Magic the Gathering Card Review - Game of Chaos from Ice Age

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

Today we take a look at Game of Chaos, a rare card from Ice Age. It’s a red sorcery costing RRR to cast (triple Red). It was later reprinted in Fifth Edition with much more readable text. Here is the official Oracle entry for Game of Chaos:

“Flip a coin. If you win the flip, you gain 1 life and target opponent loses 1 life, and you decide whether to flip again. If you lose the flip, you lose 1 life and that opponent gains 1 life, and that player decides whether to flip again. Double the life stakes with each flip.”

Obviously, a card like this wouldn’t be printed anymore, but this effect is actually quite fascinating. If you can keep winning coin flips, this card can be pretty powerful, especially since the life stakes double with each subsequent flip. Risking everything on coin flips is pretty silly, though. Then again, do remember in the early days of Magic: the Gathering, there were actually more than a few cards like this.

No offense to Drew Tucker, who has done plenty of great Magic art over the years (including the awesome  Deathbringer Liege  from Eventide), but I do prefer the art by Thomas Gianni on the Fifth Edition reprint:

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That is some beautiful card. To be fair, the best card he did artwork on was Tower of the Magistrate  (I personally love his artwork on  Seht’s Tiger  from Future Sight!)

Game of Chaos  is yet another one of those cards from a very early time in Magic where crazy things could and did happen that made no logical competitive sense. I absolutely love reviewing these and enjoying some classic old-school, old-bordered Magic cards!

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