta Alpha version over the Alpha Beta version because collectors all agree that fewer Beta Alpha cards were released than Alpha Beta cards. You will also notice a lot of foreign cards are in this deck. The reason this must be is because foreign cards for some languages were printed in much fewer quantities than their other language counterparts. Specifically Korean, Russian, and Japanese are considered the most collectable sets especially in terms of foils. Note that Korean first appeared in M12 (with some also in Urza’s Saga, Visions, Tempest, and 4th Ed), Russian first appeared in 9th Edition, and Japanese first appeared in 4th Edition. I will try to stick with this pick order throughout the deck.

OK, now let’s go through the list and figure out how to make everything as expensive as possible.

LANDS:

– 4x Scalding Tarn FOIL Russian Zendikar – Estimated $3,600

I wasn’t able to find a single foil Russian Scalding Tarn for sale online on eBay or other websites that I looked through. I did find this completed listing on March 10th for a playset of non-foil Russian Scalding Tarns for $450 which is about $112.50 each. Based on the current ratio of foil price to non-foil price for Scalding Tarn in English ($106.40 non-foil, $247.60) I estimate that a foil Russian Scalding Tarn would sell for a minimum of $261.80 based on the 0.42 ratio (which I will refer to henceforth as the multiplier) for English prices.

But with collectible rare items like this, regular multipliers go out the window. Japanese foils are of comparable rarity to Russian, and a foil Japanese Scalding Tarns sells for roughly $600 on eBay. Non-foil Japanese Scalding Tarns sell for about $75 based on this completed playset listing. This makes the multiplier 0.125 rather than 0.42 for English foil and non-foil copies. Based on this multiplier, if I had a foil Russian Scalding Tarn and wanted to sell it I would be comfortable selling it for $900 ($112.50 for a non-foil divided by 0.125 multiplier). Since we are trying to make the most expensive deck, all four Scalding Tarns must be foil Russian so the final total comes to $3,600.

– 3x Underground Sea Revised SUMMER MAGIC – Estimated $24,000

Now I will tell the story of Summer Magic. According to MTGSalvation, “Summer Magic refers to a printing of Revised Edition that was to be destroyed because of numerous errors in the printing. Some of the cards survived and were released, and booster packs from this edition are extremely rare.”

To give you an idea of how rare, the snippet mentions that about only 40 boxes of the product were ever released to the public. In terms of packs, that means that only 1,440 packs of this product ever existed! Outside of test prints and other rare oddities that sometimes make their way out of Wizards of the Coast, these are some of the rarest cards you can acquire. I’m not even sure if three Underground Sea even exist from this product. However, based on the pack count I am fairly confident that they existed at some point. Assuming that they still exist and you can track them down, I based my price on this listing I found on ABUGames which prices one at $8,000. If you look at the picture, you can tell that it is different than a generic Revised Underground Sea because the art is much darker and there is a copyright date displayed.

Summer Magic Underground Sea Generic Revised Underground Sea

Personally, I love the darker art because it gives the card a crisper appearance. Even though the card is white bordered (the usual mark of a high value deck is that all cards are black bordered) I think we can make an exception in this case. Funny, we’re already at $27,600 and we’ve only bought seven cards so far…

(Before I continue, it usually noted amongst collectors that the blue Hurricane from the Summer Magic set is regarded as the rarest misprint in existence. These currently go for about $16,000 on eBay. Even though Hurricane isn’t in the deck, it doesn’t mean that you can’t make a casual deck that is still crazy expensive!)

– 3x Polluted Delta FOIL Japanese Onslaught – Estimated $5,835

Since Russian cards did not exist until 9th Edition, we will defer to acquiring foil Japanese Polluted Deltas. Since I’m not sure what the best offer was from this sold foil Japanese Polluted Delta, I will have to base my calculations on the multiplier I discovered with Scalding Tarn Japanese foil prices. This playset of non-foils sold in Feb for $598 as a playset, so individually they are worth about $149.50. Using the multiplier 0.125, I would be comfortable selling a foil Japanese Polluted Delta for $1,196. For three of them, that comes to $3,588. a listing that I discovered on tokyomtg.com for a Japanese foil Polluted Delta. The Delta is listed for ¥199,000 which is about $1945 USD. For three of them, that comes to $5,835 total. My multiplier is inaccurate for Polluted Delta due to its age and the premium Vintage & Legacy players place upon it (based on Twitter feedback).

