During a recent game of casual commander a friend of a friend, Michael Sanders mentioned that he gets all of his cards from his dad. Though we assumed the father was merely a Magic: The Gathering enthusiast who lets his son borrow decks, we learned that Sanders’ father actually owns Magic: The Gathering and makes all the cards. Though this is contrary to everything we know about how the game operates, we are very excited to become great friends with a person related to someone so influential.
Pauper Jumpstart: You must be the luckiest kid in the world to have such a cool dad.
Michael Sanders: Yeah, it sucks that you guys have to buy your cards with your own money. I wouldn’t know what that’s like since all my cards are free.
Has your dad always worked for them or is this something new?
Worked for them? My Dad has people that work for him. He created the whole game and makes all the cards himself. He makes all the art too.
Wow. He’s super talented. I guess all the names for the art credits on the cards are pseudonyms he uses to hide his identity.
Yeah, being so amazing has its drawbacks. Like, you might think it’s awesome that I get to see all the new cards way before anyone else. But sometimes I wish I could be surprised like you commoners. I have more cards than I know what to do with.
That’s amazing. Do you think we could come over sometime and see them?
I wish! Sadly, we can’t have other people over since theft of our massive collection of super rare cards has been a problem. The deck I use when I play with you guys is a pre-con, but I use that to make people think I’m just a regular kid with a regular kid’s amount of money. When me and my dad play at home we play with decks that are worth like a billion dollars. It’s too dangerous to let people know we have those, so don’t tell anyone okay?
That’s awesome. So you must have some of those new Magic 30th Anniversary boosters.
Yeah, I have a few cases of them. But since my dad owns and makes all the Pokémon cards too I usually prefer to crack those packs and keep Magic stuff like that as sealed product. Did you know he has some actual Pokémon too? Like not on the game, like real life ones he keeps in his backpack. He’s gonna give me one so I can go battle other trainers and be the best there ever was.
Before we ended the interview Michael stated that they were planning on sailing around the world a couple times this summer so his Father can get new ideas for cards. They have a boat that has a helicopter on it which takes them to their plane if they need to go anywhere they cant reach by water. During the trip they were going to visit his Dad’s friend since he’s been good buddies with Jesus Christ since they were kids.