February 3, 2020
bobo – noun : An imitation of something, particularly a well known product, usually lower in quality than the original
Some years ago, I submitted an article to a well-known Magic website that published (and still publishes) content daily. I titled my article “The Curse of the Bobo Rare”, and it was accepted by their editor.
The article they posted on their website, however, replaced the word “bobo” with “crap”, both in the title and throughout the text. I was disappointed. I felt – still feel – that the word “bobo” has a particular quality to it that “crap” or “junk” or “chaff” don’t quite capture.
In the late 90s I lived near Seattle for a few years and found a group of guys that met weekly to play Magic. One of the group had posted an article about The Basement League on a now-long-defunct Magic website called The Dojo. The members of The Basement League met every Wednesday night for casual Magic, and that is where I first heard the term “bobo rare.” I adored the term the first time I heard it, and it has stayed with me to this day.
I called a card a “bobo rare” the other night, and my son asked me what that meant. Well, what got called a bobo rare in The Basement League was never discussed, analyzed, or debated. You just knew one when you saw one. But if I’m going to use the term on my blog, I suppose I ought to make an attempt to define it.
But not quite yet. Some history about why I use the expression feels relevant. I’m going to start my tale several years before my relocation to Seattle and eventual adoption of the term.
Ventifact Bottle was possibly the first rare I identified as an exceptionally lousy rare to get from a pack. A friend of mine who was dabbling in Magic was with me at a game store one evening, and decided to buy a pack of the latest set – Mirage. She immediately opened it there at the counter, and looked through it excitedly.
“Which one is the rare?” she asked. I pointed to it. Ventifact Bottle.
Her Magic knowledge was but a sliver of mine, but after reading it she knew it was an awful card.
What happened next is unfortunate. And entirely my fault.
I believe – really, strongly believe – that if I’d said “oof, that’s the worst rare in the set. Sorry you had such rotten luck” she’d have shrugged it off. Instead I told her “well, every other rare in the set is better – you should get another pack, you’ll get something cool.” Her disposable income was quite limited, but she took the leap of faith and immediately doled out the cash for a second pack.
Her rare? Ventifact Bottle.
As far as I know, she never bought another pack of Magic cards.
She learned.
I never have.
To my substantial relief, I only opened a single pack that contained the mutated roast turkey that is Ventifact Bottle. But even in those early days I was cursed with many awful pulls from Mirage. Yare, Brushwagg, and Acidic Dagger were all encountered too frequently. All were terrible then and are still terrible now.
Interplanar Brushwagg was printed in the convention-only Mystery Booster product last year
To be fair, time and distance has relegated almost all of Mirage to “pitiful” status. So much of the set (which was well received and perfectly playable when it was released) has been invalidated due to power creep that only a handful of cards from it have any current financial or play value. The rest – even seemingly strong cards when released – are bizarre curiosities that would never see print now.
Despite how old the cards are, and how much of the set has never been reprinted, only 9 cards from it are valued above $5. Three of those are tutors (cards that allow you to search your deck for a card of a specific type)…and uncommons!
Most Mirage rares are now in “garbage” territory. A sealed booster of the set will likely set you back at least $40, even though only two cards in the set are worth more than that. But even if you paid retail at the release date – $2.99 – your odds of the entire contents of the booster being worth more than $3, even today, are slim. Even the “good stuff” from Mirage is now virtually all useless trash.
But make no mistake – in 1996/97, plenty of rares in Mirage were far more desirable than others. As a casual player, there were cards I thought looked bad and that were, in fact, bad, and cards I thought looked bad but whose financial value told me otherwise. And then there were plenty of fun cards that I actually wanted to open.
Ventifact Bottle was never desirable, by anyone, at any time. It was never finding its way into a deck of mine, and that made it a card I never wanted to see in a pack. Thus, a bobo (even if it would be a few years before I’d know to call it that.)
Canopy Dragon, though never a good card, held at least casual play value once upon a time. I wasn’t disappointed to open one. So…not a bobo.
That pretty much all Mirage rares are now chaff makes what I opened back then rather irrelevant. The good rares that I opened once, and the bad rares I got again and again, are now all just useless cards I will likely never play. Any value they have is purely nostalgic.
There was one puzzling Mirage bobo that was especially head-scratching. A card I was happy I only ever saw in a single pack:
You sacrifice it, and pitch your entire hand, for 3 mana of one color? Who would ever play this? Why would you ever want to do this? What idiot came up with this design?
Crap rare. Chaff. Bobo. Use whatever term you prefer. It was unplayable rubbish.
And then, one day, it wasn’t.
A near-mint copy is currently valued at over $200.
At least I opened one.
Casual Magicking 