– 2x Volcanic Island Revised SUMMER MAGIC – Estimated $12,000

Like Underground Sea, of course we want our dual lands to be Summer Magic. According to ABUGames, a Summer Magic Volcanic Island will cost you $6,000. Two of them comes to $12,000.

– 1x Island Guru “Drowning Man” MISSING SYMBOL – Estimated $2,000 (discovered through Twitter comment and sourced through Magic Librarities)

– 1x Swamp Guru MISSING SYMBOL – $2,000

Wow, we can actually buy REALLY expensive basic lands for this deck! Be honest, how many of you thought I would put foil Unhinged Island and foil Unhinged Swamp in this deck? You would be wrong, there are basic lands rarer than that! This Starcity article covers the a lot about the different types of rarer basic lands in Magic and mentions that Guru Lands are the rarest of all. Even though Summer Magic exists, any Guru basic that is misprinted is going to worth more than a Summer Magic basic.

Based on eBay listings, foil Unhinged Islands sell for about $60 and foil Unhinged Swamps sell on average for $45. However, eBay listings for Guru Islands are around $220 and eBay listings for Guru Swamps around $112 (but “Drowning Man” Gurus, which have missing symbols, are extra rare). Collectors place a lot more value on these Guru Lands than foil Unhinged Lands. For the curious, Mountain Gurus sell for about $110, Plains sell for about $110, and Forests sell for about $115. As for the misprint, the seller tried to sell an Island for ~$2,100 so I will estimate that both the Swamp and Island are worth $2,000 each.

– 1x Tolarian Academy Urza’s Saga – $25.64

– 1x Tolarian Academy Korean Urza’s Saga – $152

Tolarian Academy foreign copies are worth the same as their English counterparts and there are no foil or other editions of this card. Outside of finding a crimped version or having the Tolarian Academy altered to be a full art card by the original artist, we need to go by the market value of an Urza’s Saga Tolarian Academy. A commenter below notified me that Urza’s Saga exists in Korean. A Korean Urza’s Saga Tolarian Academy sold in January for €110 or about $152 USD. We definitely need to have this over any English versions.

– 1x BGS-8.5 Library of Alexandria Arabian Nights – Estimated $227.50

No other editions of Library exist outside of Arabian Nights, so here we are looking for the highest graded copy we can find. This eBay listing sold for $227.50, which is the only graded Library where I could find a sold price.

Oh my, I’ve only purchased the land base at this point and we’re already up to $43,766.14. Let’s continue with the creatures.

Creatures

– 4x Dark Confidant FOIL Russian Ravnica: City of Guilds – Estimated $2,880

Similar to Scalding Tarn, I couldn’t easily find a foil Russian Confidant from Ravnica for sale on eBay or other websites. Therefore, I will have to use my 0.125 multiplier to estimate the price. Non-foil Russian Ravnica Dark Confidant sells for $90, so using the multiplier we can estimate that a foil Russian Ravnica Dark Confidant would sell for $720. Thus a playset would cost you $2,880.

– 2x Snapcaster Mage FOIL Korean Innistrad – Estimated $935

Innistrad was released shortly after M12, so we want foil Korean Snapcasters for this deck. Based on these sold listings, one sold for $425 and another for $510 so average would be $467.50. Two of them makes $935.

– 1x Myr Battlesphere FOIL Russian Scars of Mirrodin – Estimated $15

Again, even though these exist in Russian I cannot find a single website that offers them for sale. Basing it off Japanese prices, foil Japanese Battlespheres sold for $10 to $20 dollars. I value Russian the same so we’ll use $15 average in this case.

