First Cards Ever Printed in Sorcery: Contested Realm TCG

Mike Servati
Feb 6
5 min read

One of the 'curiosities' of Collector Arthouse is to document the rich history of the development of Sorcery: Contested Realm TCG. In another article at Collector Arthouse, I documented The Most Rare Cards in Sorcery: Contested Realm TCG. Ranking near the very top of the list of most rare cards ever printed was the category of "Creator-made Cards". There were sets of Elemental Avatar Preconstructed Decks locally printed by Erik in NZ. Erik even created the deck box prototypes, as seen in the image above, and the image below:

This image taken and shared by Erik himself on August 4, 2021, with the following caption:

"Finished arts and craft project. (Those are sleeve boxes with my printed packaging art glued on top) Packages are being sent out to one youtuber and two play test groups within days now!"

On August 7, 2021, Red Zone Rogue (RZR) published a YouTube video Deep Dive & Preview of Sorcery TCG. This was one of the first showcases of Sorcery TCG on YouTube, and one of these Precon deck sets.

Our only knowledge of the existence of these particular cards is three sets:

The full set given to RZR (which has since been wholly acquired by Collector Arthouse)
Cards given to someone Erik met at a Magic event (unknown if it is 4 complete decks)
Cards given to a friend of Erik in his home town in Sweden (unknown if it is 4 complete decks)

The 2nd set listed above was from a gentleman named Daniel Franzen. What follows below is Daniel's story of how a chance encounter with Erik Olofsson resulted in him receiving one of the most rare, coveted, and valuable early playtest development sets of Sorcery cards ever made!...

From Daniel Franzen:

I first met Erik in the summer of 2018 at a Magic: The Gathering event in Las Vegas.

That year, a tournament for a niche format we both loved was being run at a Grand Prix for the first time, and by pure chance we realized there was another Swede there playing the same obscure format. Running into a fellow countryman on the other side of the world felt surreal—and that shared “old-school” Magic vibe immediately became the thread that connected us.

We didn’t actually talk much during the event itself. It was our last night in Vegas, we’d been there for days, and my group was pretty wrecked after a late night out at a hotel with a nightclub. Still, the tournament night was genuinely fun, and afterward Erik and I added each other on Facebook—initially because we were interested in trading rare cards. The format we played relied on hard-to-find pieces, and tracking them down was never easy. That Facebook connection quickly turned into longer conversations about games in general.

Erik told me he’d worked on a computer game inspired by Diablo, a game we’d both played, and he explained that the project he was building on his own drew heavily from that same atmosphere. He was also excited about using original-style art from the very same artists—real “classic” fantasy illustration that reminded us of early Magic. We talked board games too: Talisman and Blood Bowl came up as shared favorites, especially because we both loved older games that prioritized look, mood, and character over speed and efficiency.

At some point the idea of playtesting came up. I had a small group of friends who liked exactly this kind of game, and we seemed like a perfect test group: people who could learn the rules from scratch and give honest first-impression feedback. Erik sent me a written rules link and asked for our reactions—how easy it was to get started, what was unclear in the wording, and whether the game “felt right” at the table. When we finally played, the game surprised us: it felt more like a board game than a traditional card game, with strategy shaped heavily by where location cards were placed. We also fell into the same kind of rules-lawyering discussions you get in Magic—the fine details of wording, like whether an empty box counted as “void.” But overall we really liked it.

The cards looked and felt intentionally old-school: the cut, the layout, the art style, and even the little bits of lore and flavor text on some cards added mystery and atmosphere. I took photos during the session and sent Erik our feedback through Facebook Messenger. Erik didn’t reply right away. We did the playtest in November, and he only saw my message about a month later—understandably, because he was deep in the chaos of preparing a Kickstarter. When he did respond, he thanked us and said he was glad the “old school” feeling came through. He also admitted that early versions of the project had been much closer to Magic: The Gathering, but that the design had evolved into what we played: a more tactical experience centered on laying out locations and thinking spatially, closer to many strategy board games than a pure head-to-head card duel. He even mentioned that if I sent in photos, I might receive a promo card—something like a “Relentless Crowd” promo—but because it was during the COVID period, we never managed to organize more playtests.

Even though Erik and I first met in 2018, I didn’t actually receive the physical playtest cards until 2021. Back in December 2020 he had said he would send them, but they didn’t arrive until a year later, when he suddenly messaged, “I’ve sent the cards now.” That delay made me assume there were other versions and iterations in between. When the package finally came, it included four decks—and, unexpectedly, two large playmats with hand-painted grids, clearly meant for Sorcery rather than Magic.

He also threw in several regular twenty-sided dice (not spindowns), which we quickly swapped out during testing because tracking life totals with standard d20s is a nightmare.

Over time, the printed rules we used disappeared, and the playtest decks ended up stored away. I still play Magic and Blood Bowl, but with kids and life, there just wasn’t room to adopt yet another new game. That’s ultimately why Sorcery never became something our group kept playing, even though I’d occasionally check in and admire the artwork—because the cards really are beautiful. And from what I understand, the game has since grown and found its audience.

Which brings the story to today: the playtest cards have been sitting safely in a wardrobe for a long time, and I finally decided they deserve to be with someone who will enjoy them more than I can right now. I tried selling them once before, but backed out—I wasn’t sure whether to split them up or sell them as a single lot, and I had no good way to document authenticity beyond my history of contact with Erik. Now, though, I’ve handed the responsibility over to Mike, who’s going to help me sell the playtest cards at auction and get the details in order properly.

My sincere thanks to Daniel for sharing his fascinating story and reaching out to me to help in the comprehensive documentation of the history of Sorcery: Contested Realm, and to offer these incredible early-era collectibles to passionate fans!

Don't miss a collage of some of the most iconic cards in the collection, shown at the bottom of this article.

Thank You!

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Thank you so much for your interest and support!

Mike @ Collector Arthouse