There are thousands upon thousands of Magic: The Gathering cards out there in the world so it is no surprise that a few pop up that you don’t recognize. Between rare creature types, exclusive cards, and digital-only printings, there is bound to be an odd card popping out of the woodwork every now and then.
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One of these cards is a curious little artifact that despite being around for several years is not well known among many Magic fans. This is the curious little story of the artifact Gleemox, a reference to a joke from an old silly set.
What Is Gleemox?
At first glance, Gleemox looks like an incredible card. For zero mana you get an artifact that can tap for any mana, much like the original Moxes from Magic’s early days. However, right below that ability, is another rule stating flat out that the card is banned. It doesn’t even say what format it is banned in, just that it is banned.
While there’s not much else to it, it is a strange little card, and the only one in Magic’s history to ban itself. One neat little tidbit about the card is that the artist behind this strange card is none other than Dan Frazier, who has also illustrated plenty of other Mox cards throughout the game’s history.
Where Does Gleemox Come From?
As it turns out, this card is exclusive to Magic: The Gathering Online and was given away as a promotional card to support the release of the Gleemax project. At the time, all you had to do was ask for a copy and you would have one added to your account. There are a few formats where you can still play it, but they are rare.
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This promotion ran for a limited time and was to help promote the Gleemax Project, Wizard of the Coast’s attempt to create a social media site for tabletop gamers, with an obvious focus on Magic: The Gathering and other related games. They even went as far as to release other promotional material, in the form of a little foam brain with the same lettering as the flavor text of Gleemox, which we’ll get to in a second.
Unfortunately, the project was dropped pretty quickly when it couldn’t quite come together in the way Wizards of the Coast wanted. The site was usable for a bit but was loaded with bugs and frustrated plenty of Magic players back in the day.
The result is that Gleemox entered a strange limbo where it isn’t a real Magic card, joining several other Magic Online exclusive cards like:
- Library of Congress
- 1996 World Champion
- Shichifukujin Dragon
What Is The Joke?
Alright, get ready, because this goes back a bit. Sometime around mid-2006, a joke started going around that Wizards of the Coast and the Magic Design Team were controlled by a massive brain in a jar. This brain, dubbed Gleemax, pulled the strings of all Magic sets and products and became something of an inside joke.
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Over the years, there have been a few references to the Gleemax entity, including its own Magic: The Gathering card and references in official Wizards of the Coast material.
Once the joke set Unhinged came around, Gleemax was granted its own official card. It costs one million mana to cast this artifact, so likely won’t be happening very often, and it lets you choose all targets for all spells and abilities. Playing into the joke that Gleemax has its fingers, or brain waves, in all aspects of Magic. It even comes with a silly little flavor text that references the R&D team being under its control.
So What’s With The Flavor Text On Gleemox?
Taking a peek at the bottom of the card, you’ll see that it has a rather unique flavor text which reads:
This jumble of letters doesn’t seem to say much, but if you flip it around, read it backwards, and space things out a little differently, you get:
Gleemax at wizards dot com
This text was printed on the little physical brains Wizards of the Coast sent out as an attempt to drum up some sort of viral campaign surrounding the ill-fated Gleemax Project.
Heading to the now almost twenty-year-old website takes you nowhere, not even to the Magic: The Gathering website, which is a little disappointing. It would be neat to see ancient Magic memes or old blog posts from fans. Could you imagine going to the site and posting a Glee, or whatever they’d want to call their posts, about how you punted your Friday Night Magic win?
Either way, this strange little card, which doesn’t even show up on official lists, is one of the more unique cards in the game and has a story worthy of a deep dive.
Magic: The Gathering
- Franchise
-
Magic: The Gathering
- Original Release Date
-
August 5, 1993
- Player Count
-
2+
- Age Recommendation
-
13+
- Length per Game
-
Variable