Instants and Sorcereies

– 4x Force of Will German Alliances – Estimated $412 (updated based on Twitter comment)

Force of Will only had one printing, so the only possibility would be foreign being worth more. Non-English copies s ell for the same as English in German sell for slightly more than English. The usual market price is $95. On eBay, they average $103 for German so we’ll want to go with those for this deck. Barring having these German Forces 1) altered by Terese Nielsen or 2) finding any crimped copies or 3) finding miscut Forces that have a source indicating the price they were sold at, this is the price we’ll use for German NM copies.

– 3x Lightning Bolt Revised SUMMER MAGIC – Estimated $3,000

Lightning Bolt was in Revised and thus was printed in the Summer Magic set as well. Unlike Underground Sea and Volcanic Island, there is a good chance we can actually find three of these cards since they are only commons within the set. Still though, Lightning Bolt is a very popular card so the price won’t be that cheap. ABUGames (which seems to be the authority on Summer Magic prices) lists them at $999 each. Buying three adds up to $3,000. For those who doubt that Summer is the highest, even a graded Beta Bolts sells for only $70.

– 2x Spell Pierce FOIL Russian Zendikar – Estimated $120

I couldn’t find any listed or sold Russian foil Spell Pierce, so I will base the price from the non-foil counterpart with the multiplier. Non-foil Russian Spell Pierce sold for about $7.50 each on eBay, so using the multiplier I would value foil Russian Spell Pierce at $60 each. Two of them brings us to $120.

– 2x Mana Drain English Legends – $443.30

Even though Legends had one non-English version (Italian) collectors generally price English versions higher than non-English because Italian versions are more prevalent. We want our deck to contain English versions for the maximum Richie Rich effect. These are each $221.65, so two would be $443.30.

– 2x Mental Misstep FOIL Russian New Phyrexia – Estimated $80

Again, through all my web scouring I could not find a foil one of these for sale. (If anyone has a resource that they use to find foil Russian cards please let me know in the comments!) I did find this listing on eBay for a non-foil Russian playset for $20, so that is $5 per copy. Using the multiplier that comes to $40 per foil Russian copy so $80 for two.

– 1x Yawgmoth’s Will Judge Gift Program – $45

– 1x Yawgmoth’s Will Korean (Signed) Urza’s Saga – $205

Unlike Tolarian Academy, Yawgmoth’s Will did have another printing as Judge Foil which collectors regard as more valuable than both the English and non-English regular English Urza’s Saga versions. Judge foils are selling on average for $45 on eBay so that’s the price we’ll go by here . However, since Urza’s Saga does exist in Korean, a premium is placed on the foreign version. This website places that price at €149 or about $205. We definitely want that version over any English or foil copies.

– 1x Tinker FOIL Japanese Urza’s Legacy – Estimated $75

I’m basing this price off a listing on dacardworld since I couldn’t find any for sale on eBay or other sites.

– 1x Demonic Tutor Revised SUMMER MAGIC – Estimated $3,000

Even though there is a Judge Gift Program version of Demonic Tutor (which is the only foil version printed and goes for about $250) and a Beta graded version for $400, Demonic Tutor is also in Revised and therefore in Summer Magic. Summer Magic Demonic Tutor is priced at $3,000.

– 1x BGS-8.5 Time Walk Beta – Estimated $1,389

– 1x Time Walk Alpha – $2575

Time Walk is a classic P9 card, so we need to procure one that is in the most pristine condition that we can find. I found one on eBay which went for $1,389 I found an Alpha on eBay for $2575 which fits our needs adequately. I did not find any sold graded ones so this will be the price.

– 1x Vampiric Tutor Judge Gift Program – Estimated $60

Vampiric Tutors in Korean go for about $47, so we’ll go with the Judge Gift Program version here. eBay sold listings average about $60 so that will be the price point.

