Is there a card that lets you put a card from outside of the game into play?

Question

I played a commander game a while ago where one of my 5 opponents cast a card that let him grab a card that was outside of the game (not even in exile) and put it either in his hand or on the battlefield.

It was a while back so I am slightly fuzzy in terms of the context in which this was played.

I would like to know whether, firstly this card exists that allows you to acquire a card not in your deck and/or in any other zone in the game and place it either in your hand or on the battlefield?

I was in disbelief at this play but everyone around me in the game had more experience than me so I assumed it was legit.

The second thing I'd like to know is that if this card does exist (or something similar) what is its name(s)?

I figured it may be in one of the "unsets" like Unglued or Unhinged or any of the other funky experimental sets Wizards decided to curve-ball into existence...

Answer 1

This is the "Wish" card series that were released in the Judgment extension. For example: Burning Wish. It allows one for example in a tournament to get a card from the sideboard on the first game.

The 5 original wishes are:

• Cunning Wish
• Burning Wish
• Death Wish
• Living Wish
• Golden Wish

Since then, other similar cards where released. This query should give most of them: o:"own from outside the game". You'll notice Ring of Ma'rûf in the results as well; the wishes are way more common.

So this is nothing "funky" like the fun cards in Unglued or Unhinged, and has been tournament-legal (and still is in some formats).

However these cards don't work by default in Commander/EDH except with prior agreement, so it sounds like your scenario wasn't how things should happen. See Commander rule 13:

Abilities which refer to other cards owned outside the game (Wishes, Spawnsire, Research, Ring of Ma'ruf) do not function in Commander without prior agreement on their scope from the playgroup.

This means these cards shouldn't come out as a surprise, because beforehand you have to discuss and agree how they even work.

Answer 2

Rule 13:

Abilities which refer to other cards owned outside the game (Wishes, Spawnsire, Research, Ring of Ma'ruf) do not function in Commander without prior agreement on their scope from the playgroup.

So while the cards you refer to do exist, and they may be legally played in Commander, they have no effect unless your group establishes a house rule.

In sanctioned formats, these spells may only choose cards from your sideboard. A common house rule for Commander is to allow each player to create a sideboard that is only used for these spells (a "wishboard"). The baseline Commander rules do not allow any player to have a sideboard, so such a house rule should be explicitly established beforehand.

Answer 3

My bad guys I found this on gatherer:

Ring of Ma'rûf

Very strange name.

Found it by searching for "From outside of the game" in Gatherer

Answer 4

There are indeed cards that have the ability to pull cards from outside the game. Examples of this are Burning Wish and Spawnsire of Ulamog.

In sanctioned tournaments, "from outside the game" refers to ones sideboard, but in casual settings players have made house rules that allow you to take any card that is a legal target for the ability from you collection.

Answer 5

Mastermind's Acquisition from Rivals of Ixalan (2018) is a recent one, reading:

Choose a card you own from outside the game and put it into your hand.

The 2018/06/08 rules also mention the outside the game concept at a few points:

108.3b Some spells and abilities allow a player to take cards they own from outside the game and bring them into the game. (See rule 400.10b.) If a card outside that game is involved in a Magic game, its owner is determined as described in rule 108.3. If a card outside that game is in the sideboard of a Magic game (see rule 100.4), its owner is considered to be the player who started the game with it in their sideboard. In all other cases, the owner of a card outside the game is its legal owner.

and:

400.10b Some effects bring cards into a game from outside of it. Those cards remain in the game until it ends.

Now I wonder about a few cool things that we could do:

• you are at a game store, your friend has the card you need, you give him a shout midgame, yo dawg, frind says "you are now the legal owner of this card", and you play it
• create a shared card pool, where everyone owns 1/N of each card, and therefore anyone is a legal owner of every card, and therefore anyone can use any card from the pool

can wishes let you get 5x of a card? mentions that in tournaments, outside the game means sideboard, this is mentioned on a separate tournament rules document. Boring :-)