– 1x PSA-10 Ancestral Recall Beta – Estimated $5,500

As with all P9 cards, we want to go with any graded versions we can find and then pick the highest grade among them. This PSA-10 Ancestral Recall (listing says case is signed thankfully) is listed for $5,500. No other comparable Alpha listings were available on eBay.

– 1x Brainstorm FOIL Japanese Mercadian Masques – Estimated $347

Wow, for a common Brainstorm is way more expensive than I thought as a foil even considering this is a Japanese foil we are looking at. Based on completed listings on eBay, one sold for $305 while others were listed at $389 but had best offers accepted. I will take the average of these two prices and estimate that $347 is the market price for a foil Japanese Brainstorm.

– 1x Mystical Tutor FOIL FTV: Exiled – $18.22

Since there were no foils in Mirage or Sixth Edition, we’ll have to go with the foil version that is in From the Vault: Exiled. This is the most expensive printing of Mystical Tutor on the market which goes for about four times the cost of a Mirage or Sixth Edition copy.

– 1x Merchant Scroll FOIL Japanese 8th Edition – Estimated $430

Interesting note about the Japanese 8th Ed Merchant Scroll is that all of them have misprinted the type line, which should be “Sorcery”, to the name of the card “Merchant Scroll” (even if you can’t read Japanese, you can still see the symbols are the same in the card name and type line boxes). Regardless, since all Japanese Merchant Scrolls have this misprint it doesn’t really add anything additional to the price other than its foily Japanese-ness. I couldn’t find any foil Japanese for sale or sold, so based on this current listing for a non-foil Japanese for $11 with the multiplier I would estimate that a foil Japanese Merchant Scroll would sell for $88. Based on Twitter feedback from @SonodaMTG his store currently lists Japanese Merchant Scroll for ¥43,900 which converts to $430 USD. My normal multiplier will not work in this case, so I will defer to @SonodaMTG’s store for the pricing here.

– 1x Hurkyl’s Recall Revised SUMMER MAGIC – Estimated $2,000

Wow, I finally found a Russian foil listing!! If we wanted to outright buy one, this eBay listing can get it to us for $650. I personally like the art and black border of the Antiquities version, but clearly we need to buy the Summer Magic version for maximum affluence. These are priced at $2,000 per copy.

– 1x Gifts Ungiven FOIL Japanese Champions of Kamigawa – Estimated $85

Based on current listings (none sold at the time of the article writing), I would estimate the cost of a foil Japanese Champions version is about $85. We want the original here, none of that FTV: Exiled nonsense.

13 Other Spells

– 3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor FOIL Russian Worldwake – Estimated $8,160

Jace is something special. He’s so special, in fact, that my normal multiplier will not work in this case. Non-foil Japanese Jace’s have sold for about $150 each but current listings (since I couldn’t find any prices for Russian foil or non-foil) for Japanese foil Jace’s are listed at about $2,400. That’s a multiplier of 0.0625! If we base our foil Russian price on this listing which sold for $150 as well (even though it is SP), that brings us to $2,400 for a foil Russian too. If we try to estimate NM, I would add $20 to the non-foil Russian listing. At $170 non-foil, I would estimate a NM foil Russian Jace from Worldwake to be $2,720 each. Three of them brings us to $8,160.

– 1x Beckett-9 Mox Emerald Beta – Estimated $1,500

– 1x PSA-10 Mox Emerald Alpha – $3,717

With P9, my philosophy is to go with graded when we can. This is the highest grade I could find that is within the Beta set . This is a PSA-10 graded one from Alpha. This is exactly what we are looking for, so into the deck it goes. Since it was listed at $1,700 and negotiated, and another similar graded mox sold for $1,200, I will price this Mox Emerald at $1,500.

– 1x BGS-9.5 Mox Sapphire Beta – $5,000

Same as above. This is the highest grade I could find that was printed in Beta. I could not find any comparable Alpha Mox Sapphire listings.

– 1x PSA-10 Time Vault Beta – Estimated $1,700

Based on this search for Beta Time Vaults, I only saw one PSA graded listing that sold but unfortunately the price was negotiated so we cannot see the actual price that was paid. Since other current listings are within the $1,400-$1500 range I will estimate that the PSA-10 one sold for about $1,700. There were no comparable Alpha Time Vault that were sold recently.

– 1x Sol Ring Revised SUMMER MAGIC – Estimated $3,000

I found this listing that sold for $225 for a graded Sol Ring and Judge Foils go for about $100 but since Sol Ring was in Revised we need the Summer Magic version since it is the rarest. These are priced by ABU Games at $3,000.

– 1x Mana Crypt Judge Gift Program – Estimated $180

I found this sold listing on eBay for a Judge Foil Mana Crypt that went for $180. Since the Judge Foils and book versions are about the same in rarity, and there are no differences in price between book promo languages, we’ll go with the Judge Foil version here.

– 1x Beckett-5 – Mox Pearl Beta CRIMPED – Estimated $1,900

Yeah, that’s right – since Mox Pearl is one of the “bad” moxes we can’t be satisfied just getting a normally graded Beta Mox Pearl. We must have the graded, crimped version and who knows how many of those exist. This could literally be the only one. I think that’s a steal at $1,900 compared to some of the other stuff on this list. I’m going to assume there isn’t an Alpha version of this.

– 1x PSA-6 – Mox Ruby Alpha – Estimated $1,045.95

In the same vein as our other P9, we want to have a graded one. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any graded Mox Ruby’s in Beta that were even close to NM. I found a few Beta “Altered” graded cards but these look horrible and I personally would never want to own one. Thus, we have to take a step back from Beta here and go with this Alpha one from dacardworld . I found this Alpha Mox Ruby at dacardworld. Without the discount the price is $1,045.95.

– 1x BGS-10 Black Lotus Beta – $100,000

Not only the jewel of our deck, but the crowning jewel of our collection and probably worthy of inclusion in a museum dedicated to Magic somewhere. Listed on eBay for anyone to buy, I’m not sure if it can be sold for $100,000 but since we’re building this deck we’re going for the gold here so to speak. Touted as the “only BGS-10 Beta Black Lotus in existence” I definitely want this Black Lotus for our deck. There were no other comparable Alpha listings on eBay.

Hands down this has to be the most expensive card in all of Magic. If anyone can find me a pricier card, please post it in the comments because I would be curious to see what it is.

– 1x Voltaic Key FOIL Russian M11 – Estimated $13

Russian copies of Voltaic Key are just as hard to find as all the others, so based off of Japanese non-foil Voltaic Key playset prices I would estimate that foil Russian Keys are about $13 with the multiplier of 0.125.

– 1x Beckett-8.5 Mox Jet Beta – Estimated $1,000

Based on the sold listings for Mox Jets on eBay, two graded ones were listed at $1,250 and $1,500 but were negotiated. After negotiations, I assume that they sold for close to $1,000 and $1,100 respectively. We’ll go with the cheaper option here because at this point our budget is starting to get stretched thin. I did not find any comparable Alpha Mox Jets.

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The main deck brings us to $197,710.97 (mostly due to the Black Lotus which can arguably be negotiated in price a bit) but we also need to make sure we include the sideboard.

Sideboard

For the sake of wrapping up this article, I am going to save you all the links and research that I completed for calculations and instead post them at the end of the article in case you are curious about the price calculations. Suffice to say, Russian foils are hard to find. Maybe they are worth more than I giving them credit for…

My research yielded the following prices for the Sideboard cards:

– 3x Grafdigger’s Cage FOIL Korean Dark Ascension ~$135 total

– 1x Mountain Guru Land MISPRINT ~$2,000

– 4x Ingot Chewer FOIL Russian Lorwyn ~$96 total

– 3x Yixlid Jailer FOIL Russian Future Sight ~$60 total

– 2x Surgical Extraction FOIL Russian New Phyrexia ~$190 total

– 1x Strip Mine FOIL FTV: Exiled ~$22

– 1x Toxic Deluge Commander 2013 ~$12

The Final Price Count

Drum roll please! The total value of the deck, including Sideboard, comes to a grand total of $200,225.97. Ladies and gentleman, if you want to play the most expensive deck in Magic this is what it would cost you.

Of course, I realize that if you bust open the graded cards it will devalue them significantly. Taking this into account, my point in writing this article is to show you that you that Magic is a collectable and surprisingly valuable hobby. The cheapest card in the deck is Toxic Deluge at $12. And even if we didn’t play with graded cards the price of the deck would still be over $100,000 if we looked for NM copies of everything in the rarest edition that they exist.

I hope you all enjoyed this experiment! It was certainly the most fun I’ve had writing an article. If your friends ask you what the most expensive deck in Magic is you can now show them. Not only is the deck expensive but it can also do well at a Vintage tournament. Also, I’m finally on Twitter – follow me @gildedgoblin.

Last thing: I’ve included a handy table below as a quick reference in case you want to come back and quickly look up the price of various cards in the deck.

Deck List and Prices

Card Estimated Cost 4x Scalding Tarn FOIL Russian Zendikar $3,600 3x Underground Sea Revised SUMMER MAGIC $24,000 3x Polluted Delta FOIL Japanese Onslaught $5,835 2x Volcanic Island Revised SUMMER MAGIC $12,000 1x Swamp Guru Land MISPRINT $2,000 1x Island Guru Land MISPRINT $2,000 1x Tolarian Academy Korean Urza’s Saga $152 1x BGS-8.5 Library of Alexandria Arabian Nights $227.50 4x Dark Confidant FOIL Russian Ravnica $2,880 2x Snapcaster Mage FOIL Korean Innistrad $935 1x Myr Battlesphere FOIL Russian Scars of Mirrodin $15 4x Force of Will German Alliances $412 3x Lightning Bolt Revised SUMMER MAGIC $3,000 2x Spell Pierce FOIL Russian Zendikar $120 2x Mana Drain English Legends $443.30 2x Mental Misstep FOIL Russian New Phyrexia $80 1x Yawgmoth’s Will Korean Urza’s Saga $205 1x Tinker FOIL Japanese Urza’s Legacy $75 1x Demonic Tutor Revised SUMMER MAGIC $3,000 1x Time Walk Alpha $2,575 1x Vampiric Tutor Judge Gift Program $60 1x PSA-10 Ancestral Recall Beta $5,500 1x Brainstorm FOIL Japanese Mercadian Masques $347 1x Mystical Tutor FTV: Exiled $18.22 1x Merchant Scroll FOIL Japanese 8th Edition $430 1x Hurkyl’s Recall Revised SUMMER MAGIC $2,000 1x Gifts Ungiven FOIL Japanese Champions of Kamigawa $85 3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor FOIL Russian Worldwake $8,160 1x PSA-10 Mox Emerald Alpha $3,717 1x BGS-9.5 Mox Sapphire Beta $5,000 1x PSA-10 Time Vault Beta $1,700 1x Sol Ring Revised SUMMER MAGIC $3,000 1x Mana Crypt Judge Gift Program $180 1x Beckett-5 – Mox Pearl Beta CRIMPED $1,900 1x PSA-6 – Mox Ruby Alpha $1,045.95 1x BGS-10 Black Lotus Beta $100,000 1x Voltaic Key FOIL Russian M11 $13 1x Beckett-8.5 Mox Jet Beta $1,000 SIDEBOARD ****************** 3x Grafdigger’s Cage FOIL Korean Dark Ascension $135 1x Mountain Guru Land MISPRINT $2,000 4x Ingot Chewer FOIL Russian Lorwyn $96 3x Yixlid Jailer FOIL Russian Future Sight $60 2x Surgical Extraction FOIL Russian New Phyrexia $190 1x Strip Mine FOIL FTV: Exiled $22 1x Toxic Deluge Commander 2013 $12 GRAND TOTAL $200,225.97

Sideboard References: